The Reluctant Rhossili Bird Blog

Rhossili Birds

When, back in the mists of time, The Lady of the Hwb asked me to do a blog about nature or birds for the (fantastic) Rhossili Hwb, I wasn’t entirely convinced.   I tried ignoring her, I tried deflection (not an expert, others far more qualified etc.),  I tried obfuscation – Who would be interested?  Who’d read it? – prevarication and delay.  None of this worked. The Hwb Lady was not to be denied. And I suppose she had a point.

I like birds.  Birds are in trouble in the UK and more widely and they are in trouble in Wales. The Birds of Conservation Concern Wales report assesses the conservation status of the 220 bird species that regularly occur in Wales and lists them under 3 broad categories: Red (most concern); Amber (of concern); Green (stable/increasing).  Of these, 67% are now categorised as of conservation concern.  And in the last 20 years, the number of species in the Red list – i.e. those of most concern – has doubled and stands at 60.  Across the UK it is estimated that 38 million birds have been lost in the last 40 years.  And if I couldn’t write a blog for Rhossili’s birds I couldn’t really complain if there were fewer and fewer birds each year.  Conservation (for want of a better term) begins at home.

So, here it is, the Reluctant Rhossili Bird Blog, a Blog about the Birds of Rhossili, written by someone with probably no more (and quite possibly less) expertise or qualification than you, dear reader. Indeed by someone whose only qualification for the role is a love of birds and residency in the parish.  It may not be the biggest bird blog and it may not be the best, but it’s the one that’s here.

The Reluctant Rhossili Bird Blog Part 1

Rhossili Birds, where to start?  

Habitats

Well, Rhossili is a very good place to see birds. In fact, in terms of number and variety of species it is one of the very best locations in West Glamorgan.

The parish has a wide range of important habitats (maritime cliffs, foreshore and sea, pasture, arable fields, wet and dry heath, streams, ponds and reservoirs, scrub, broadleaved woodland and garden), some of which attract birds that are limited to just a few areas of the UK.  It also has areas which have been cultivated specifically to help the birds which have been struggling because of changes in land use (e.g. the Vile and Nitten Field, which have been planted with ‘cover crops’ in order to provide winter seeds). 

There are also a number of areas with specific natural/geological classifications and protections. The cliffs between Port Eynon and Rhossili (including Worm’s Head) are defined as a National Nature Reserve, are part of a Special Area of Conservation (Limestone Coast of South West Wales ) and are also categorised as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). Rhossili Down is part of the Gower Commons Special Area of Conservation and is defined as an SSSI.  In 2013 Swansea Council identified several areas within the parish as Sites of Interest for Nature Conservation, for example the mixed deciduous wood running from Upper Pitton to Keenmoor Lane and the land to the east of Tir Na Nog. I thought it might be interesting to do a further blog giving more detail on what these classifications mean and how much protection they afford in practice, so I won’t go into any more detail here.

Establishing a baseline of species for Rhossili

There is a thing in conservation known as Shifting Baseline Syndrome.  This describes the situation where knowledge or memory about the state of the natural world is lost and people don’t see the changes that are actually taking place, with each generation accepting this new state as normal. In short, if we don’t know or can’t remember what was there, then we’ll be oblivious to its loss.

So, how many different bird species have been seen (and recorded) in the parish of Rhossili in recent times?  The list for Britain, as compiled by the British Ornithologists’ Union consists of 628 bird species, but that includes all sorts of vagrants (wind-blown and otherwise lost birds) and once-in-a-lifetime sightings.  A more useful guide is the list of birds regularly occurring in Wales which is now considered to be 220 species.

To get an idea of the number of ‘Rhossili’ species I have used my own lists, looked at recent records (specifically naming Rhossili) in ‘Gower Birds’[1] (and on the Gower Ornithological Society Sightings page), the Atlas of Breeding Birds for West Glamorgan, used the BTO’s Bird Track system, looked at the species recorded in Swansea Council’s ‘Sites of Interest for Nature Conservation’ and, (I know, I know, it’s been hard), I’ve talked to neighbours, I’ve even looked at Twitter.  

