The Carmarthenshire Bird Club sightings page is pretty busy at the moment. Records of arriving wintering waders and wildfowl are being regularly reported by keen members of the group out and about with their telescopes. It’s one thing to see a few geese grazing in a field but how about the thought of see 300 newly arrived greylag geese having flown down from their summer breeding grounds in northern Europe. Carmarthenshire offers great opportunities to see these wintering birds so if you get a chance get your binoculars out and enjoy the chance to see a real seasonal spectacle. These birds have travel many hundreds of miles back to the UK each year, navigating their way often back to exactly the same site they overwintered at last year – quite a feat.

If you want to see migrant swans try looking over the River Tywi and adjacent pasture at Dryslwyn or Cilsan bridges. Bewick's and whooper swans have been reported there along with mute swans and grelag and Canada geese. Wigeon and water rails have also been spotted around here.

Kidwelly Quay is another hotspot – large numbers of lapwing, pintail and golden plover have been seen here on the coastal habitats reaching up the Tywi estuary.

Coed Bach near Kidwelly is best seen using powerful binoculars or telescope as the regularly flooded fields seen inland from Commissioners Bridge are not accessible. However this site is of great value to wintering birds for feeding and large numbers of a variety of species, including geese, waders and ducks have been reported here, e.g. grelag geese, gadwall, black-tailed godwit, mute swan, green sandpiper, teal. pintail, shoveler and lapwing.

Finally, one of the most accessible sites – and a good place to get a cuppa after a trip out to the bird hides – is the National Wetland Centre Wales at Penclacwydd. Here one of the more unusual birds to overwinter in Carmarthenshire can be seen – a spoonbill has been reported on the marsh scrapes there. Here also grey plovers, dunlin (300!), black-tailed godwit, lapwing (500!) and the unusual ruff have all been recorded.