Little orme juvenile Iceland gull in seal colony this afternoon 

Originally posted today by Andy Slee:

Took a slight detour on the way to family business in Wales via Llyn Brening.

 Great views of Great Grey Shrike on the cleared area at the T junction of the B4501 to the NW of the Llyn. It seemed to favour the slight dip in the clearfell, there was a bush which possibly had a couple of larder items in down by the stream ~ 100ft west of the junction, viewable from the road though without traipsing into the clearfell. A small species (wren?) rose from the scrub and was instantly harassed and turned into a ball of feathers by the Shrike in flight. Grisley; that is why they have the reputation I guess.

Seven crossbills flew over. A Single Siskin was seen. Goldcrest were plentiful on a walk down the nature trail to the lake. Two stonechat present. 

With a much better forecast for a seawatch off Pensarn today I decided that a day out in the sunshine at the seaside wouldn't be a bad way to spend a day off. On arrival bright sunshine and a flat calm sea were good signs.

I started scoping and was a bit disappointed to find that most scoters were a long way out, not great as I had to crank the zoom up to 50x for a decent view. as the tide came in it brought some birds a bit closer but there were never big numbers close in to make searching easy. At first I was on my own but a bit later a few other birders turned up and then by c.2pm a good throng of at least a dozen scopes were trained out to sea. Even with all these eyes looking we never did manage to locate a Surf Scoter. A consolation personally was a Long-tailed Duck, which was also picked up by one of the other birders present, and that was a yeartick for me. Also seen by several of us, including myself was another Velvet Scoter. Plenty of Red-throated Divers again and Red-breasted Megansers, Shags and Cormorants too. A mate had a Great Northern Diver but I missed that species today.

Even with no Surf Scoter this was a lovely way to spend the day and chatting to members of the public explaining what we were doing and what was out there was fun too. Hopefully they'll appreciate the area for more than just the TV programme 'I'm a non-entity, get me out of here' that's being filmed locally and attracting tourists!

a trip down to Foel on Sunday and nice to see a pair of Wheatears

-- Edited by Ian McKerchar on Tuesday 12th of October 2021 09:15:28 AM

Nice surprise finding an adult winter Bonapartes Gull off Rhyl GC this afternoon. 

Vid is a bit shakey,  best freeze framed

Edit - mght have to make do with a pic

A stroll down the Cob at Malltraeth on Saturday and pleased to see a Little Stint

Sunday 25th July

Cemlyn Bay.

Finally a free morning had me deciding on a trip to Anglesey as a certain Albatross hadnt been seen on the Saturday so I thought Id missed my chance with that one. Then on the way here, news came thru of the Albatross present again, oh well maybe next year I thought.

- Elegant Tern (Lifer)
An absolute stunner of a Tern, present when I arrived, showed well for pretty much most of my visit. Displaying to the Sandwich Terns on the large island, did a few fly rounds then back to its favoured concrete post to display some more.

Also plenty of Arctic Terns, Common Terns, and 1 (possibly 2) Roseatte Terns.
I picked one up on call as it flew over then another birder called another one out.

Called in a Holyhead Harbour on way back and found an adult Mediterranean Gull.

Today a typical day out.

A dawn start and heading to Cemlyn Bay by 05.00 next comes a text alert at 05.30 two Avocets at Audenshaw.....typical.

Arrive at the car park at 07.20 to be told that the Elegant Tern had not been seen since around 06.00.... typical.

Within fifteen minutes it returns and lands right in front of us, decides to then fly around the fifteen or so gathered as an audience and then lands again, we are lucky sometimes...typical

No sign of the Roseate Terns..typical

We have to leave as we are on one of my agendas, poor Cath...typical

We arrive at South Stack for 08.15  and miss three Chough in the car park..typical.

Amongst the usuals we are happy to find three Puffin, several Manx Shearwater well out at sea and eventually the Choughs returned...a bit typical.

At another location we found two Common Lizard and one female Adder...not typical

This ended up being an untypical day as we managed one Lifer and just one snake.

We did want to visit the museum at Llangefni which houses a number of Charles Tunnicliffes works who had taught Caths dad at Manchester Grammar however my agenda failed me ..typical

Day 1 Glorious weather at home boded well for the trip,unfortunately the weather on arrival at south stack had other ideas,thick sea mist put paid to the visit, i couldn't see anything past the car park,abandon ship we thought and went to penrhos beach,i saw wheatear ,red  breasted merganser,4 sandwich tern,2 black guillemot at distance, manx shearwaters, black headed gull,oystercatcher,heron,linnet, house sparrows, blackbird, in the evening at the fish dock was black guillemot 5 i think on the water,Day2 no change with the sea mist,so trearddur bay was next,turnstone, oystercatcher,lesser black backed gull, house martin,swift, herring gull ,only a short stay here as the visibility was poor ,next stop ,Cemlyn bay,sandwich tern were indeed a spectacular sight,hundreds if not thousands in the air at one point, oystercatcher,little egret,heron,red breasted merganser, linnet ,meadow pipit a roseate tern was said to be there but with the strength of the wind coming across the lagoon it was impossible and uncomfortable to keep steady with either binoculars or scope, manx shearwaters,cormorant, black guillemot, common tern,great black backed gull,black headed gull, gannet at distance, goldfinch, greylag and canada goose,carrion crow,little egret, reed bunting, ,the constant stream of sandwich tern returning with food was a great sight to see and while out of that wind, very tolerable, Day 3,a better day in prospect  damp early,sun later, .....kestrel from premier inn window ,onward to south stack ,sea mist clearing rapidly, if not totally ,gannet ,guillemot, razorbill,rock pipit,kittiwake, stonechat,chough, linnet,herring gull,common gull,puffin,fulmar,peregrine, jackdaw.,lesser black backed gull., meadow pipit,swallow, .......here comes the sea mist again and hung around untill  3.30 then it cleared to be a very nice afternoon ,Day 4 ,the sun had really turned up,...........by the old brickworks,greenfinch,whitethroat, chiffchaff, dunnock,goldfinch, jackdaw ,buzzard,stonechat, woodpigeon, magpie, blackbird , as i look seaward gannet,cormorant ,herring gull.......south stack,raven,peregrine, kittiwake ,common gull,herring gull,lesser black backed gull, guillemot, razorbill,linnet, stonechat, swallow,gannet ,meadow pipit ,chough,oystercatcher,fulmar.

