Long-tailed Duck - Distribution.

Clangula hyemalis

Most were found within St Bride’s Bay and in the Pembrokeshire corner of Carmarthen Bay. Others around the coast at Pwllgwaelod, Fishguard Harbour, Strumble Head, St David’s Head, Ramsey, Skomer and Skokholm.

Also in the Teifi Estuary (once three and a half miles upstream), within the Cleddau Estuary at Landshipping/Picton Point, Carew, Westfield Pill, Llanstadwell, Sandy Haven and the Gann, and on fresh water at Heathfield Gravel Pits, a pond close to St Bride’s Haven, Bosherston and Llys y fran Reservoir.

Long-tailed Duck - 2011 Status

Clangula hyemalis

Erratic winter visitor and passage migrant.

Long – tailed Ducks have a circumpolar arctic and sub arctic breeding distribution, normally the nearest nesting to the UK being in Norway and Iceland. They winter out to sea but to a lesser extent along coasts, entering estuaries and sometimes visiting fresh waters.

The first to be recorded in Pembrokeshire was a male in summer plumage shot near Haverfordwest on the 15th June 1843, chronicled by Mathew (1894) who also noted that two immature birds were shot on the Stackpole Estate but quotes no dates.

Coincidentally the next to be recorded was also in June, shot within the Milford Haven waterway on the 7th in 1906. There followed recordings in three years during the 1950’s, four in the 1960’s, five in the 1970’s and in every year from 1980 to 2006.

Sooty Tern - 2005 - first for Pembrokeshire

Onychoprion fuscatus

Vagrant.

An adult was seen at Strumble Head on the 23rd August 2005.

It was a bright sunny day with a gentle south west breeze and very few birds passing. By about 1000 hours (BST) just two Common Scoters and four Sandwich Terns had been noted by the two observers present, Graham Rees and Adrian Rogers. At 1010 hours a large black and white tern came into view at the one o’clock position flying steadily westwards towards the lighthouse. Viewed through telescopes down to about 400 yards range, descriptions were written immediately after it had gone out of sight. Identified as a Sooty Tern, the descriptions were submitted to the BBRC which found the record acceptable.

An adult Sooty Tern was present around Anglesey from about the 7th to the 26th July 2005 also visiting the Skerries, Dublin until the 15th August and it is presumed that it was this bird which passed Strumble Head, making it the second to be recorded in Wales (the first being in Merioneth in 1909) and the first for Pembrokeshire.

Graham Rees

Crane - 1894

Species account from M Mathew, 1894, "The Birds of Pembrokeshire and its islands"

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Puffin - 1894

Species account from M Mathew, 1894, "The Birds of Pembrokeshire and its islands"

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Little Auk - 1894

Species account from M Mathew, 1894, "The Birds of Pembrokeshire and its islands"

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Black Guillemot - 1894

Species account from M Mathew, 1894, "The Birds of Pembrokeshire and its islands"

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Guillemot - 1894

Species account from M Mathew, 1894, "The Birds of Pembrokeshire and its islands"

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Razorbill - 1894

Species account from M Mathew, 1894, "The Birds of Pembrokeshire and its islands"

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Little Grebe - 1894

Species account from M Mathew, 1894, "The Birds of Pembrokeshire and its islands"

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Eared Grebe - 1894

Species account from M Mathew, 1894, "The Birds of Pembrokeshire and its islands"

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Slavonian Grebe - 1894

Species account from M Mathew, 1894, "The Birds of Pembrokeshire and its islands"

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