Around the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park:

There’s far more birds to look out for in the National Park than we can feature here, but look out for some of the following too:

Buzzards - Plentiful throughout the park, their plaintive mewing cries are somewhat similar to those of a cat. They are resident birds, and so you can see them here all the year round. Buzzards are great gliders. On warm summer days they circle for hours, riding the thermals above forest or moorland. They eat rodents and other small mammals, birds, large insects and reptiles, and are often mobbed by crows and other birds of prey defending the young in their nests against these predators. Buzzards will nest on cliff ledges or in treetops, using sticks, leaves, grass and wool as nesting materials. A brood of two or three young is normal.

Puffins - Found in healthy communities on the Island of Skomer off the northern coast of Pembrokeshire, the Puffin is the National Park’s marketing identity. These lovely birds are fond of cliffs and boulder-strewn islands with grassy slopes. Their distinctive parrot-like beaks and comical appearance make them very easy to identify as you walk the coastal path.

Oystercatcher - The oystercatcher is a large, stocky, black and white wading bird. It has a long, orange-red bill and reddish-pink legs. In flight, it shows a wide white wing-stripe, a black tail, and a white rump that extends as a 'V' between the wings. Because it eats cockles, the population is vulnerable if cockle beds are overexploited. Look out for it in Angle Bay where Richard Crossen photographed it coming in to land.

Sanderling - A small, plump, energetic wading bird. It has a short straight black bill and medium length black legs. It is pale grey above and white underneath, and there is a black mark at its shoulder where the folded wing meets the body. It does not breed in the UK, but is a winter visitor and passage migrant in spring and autumn, journeying to and from their high Arctic breeding grounds.

Gannet - A huge seabird with a wingspan of up to 6 ft. Watch them fly with slow, graceful wing beats and suddenly plunge in spectacular style to seize fish below the surface. At breeding time they gather on rocky islands and rock stacks along the coastline. In March or April, gannets usually lay just one egg in a nest of seaweed and tufts of grass or sea pinks (thrift). They are all year residents to this area.

Manx Shearwater - It flies with a series of rapid stiff-winged flaps followed by long glides on stiff straight wings over the surface of the sea, occasionally banking or 'shearing'. It breeds in colonies in the UK, on offshore islands where it is safe from rats and other ground predators. Birds leave their nest sites in July, to migrate to the coast of South America, where they spend the winter, returning in late February and March.