As North Wales tidied up after Storm Darragh at the weekend, birdwatchers looked to the north coast to see whether the forceful northerlies had brought any unusual seabirds. Thousands of gulls feasted on clams and starfish washed up by the huge waves along Colwyn Bay and Llandudno’s shoreline and a displaced Gannet was spotted over Bangor retail park in Caernarfon Road on Monday. Point Lynas recorded Black-throated, Red-throated and Great Northern Diver on Sunday morning, and 14 Black Guillemots, unusual here in winter. Many hoped that some Little Auks would be seen, as occurred in number on North Sea coasts but it was not to be. This diminutive seabird, half the size of a Puffin, breeds in the high Arctic no closer than Svalbard, but has become such a rare visitor to Wales that future sightings will require verification by the Welsh Birds Rarities Committee.

While some birdwatchers were facing into the teeth of the prolonged gale, those sitting comfortably in the observation hide at The Spinnies North Wales Wildlife Trust reserve found the bird of the weekend, a Great Grey Shrike. It is the first in the region this winter and caused the smaller birds on the feeders to flee, but eventually a group of embolded Chaffinches saw it off. The Shrike is another visitor that has proven hard to find in recent years, although one or two are seen around felled forestry in Mynydd Hiraethog each winter.

Other sightings over the weekend included a handful of Hawfinches in Llanrwst, Water Pipit at RSPB Cors Ddyga and a Black Redstart in Aberdaron. Four Snow Buntings are on the Great Orme and another at Kinmel Bay’s Horton’s Nose. A Firecrest continues to overwinter in the old Llanbedrog quarry and a Whimbrel, which should be in west Africa, was on the Clwyd estuary.

A few weeks ago, I watched thousands of Swallows feeding over the forests in uMkhuze nature reserve in South Africa. It was fantastic to watch several species mix together: Wire-tailed Swallows with ridiculously long tail-streamers, Greater and Lesser Striped Swallows that migrate from central Africa to breed in the southern summer and ‘our’ Swallows from Europe, that were by far the most numerous. Ringing shows that these were very likely to be Swallows that had bred in Britain & Ireland, since Swallows from elsewhere in Europe winter closer to the Equator.  Do check out the map on the excellent Eurasian African Bird Migration Atlas to see Swallow movements across Europe.

There have been more than a dozen December records of Swallow in North Wales this century, but nonetheless one past Rhos Point was a surprise for birders watching Purple Sandpipers on Saturday. Even more unexpected was a Red-rumped Swallow at Aber Ogwen, near Bangor, at the weekend and reported in Beaumaris on Monday. This Mediterranean breeder should be south of the Sahara now. Only three dozen have occurred in Wales and this one was more than a month later than the previous latest in any year. You must wonder about the survival chances of both these birds, although one did overwinter on Anglesey in 2022.

A Snow Bunting remains on the Great Orme’s western cliffs, three more were in Gronant Dunes and one in Rhos on Sea on Sunday. Slavonian Grebes were in the Menai Strait and Beddmanarch Bay, half a dozen Hawfinches are back to winter in riverside trees at Llanrwst and three Scaup were on flooded fields at RSPB Cors Ddyga, where a flock of White-fronted Geese were seen last week. The herd of Whooper Swans in the Glaslyn Valley increased to 48 last week.

RSPB Cymru and North Wales Wildlife Trust have thanked supporters of a Senedd petition asking for ‘Swift bricks’ to be mandatory in all new built developments. It passed 10,000 signatories last week and this is the last chance to sign before it closes on Thursday.

A new report suggests that the Slender-billed Curlew is now globally extinct. The last documented record was in Morocco in 1995; I remember the RSPB’s Chris Gomersall returning with photographs of that individual, having no idea I was most likely looking at the last of its kind, of a species I could never see. If the report is adopted by international authorities, Slender-billed Curlew will be the first extinction of a bird species in Europe/North Africa since Canarian Oystercatcher prior to 1940 and the flightless Great Auk in 1844.

It is sobering news for everyone committed to saving the related Eurasian Curlew as a breeding bird in Wales, and that should include Welsh Government ministers developing the Sustainable Farming Scheme. The Cri’r Gyfinir LIFE project, which has worked in Hiraethog and Ysbyty Ifan for the last four years, ends next month with a specially-commissioned film Curlew Custodians that shows how farmers across the UK have helped the birds. A free online screening and talks have been arranged for next Tuesday 3 December at 7pm. Visit the project website to reserve a place.

