I made a report of all the new species I saw in February Half Term, and that was fun, so here is another one for summer.
We spent most of August in Mauritius, and then when we got back we went to Wales to see my grandparents, so all new species were in Glamorgan and it's neighbouring counties.
At the start of the month before Mauritius, we spent a few days in Cardiff at my grandparents' house, and saw my first lifer, the Willow Warbler, in their neighbour's garden.
2 weeks later, we came back to Cardiff to see my friends, and visited Pembrey Beach and Country Park. The tide was about a kilometre away, so hundreds of birds were there. About 200 Oystercatchers,
5 different gull species and 3 lifers: Sandwich Tern, Arctic Tern and Sanderling. The Sandwich Terns we saw from the start,
then we got closer and spotted some Sanderlings running between the gulls,
and finally adult and juvenile Arctic Terns in the flock.
After that amazing trip, we went to Cwmcarn, a forest in Gwent, a week later. This had another 3 lifers, including the Common Crossbill, one of my favourite finches, which I got a blurry photo of.
At the end of the forest drive, you exit the woodland and enter the second habitat of the reserve, farmland. I didn't expect much, but at the top of one of the hills, we saw the last two species, Meadow Pipit and Tree Pipit. There were about three Meadow Pipits catching insects with the house martins and jumping around, and one Tree Pipit on the grass.
At the entrance there was a fast moving stream, which would be perfect habitat for Dippers, but we only had about two minutes before it closed and didn't get enough time to see much apart from this Grey Wagtail.
Finally, here are some other photos at Cardiff Bay of House Martins, Goosanders and Great Crested Grebes.
Great summer holidays with loads of good birds! My lifetime total is now 112 British species.