A Rather Blustery Day in North Wales

I had another trip to the seaside today with Purple Sandpipers as my main target species.  These hardy little winter visitors from the Arctic visit Rhos Point at Rhos-on-Sea each year and the best time to see them is at high tide when they are roosting on the breakwater rocks along the shoreline.

I'd managed to get some shots of Purple Sandpipers last month at New Brighton, but they were roosting on the marina pontoons and this is hardly a natural setting, so I was looking for better natural habitat for my photos today.

As can be seen and heard in the video, it was blowing a gale whilst I was there and this made taking photographs and video very difficult - despite using a heavy tripod and gimbal system, I couldn't really keep the camera steady.
 

At first I struggled to find these birds, and when I thought I had spotted one it turned out to be a dark Dunlin.  But with a bit of perseverance walking up and down the promenade, I eventually spotted one bird feeding on the rocks and then later a group of four roosting.

Other birds present included Turnstones and Ringed Plovers as well as the ubiquitous Oystercatchers.  I did think I might have seen some Twite feeding on the beach, but they turned out to be Linnets.

 

Unfortunately this is not a Twite as I first thought, it's a Linnet.

Later I went on to RSPB Conwy a little further up the coast as I'd heard that a male Hen Harrier had been seen in recent days.  I did get a very brief glimpse of it and took the worst record shot in the world!

There was also a pair of Red-breasted Mergansers in front of one of the hides - here's some shots of the male.

And this female Scaup was also present in the deeper water, along with some Pochards.

And finally, this little Robin came incredibly close, but then Robins do, don't they?

Conwy RSPB in the November Sunshine

I've not been for a proper walk round the Conwy RSPB reserve for quite a while and so today I decided to do just that. The weather had been promising to be very good for a few days now and this was going to be the best day of the week. After a cold start clearing my frosty car windows, I set off into the bright sunshine.

I arrived a couple of hours before high tide, but the Conwy Estuary which borders one side of the reserve already looked full, and there were very few birds visible on it apart from a few Wigeon and the odd Redshank.

"Great", I thought, this means the reserve will be full of birds!

Curlew in Flight

Great White Egret in Flight

Little Egret in Flight

Oystercatcher in Flight

Grey Heron in Flight

Drake Red-breasted Merganser

Robin pretending to be a Reed Warbler

Anglesey and Conwy Birds

Sorry, the formatting of the post is a mess and the pictures are mixed up at the moment, but I'm working on it.

Sarah and I took a short Wedding Anniversary trip to Anglesey last week to do a spot of birdwatching and geocaching (see my other blog here) - sad aren't we?  Anyway, this post includes some of the better pictures I took (although none are that great) mainly at South Stack Lighthouse and the RSPB Reserve at Conwy.

On our way down to Anglesey we stopped off at the beautiful Bodnant Gardens to have a look a the Larburnum arch in full June bloom.  I just had to include a piccie of it here and can thoroughly recommend a visit if you are in the area.

At the entrance to Bodnant we were greeted by this peacock:

Peacock outside Bodnant entrance

Who's a pretty boy then?

The Laburnum Arch at Bodnant Gardens

We stayed at a very pleasant B&B with a lovely big garden run by a couple who by coincidence had more than a passing interest in birds too.  As we sat having breakfast looking out on to the garden a nuthatch and great spotted woodpecker were pecking away on the feeders and there were frequent visits from greenfinch, blue tits, great tits and a robin.  Unfortunately, when I returned with my camera after breakfast, most of them had disappeared!

A robin in the B&B garden

We spent the first day at South Stack and the first birds we saw were the ubiquitous razorbills, guillemots and various types of gull.  I was quite disappointed that even with my 500mm zoom lens I couldn't get any real closeup pictures from the viewing point at Ellin's Tower.  Here are some of the better pictures I took:

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Next we went down the steps towards South Stack Lighthouse, and here we had our first very brief glimpses of some Puffins, but not good enough to photograph.

The best photographs I took at South Stack were actually of a Chough which fortuitously landed right in front of me as I was looking for Puffins - however none of these are perfect as it took me by surprise and kept moving about.

Chough at South Stack

After our day out at South Stack we did some geocaching in the Rhoscolyn area and in the evening went to Conwy for a free guided walk round the RSPB reserve there.  Here are some of the better photographs from the informal tour:

Canada Geese

Swans with their cygnet

The following day we did some more geocaching on Anglesey and whilst we were out and about I took these photographs:

Song Thrush battering a snail

Greylag Geese on Afon Braint

An Oystercatcher on the Menai mudflats

Carrion Crow on the Menai mudflats

Although I was a little disappointed with the overall quality of my photographs, it didn't matter too much as we'd had a great few days in the Anglesey and Conwy.  No doubt we'll be back.