By my reckoning over 120 different species have been recorded in the parish[2] in the last 40 years.  Excluding the vagrants (e.g. a Pacific Swift at Fall Bay in 2022) that list might be reduced to 100 or so.  And taking out some other rarities then the number of species that it would be reasonably possible to see in the parish in a good year, would be a very creditable 90+.    In the interests of transparency (and especially for those who may be able to add to the record or just want to prove me wrong) the list is available here (and I will update it as and when the corrections pour in!).  Please email rhossilibirds@gmail.com with any corrections, updates or observations of birds in the parish (rarities and breeding information particularly welcome).

Which Birds, When and Where?

Meet the residents

Clearly, even the best birder couldn’t see 90 species at Rhossili in a day, or even a season[3], as birds move around.  Some are summer visitors, some come for the winter and others are only likely to be seen on passage (i.e. dropping in on their migration journeys).  Conversely some birds are here throughout the year and so in describing ‘our’ birds it might be best to start with these for this initial blog.  By my calculation there are 53 bird species that can be seen in the parish throughout the year.

Most birds use a number of different habitats (e.g. in winter Chough are as likely to be seen on Rhossili Down as on the cliffs and Wren can be seen anywhere) so where a bird is likely to be seen in more than one habitat I have listed for each but the first reference for each species is in bold with the font colour reflecting each species’ Welsh Conservation Concern categorisation.

Starting with the ‘garden’ birds, what are we most likely to see throughout the year?   Chaffinch, Goldfinch, Bullfinch, House Sparrow, Dunnock, Wren, Robin, Blackbird, Song Thrush, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Coal Tit, Long-tailed Tit, Marsh Tit, Nuthatch, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Grey Heron (if you’ve got a pond!), Pheasant, Wood Pigeon, Carrion Crow, Jay and Magpie. (I note that Starling was the number 2 garden bird for Wales in the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch 2023 results, but as I NEVER get starlings in the garden I’m absolutely not including them here as a garden bird! Please address any complaints to the Hwb administrators.)

To single out a few of these: The Marsh Tit, is a small and very dapper looking bird with a smart black cap.  Despite its name it’s a bird of woodland not of marshland. It has recently been ‘red listed’[4], i.e. defined as at risk in Wales.  It needs mature deciduous woodland habitat with some understorey in which to forage – and it is probably the degradation or loss of that understorey that has led to its decline. When I first visited Rhossili nearly 50 years ago the Marsh Tit was a fairly regular visitor to the garden feeders.  In my experience (although others may know otherwise) they then seemed to disappear until I observed one visiting my own garden feeders for just a week in 2010, 2011 and in 2014 and then 2 years ago they became a regular visitor once again.  I only ever see one and, as males and females look the same, it may be that there is only one.  So, for whatever reason, it may be that the Marsh Tit became extinct in the parish for a few years but is now back and bucking the national trend.  It would be great to find out if these birds are now breeding here.

I like all birds of every species, I like the birds others don’t – marauding gulls, raucous magpies, parakeets. Pheasants I don’t like at all.  These, in the male’s case, gaudy and noisy intruders are a non-native species, having been introduced to Wales in the late sixteenth century.   The one in my garden (recently become a pair) is particularly annoying (it eats the bird seed, irritates the dogs, struts proprietorially around the pond) and rarely bothers to fly.  Given that a mind boggling 35 to 47 million pheasants[5] are released into the British countryside each year perhaps I shouldn’t complain too much! (I do.)

Nor can I move on before paying due respect to the Song Thrush and in particular the one that has been singing in my garden (and adjacent hedgerows) since late December and is singing even now, from the top of the apple tree, as I type this in mid-April.  Thankfully, the Song Thrush has moved from Amber to Green on the list of birds of conservation concern in Wales, reflecting a recent recovery in Welsh populations.  These are beautiful looking and sounding birds, whose song is easy to learn – in the words of a homesick Robert Browning:

That’s the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,

Lest you should think he never could recapture

The first fine careless rapture!

But why do they start singing and so presumably establishing territories so early in the year, while the local blackbirds (in Upper Pitton at least) have hardly bothered starting to sing at all?  Is it ‘wise’ to invest such an extraordinary amount of time and energy singing, in all weathers and – albeit with peaks at dawn and dusk – at all times of the day, often perched, highly visibly, on a topmost branch? (Sadly, I don’t have the answers to these questions – could it be that ‘my’ Thrush is simply Billy-no-mates?)

