Llanelli Naturalists Newsletter - Winter 1992/1993
Ian Morgan
En route to an appointment on 12 October 1992, I stopped the car for a lunch time cup of coffee in a small layby along the narrow road which bisects the large topographical depression known locslly as "Gweunydd Cochion" Just south of Tumble SN541102. As I poured the coffee from my flask, a glance to the left (south revealed a large raptor heading towards the car, which I almost immediately recognized as a hen harrier; the overall brownish colour (with, of course, a white rump) led me the believe it was a female. Within the few seconds that the bird was under observation one could not fail to note tags affixed to each wing (light green on the left wing (ie viewed from behind) and a red tag with light blue markings on the other wing). These were clearly seen as - amazingly - the bird actually flew across, and a foot or so above, the bonnet of my parked car!
Subsequent correspondence revealed that the bird was actually a young male, which had not yet achieved the gull grey plumage of an adult, and which was marked, as a chick, at a nest near Pitlochry, Perthshire this summer. The distance from Pitlochry to Tumble being 550km!
However, this is not the first Scottish-tagged hen harrier to be seen in the county as some years ago I believe Gary Harper noted a wintering Orkney bird at Tywyn burrows. Hen harriers are also being wing-tagged in their mid and north Wales breeding grounds, where this year (1992) they had a very successful breeding season. Twenty-one pairs bred, rearing at least 55 young, of which 51 were wing-tagged. A wing-tagged hen harrier that you may see this winter could, therefore, hail from a Welsh breeding population or from Scotland.
Brian Etheridge, who is co-ordinating the RSPB hen harrier study, tells me that there has been only one other recent sighting in Wales of a Scottish-bred bird - near Porthcawl in Glamorgan. Others have been seen in southern England, in mid-late October, suggesting that the harriers are departing for the Continent, though none (except for a bird last year on Guernsey) have been noted in that latter area.
welsh-bred birds have been sighted in the New Forest area and around the Thames Estuary (including one caught in a mist-net;). Any sightings of wing-tagged harriers (carefully note the colour of the tags and any other relevant information) should be reported to: Iolo Williams, RSPB, Bryn Aderyn, The Bank, Newtown, Powys, (0686) 626678.
Gweunydd Cochion is always worth a casual inspection as, for example, one winter a great grey shrike turned up, delighting most birdwatchers with its characteristic conspicuous perching, and more unusually on another occasion, a wryneck appeared on passage. Without its rare visitors, Gwuenydd Cochion is still of local importance, for both stonechats and whinchats breed, along with curlews, linnets and grasshopper warblers and many pairs of whitethroats and meadow pipits.