Grabbed hold of a copy of Britain's fastest growing waterways publication Towpath Talk today on the way to a few watery places - no surprise its the fastest growing publication as its free! First stop was Ynys y fro Reservoir which was more of a slow moving turnaround rather than a stop because it seemed that every bloke in Gwent with a fishing rod had descended on this birding no go zone. Down then to the Mon and Brecon Canal at Malpas. A nice little walk down to the M4 was full of common wildfowl including several recently fledged moorhen and a sitting mute swan. There was also some exciting 'look but you can't touch' views of Gwastad Mawr. Does anyone monitor this site?
By contrast Pant yr eos Reservoir had only one fisherman who left shortly after I arrived probably because my mutterings containing frequent swear words and must have carried readily across the reservoir. On the bird front there wasn't much to shout home about apart from a single male tufted duck, a singing redstart and some juvenile grey wagtail so I turned my attention to creepy crawlies of which there was plenty to see. Here's a list of notables:
common ground hopper ( Tetrix undulata )
slender ground hopper ( Tetrix subulata )
dark bush cricket - first instar ( Pholidoptera griseoaptera )
scorpion fly (Panorpa communis)
micro moth ( Adela reaumurella )
micro moth ( Incurvaria masculella )
common blue butterfly ( Polyommatus icarus )
peacock butterfly ( Inachis io )
green tiger beetle (Cicindela camprestris )
ground beetle ( Agonum marginatum )
hoverfly ( Leucozona lucorum )
bee fly (Bombylius major)
Finally, is it a swan or is it a heron? On the way home I took in Llantarnam Ponds and caught sight of this heron looking as if its swimming on the pond or maybe due to low water levels its just standing. Nonetheless can't say I've ever seen this behaviour before. Just managed this out of focus shot before it took off.
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