There is a great degree of overlap between the resident Woodland birds and those seen in the garden, indeed all of the garden birds, with the probable exception of House Sparrow and Dunnock could be seen in woodland or on woodland edge. The regularly occurring Woodland birds are Buzzard, Sparrowhawk, Red Kite, Tawny Owl, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Magpie, Jay, Carrion Crow, Raven, Jackdaw, Wood Pigeon, Mistle Thrush, Treecreeper, Nuthatch, Bullfinch, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Long-tailed Tit, Coal Tit, Marsh Tit, Wren and Goldcrest.

Resident species you are most likely to see on Farmland/Grassland include Collared Dove, Stock Dove, Starling, Goldfinch, Kestrel, Barn Owl, Green Woodpecker, Grey Heron, Pied Wagtail, Meadow Pipit, Linnet and – leaving one of the best till last – Yellowhammer.  This colourful bird of the bunting family was once a common and widely distributed farmland bird.  Depressingly, they are now red listed with the population in Wales estimated to have fallen by a staggering 57% in just 20 years[6].  In large part due to the endeavours of Gordon Howe we are lucky enough to have a relict population (1 to 2 pairs) still hanging on in Mewslade/Nitten field. Males in breeding plumage are a glorious mix of yellows and russet brown and with luck, and about now, you may hear their distinctive ‘little bit of bread and no cheese’ song.  

On the Heathland of Rhossili Down you may encounter Merlin, Buzzard, Red Kite, Kestrel, Raven, Carrion Crow, Chough, Meadow Pipit, Stonechat, Dartford Warbler, Skylark, Linnet, Starling and Wren.

On the Sea Cliffs and Intertidal Rocks the species you could see throughout the year are Rock Pipit, Fulmar, Herring Gull, Great Black Backed Gull, Oystercatcher, Shag, Peregrine, Stonechat, Dartford Warbler, Jackdaw, Chough, Yellowhammer, Linnet and Wren.   Peregrine and Chough are local success stories in that both were extinct as breeding birds on Gower for several decades in the last century.  The Chough has a long history in the area – remains found at Paviland Cave have been dated back to the Late Glacial and Mesolithic era (11,000 years ago).  Notwithstanding that, they ceased breeding on the Gower coast in 1895 and were absent until 1943 when one was seen at the Worm’s Head.  They were recorded a further 6 times until 1990 when a failed breeding attempt was discovered. Successful breeding occurred in 1991.  Chough (and Peregrine and Dartford Warbler) are listed in Schedule 1 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act meaning it is an offence to disturb them (or photograph without a licence) at a nest site.

Chough are members of the corvid family (i.e. Crows). They combine a glossy black plumage with smart red legs and a relatively long, red, down-curved beak and a distinctive, ‘chee-ow’ call.  They’re highly sociable birds and a species that seem always to be full of the joy of life – tumbling acrobatically through the air whilst calling to a mate or offspring.  Top bird indeed!

In the Reluctant Rhossili Bird Blog Part 2, I’ll have a look at some of our regular summer visitors, but as a taster, already here on the cliffs are Wheatear (nothing to do with ‘wheat’ or ‘ears’, actually Anglo-Saxon for ‘white arse’), Kittiwake, Razorbill and Guillemot (the Worm) and on Rhossili Down, Wheatear and Lapwing. In the woods and scrub Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler and Blackcap, and over farmland and in the village, Swallow and House Martin have also returned, whilst Whitethroat, Lesser Whitethroat and Swift should be with us soon.  If we’re very lucky, although it’s no longer an annual event, a Cuckoo could be heard calling too…

Francis Morgan

All images: Francis Morgan

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[1] what-is-rear-and-released-gamebird-shooting.pdf (rspb.org.uk)

[2] Welsh Yellowhammers in long-term decline | BTO – British Trust for Ornithology

[3] Birds of Conservation Concern Wales | The RSPB

[4] in fact when the Gower Ornithological Society produced their Atlas of Breeding Birds in West Glamorgan, based on fieldwork between 1984 to 1989, one of the 2km survey squares in Rhossili parish had the second highest species count (70), beaten from top spot only by Oxwich (75).

[5] An annual report on the Birds of Swansea and Neath & Port Talbot produced by the Gower Ornithological Society

[6] including the inshore areas along the coast, Worms Head and Rhossili Bay