For more about Curlew recovery work underway in Wales, read my recent column on a conference organised by Gylfinir Cymru.

My own return from several weeks of travelling coincided with the first widespread snowfall and Storm Bert. Far smaller arrivals include Firecrests from continental Europe: two at Llyn Parc Mawr on Anglesey and Llangwstenin, near Mochdre, and others in Bangor and Llanbedrog. Purple Sandpipers returned to their regular haunts near Rhos Point and Cemlyn Bay.

The changing conditions will have been difficult for summer migrants that should be in Africa: a late Wheatear at Aled Isaf Reservoir and three Swallows over the A55 across Anglesey’s Inland Sea last week. Chiffchaffs, including one of the Siberian form at Llyn Cefni, are likely to spend the winter here.

Scaup, Velvet Scoter, Long-tailed Duck and Surf Scoter have joined the wintering flock of Common Scoters off Colwyn Bay. Two Slavonian Grebes were off Aber Ogwen, a Black-throated Diver at Rhos Point last week and a Cattle Egret was near Llanfrothen. Snow Buntings remain on the Great Orme, with up to seven here over the weekend. A couple were at Llanddona recently and another on Moel Famau, below which Crossbills feed in the forestry – a species unusual in that birds can nest through the winter if there is an abundant supply of fruiting pine cones.​

I recently attended a gathering of people involved in efforts to save Curlew as a breeding species across Wales. It was sobering and uplifting in near equal measure. Those leading recovery efforts shared their experiences, frustrations and elation.

Curlew is the highest bird conservation priority, because the UK is the second most important country in the World, after Finland, yet the breeding population is in steep decline. The situation is especially critical in Wales, where there may be as few as 400 breeding pairs and Curlew is forecast to be on the point of extinction by 2033 without intervention. This prompted conservation groups, game management organisations, farming unions and scientists to come together under the banner of Gylfinir Cymru/Curlew Wales and produced a national recovery plan. Silage cropping, changes in grazing management in the uplands, and predation by foxes are among the threats facing Curlews, with tree-planting and onshore wind turbines being additional challenges.

Many of the recovery efforts are focused in Important Curlew Areas identified in the Plan. We heard from a farmer-led project in Radnorshire, a National Nature Reserve manager in Wrexham, and from project officers working for a National Park, a National Landscape, a charitable trust responsible for a large estate, RSPB Cymru and the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust. In North Wales, action is underway in Anglesey’s Cefni Valley, the South Clwyd hills, Mynydd Hiraethog, Ysbyty Ifan and Fenn’s & Whixall Moss.

It was a summer of mixed fortunes, with cold, wet conditions making it hard for tiny chicks to thrive, but in other places positive management of hay fields and wet features resulted in young birds flying successfully. What was apparent in all the efforts was the importance of farming and farmers. We heard some wonderful examples of farmers going the extra mile to help Curlews.

There were clear messages about continuity, since this work has only short-term funding. It is clear that Curlews won’t be saved without people on the ground and financial support for farmers to incorporate Curlew-friendly measures as part of their business. But we also heard about the wider benefits of the management, for Lapwings, dragonflies, peatlands and water quality. Saving Curlews remains a huge challenge, but there are a lot of knowledgeable people across Wales working their socks off to keep its cry in our landscape.

While Red Kites have returned to the region in recent decades, but numbers of Buzzards monitored by the Breeding Bird Survey in Wales are at their lowest since at least the mid-1990s. We know little about the trends in Sparrowhawks and Kestrels, although by broad consensus encounters with the hovering falcon have diminished. Now BTO Cymru is launching a monitoring scheme designed to understand more about the breeding populations of these raptors and the ecologically-similar Raven.

Cudyll Cymru will start next March, with the Bangor-based organisation asking people to register now to take advantage of training available for volunteers over the winter. With funding from Welsh Government’s Nature Networks Fund, the BTO is keen to attract new entrants to bird monitoring as well as experienced birdwatchers.

In 2025, the project will focus on four species that are widespread in Wales: Buzzard, Kestrel, Red Kite and Sparrowhawk, with Raven added to the roster in 2026. Current monitoring often struggles to provide information on some of these species, as they live at low densities and are less active during surveys undertaken early on spring mornings.

The scheme is designed to be flexible, with participants choosing their survey area to monitor, ideally somewhere that you are able to visit regularly. It could even be the regular dog-walk or commute, so long as you are able to visit at least a few hours each month between early March and late summer. Those involved will be asked to count individuals of one or several of the species within their ‘patch’, and if possible to map their territories. If nests can be watched without causing disturbance, the organisers would also like to know about the number of chicks that reach fledging age.

