Friday, September 20, 2013 at 9:07AM Limosa lapponica
Passage migrant in autumn, rarely in spring, in small numbers only.
R.M.Lockley, G.C.S.Ingram, H.M.Salmon, 1949, The Birds of Pembrokeshire, The West Wales Field Society
Friday, December 16, 2011 at 2:36PM Passage migrant and winter visitor
Mathew (1894) considered the Bar-tailed Godwit to be an autumn visitor, occurring only occasionally in the spring. Lockley et al. (1949) also classed it as an autumn migrant and stated that it was rare in the spring.
Autumn passage may well have remained unchanged though neither Mathew nor Lockley et al. put any scale on their comments. The passage seen is very variable, and sometimes only a trickle of birds is seen between 10 July and 29 October, with no more than 20 being seen at any one time. In other years considerably more pass, with groups of up to 60 being seen. The autumn of 1988 saw an exceptionally heavy passage with up to 25 recorded at 14 localities between 16 August and 8 October, as well as 43 on Skokholm and 41 in the Nevern Estuary on 6 September, 308 in the Cleddau Estuary on 11 September and a total of 382 passing Strumble Head on 10 dates, with a maximum of 119 on 2 September.
Between 20 and 66 have wintered on the Cleddau Estuary, mainly at Angle Bay and the Pembroke River, since about 1964, and up to three are sometimes seen at the Teifi and Nevern Estuaries and in Fishguard Harbour during the winter. Spring passage became a regular event during the 1970s and 1980s, with groups of up to 45 passing through the county between 30 March and 24 May, the most favoured localities being Freshwater West, Skokholm, Skomer, the Gann and Teifi Estuary.
They are regularly seen migrating by day, particularly past Strumble Head, but also pass at night, having been heard over Haverfordwest and seen in the lighthouse beams at Strumble Head.
Friday, September 16, 2011 at 11:32AM
The BTO winter atlas showed that Bar-tailed Godwits were present in a few coastal and estuarine 10km squares during the winters of 1981-82, 1982-82 and 1983-84.
The darker the colour, the higher the relative total count for each 10km square. The darkest blue represents 19-175 birds, with the highest count being in SM 80.
The distribution is consistent with the Birds of the Estuary Enquiry (BoEE, now WeBS) at that time, with the majority of birds in Angle Bay, part of the Cleddau Estuary complex. .
The Nevern and Teifi estuaries provided winter records in the north of the county.
GHR
Monday, February 28, 2011 at 6:13PM Species account from M Mathew, 1894, "The Birds of Pembrokeshire and its islands"