-- Edited by David Hughes on Sunday 13th of June 2021 02:36:01 PM

Whats the best location on anglesey for black guillemot?

Originally posted today by David Hughes:

Did an over night stay on Anglesey,25 yrs since last visit,wheatear ,stonechat, chough,peregrine, guillemot,razorbill ,linnet,sand martin ,house martin,swallow,rook ,carrion crow,jackdaw,house sparrow,common tern, common sandpiper,curlew,sparrowhawk, oystercatcher,fulmar,lesser black backed gull,herring gull,gannet,cormorant, mallard,herring gull,  robin ,blackbird  ,song thrush, magpie, buzzard meadow pipit and puffin at south stack on the sea.

With a good forecast and news that the bird I wanted to see had stuck around I decided to head into N.Wales and up onto the Great Orme this morning. As I said the sun was shining but it was blowing a hooley, well it if pretty exposed up there!

Parking up in the Limestone Pavement car park I could see a couple of birders/photographers up on the skyline to the east. So up I went. The first bird in my bins was a beautiful Golden Plover, really close and then movement behind it drew my attention and there was the bird that I'd come to see, a juvenile Dotterel. The bird, typical of all Dotterels was totally unconcerned by the 3 or 4 of us watching it and just pottered around feeding well. I just sat still and the bird came closer and closer. I ended up with frame-filling shots of the birds front end, it was so close for digiscoping!! In the end just 2 of us were left watching and photographing the bird and eventually I decided to haed on. I then did a short seawatch seeing as how I haven't been to the sea for a while!! Not much other than a Cormorant, 4 Gannets, 3 Guillemots, 6 Kittiwakes and most surprising a Sandwich Tern. I know it isn't too late for terns but I just never expected it today!!

Decided that this weekend would be an Osprey one. Decided on some Welsh birds so popped the 67miles over to Llyn Brenig today, an easy run. Pretty much as soon as we arrived we saw Osprey in the air and on scoping the nest platform one was onthere too. We assume that the two flying birds were the adults and that the third bird was this years young bird. So 3 seen in total. Views are pretty distant unless you book the forward photography Hide, but a digiscoped effort which I quite like is attached.

Re-Tern to Wales. 12/7/2020

  With the Gateway to Wales having just been re-opened we thought that it was time to visit the principality and of course a visit to our favourite tern colony, Cemlyn Bay. I picked up Steve B and Kevin C at 7-15am and with a decent forecast of sunny periods we left Castleton. We have been doing this trip to Anglesey for many years and I think that it is always one of our most looked forward to trips. Our first stop was Holyhead Harbour and we were soon rewarded with a couple of Black Guillemots flying about, then an unusual sighting of a Mediterranean Gull swooping serenely around the harbour. It seemed strange that no ferries were in the port but they did eventually arrived from Ireland later as we saw them from our next stop at RSPB South Stack.

   As we arrived at South Stack the car park looked like a building site but the new centre is well on the way to being open. A scramble down a path to Ellins Tower for a spot of sea watching was interrupted with the sight and sound of 5 Chough. Such happy birds as they call and tumble around the sky in such a beautiful setting. A few passing Gannet`s and terns was all the sea had to offer but the cliffs had lots of auks to marvel at, always great to watch these birds. Also a single Shag was seen on the rocks below the lighthouse. A walk towards the old radio towers in search of some butterflies was not productive as the sun went in. A Hooded Crow was seen along with a few Stonechat, Skylark, and Linnet etc.

   At Cemlyn Bay the sound of the tern colony could be heard in the distance and as we parked up the sight was equally impressive. We had heard that the local tern colony on the nearby Skerries had been abandoned due to a Peregrine Falcon having taken up residence, also that a full time warden has not been there to dissuade predators like this. There appeared to be no warden on duty at Cemlyn Bay, but there were lots more terns than normal, had the Skerries birds taken up residence? Normally its lots of Sandwich Terns with Common Terns outnumbering the Arctic Tern but this year there were large numbers of Arctic Terns present. Less Black Headed Gulls was also strange, we tried to get some photos of the birds as they busily fished to feed their young chicks and enjoyed the sunshine.

   Next stop was the Little Tern colony at Gronant/Presthaven Sands, but as lockdown had been relaxed and lots of sunshine could only mean one thing, people enjoying the beach. The Little Terns could be seen from the viewing platform as they fished over the sea and the colony was well barb wired etc so lots of birds were present. As we left Gronant we headed down the old coast road and we ran into a really bad traffic jam that slowed us up, Steve B was very unimpressed!

Dave O.