Full details at bto.org/cudyll-cymru and bto.org/cudyll-cymru-cymraeg

Exploring the east coast valleys of Anglesey on Saturday, thousands of finches were arriving from the east across Liverpool Bay. Most were Chaffinches and Siskins high overhead, but small groups of Bullfinches – probably more local – were a splash of colour among the falling leaves. On the other side of the island, two hard-working patch birders found a Red-eyed Vireo at Holyhead’s Breakwater Country Park, a rare visitor from across the Atlantic.

Vireos are a family of songbirds found exclusively in the Americas, most closely related to Orioles in Europe. The name comes from a Latin word for green, and the Red-eyed Vireo is well-named, although it’s the grey cap and eye-stripe that will stop a European birder in their tracks. Only 10 have occurred previously in Wales, of which half were in the north but it is the first on Anglesey since one at South Stack in 2001. It had moved on by Sunday.

The Bardsey Bird Observatory team left the island, finishing the season with a Pallas’s Warbler and seven Yellow-browed Warblers. The weekend brought more Yellow-browed Warblers to Aberdaron, Uwchmynydd, Wylfa, Talacre, Great Orme and Breakwater Country Park, where a couple of Hawfinches were part of a widespread movement across southern Britain. The Orme also hosted Lapland and Snow Buntings, with several Bramblings among the movement of Chaffinches recorded there.

The first Whooper Swans are back for winter in the Glaslyn Valley, and while small numbers of Redwings have been seen, there have been few Fieldfares so far. Other highlights last week included several Black Redstarts on Anglesey, a late Reed Warbler and Siberian Chiffchaff in Holyhead, Cattle Egrets at RSPB Cors Ddyga and Llanfachraeth, Sandwich Terns off Moelfre, Surf Scoter off Old Colwyn and a Woodlark over RSPB Conwy.

There’s a bonus blog this week: as bird-ringers pass the milestone of a million birds ringed in Wales this century, we take a look at the latest highlights ahead of publication in the Welsh Bird Report 2023.

Barnacle Geese from the Arctic were once a regular winter visitor to North Wales, with large numbers in the Wydden valley inland from Penrhyn Bay until the early 19th century and thousands on the Dee estuary until the 1870s. It has become much scarcer in the last century. The entire Svalbard breeding population now winters in the Solway Firth, where up to a third were killed in the first wave of highly pathogenic bird flu in winter 2021. The Greenland breeding population winters in Ireland and the west coast of Scotland.

The picture in Wales is confused, however, because a naturalised flock of up to 600 that breeds in the Lake District has wintered on the Dyfi estuary since the 1990s, and it is assumed that small groups seen in North Wales are part of that population. However, last week a satellite-tagged Barnacle Goose was among a flock that flew from Iceland to the Scilly Isles and a few days later was tracked across Cardigan Bay to land firstly at Pen Cilan and then on Ynys Gwylan Fawr, off Aberdaron. Nine Barnacle Geese were over Bardsey last week and five on the Glaslyn estuary at the weekend, which may also have been birds reorienting after overshooting to the south.

Greenland Barnacle Geese bear white leg rings whereas those from the Lake District are blue, as detailed in this BirdNotes article from 2021.
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In the wake of Storm Ashley, seawatching off Porth Ysgaden on Monday recorded Leach’s Petrel, Arctic Skuas, a late Manx Shearwater and a whopping 180 Mediterranean Gulls, while 11 Little Gulls and two Great Skuas were off Criccieth. A Cattle Egret was on flooded fields by the railway at Talacre on Sunday, with six at RSPB Cors Ddyga last week and four on the Alaw estuary.

Other recent sightings include a Little Bunting on Bardsey, Black Tern off Caernarfon, Jack Snipe on coastal heath at RSPB South Stack and Lapland Bunting on the Great Orme. Yellow-browed Warblers were at Penrhyn Castle, Holyhead and Uwchmynydd, with three on Bardsey and two at Porth Meudwy. A Surf Scoter is with more than 3000 Common Scoters off Colwyn Bay, where a Humpback Whale was photographed on Saturday, while a Slavonian Grebe was among the scoter flock off Benllech. More Slavonian Grebes were off Flint Castle and on the Inland Sea, where a couple of Scaup feed.

Another Scaup was at Point of Ayr, where an Avocet roosted with Curlews last Friday, and one is with Tufted Ducks on Rhyl’s Brickfields Pond. A Ring-necked Duck has returned to Llyn Tegid with Tufted Ducks for another winter. A European White-fronted Goose was at RSPB Cors Ddyga, Little Stint on the Dwyfor estuary, and Spotted Redshanks at RSPB Conwy and Gronant, where a Bearded Tit ‘pinged’ last Tuesday but I couldn’t locate it later in the week.

While most summer migrants have long since departed these shores, late October finds a few stragglers. A couple of Sandwich Terns were off Porthmadog Cob on Sunday, two Swallows flew over Criccieth on Monday, and a Wheatear was on the coast path east of Pensarn last week.

Tickets are on sale for the Welsh Ornithological Society annual conference in Aberystwyth on Saturday 16 November, where speakers include Iolo Williams, alongside several North Wales talks, from Ben Stammers on Swifts, Sam Kenyon on nature-friendly farming, Anne Brenchley on Rooks and Anya Wicikowski on Black Grouse. Plans to re-establish White-tailed Eagles in Wales will also be of interest to many. Full details at birdsin.wales/conference

Full marks if you thought Goldcrest or Firecrest, which share the title with a bodyweight of 5-6 grammes. And a gameshow fail klaxon is you thought Wren, almost double that at 10 grammes. Always a good one for a pub quiz. But occasionally, another species joins the ‘crests’ as visiting lightweight champion of Europe, and last Friday one was in a shelter-belt of trees at the foot of Holyhead Mountain.

I rarely travel to see vagrants that feature in BirdNotes, but I made an exception for this Pallas’s Warbler as I was already on Anglesey and hadn’t seen this stripy Siberian waif in North Wales since one on the Great Orme in 1988. Around 40 more individuals have occurred in Wales since, but it remains a scarce migrant from coniferous taiga forests east of the Ural Mountains. More numerous on North Sea coasts, this one at South Stack was among the first half dozen recorded in Britain this autumn.

It took a couple of hours standing among the bracken watching every flicker and movement in the trees, hopes sporadically raised by Goldcrests that had also arrived from the northeast. The dozen birders were starting to drift away when the object of our search appeared briefly beside the trail. We enjoyed views for half an hour as it hovered to pluck insects from the underside of leaves, pausing occasionally among the spiky lichen that adorned the branches. Magic, especially for those who had never previously seen a ‘seven-striped-sprite’, including the birder who found it that morning.

The Holyhead area hosted at least 14 Yellow-browed Warblers last week, including four in a single bush at Breakwater Country Park. Others were at Wylfa, Cemlyn, Nefyn, Porth Meudwy, Shotwick, Bwlchtocyn near Abersoch, three on the Great Orme and Bardsey. Other sightings last week included Lapland Buntings near Cemlyn, Rhoscolyn and on the Great Orme, where a Barred Warbler was seen and a Richard’s Pipit landed briefly. Six Cattle Egrets are at RSPB Cors Ddyga, five at Shotwick and counts of Great White Egrets include site records of nine on the Conwy and 13 on the Dwyryd opposite Portmeirion. Whooper Swans seen across the region included a flock of 30 over the River Clwyd.

“Suw-eest” is the call of a tiny Yellow-browed Warbler that birders hoped to hear this week. Many dozens have been found across Britain, and perhaps thousands have passed un-noticed through the country. Smaller than a Chiffchaff, they flit constantly among the leaves and branches of coastal trees. Yellow-browed Warblers nest in the foothills of the Ural Mountains, on the eastern edge of Europe, and winter in southeast Asia. Once a rarity here, greater numbers now move southwest to winter in Iberia and North Africa. To understand more about their migration, tiny coloured leg-rings are now being attached to Yellow-browed Warblers caught by ringers in Britain and Ireland.

At least a dozen were seen in North Wales over recent days, including four around Holyhead/South Stack, two on the Great Orme and Bardsey, and singles at Aberdaron, Pwllheli and Shotwick, with another at RSPB Burton Mere Wetlands. A Richard’s Pipit was a good find on the Great Orme on Monday and a Surf Scoter has returned to winter off Old Colwyn.

Five Cattle Egrets were at Shotwick, four at RSPB Cors Ddyga and another at Cemlyn, while a county record 15 Great White Egrets were on the Glaslyn estuary, six on the Conwy and one at Cemaes Bay. Swallows streamed through Eryri at the weekend, Wheatears and Whinchats were reported on the coast, but a Cuckoo near Llyn Brân on 2 October was much less expected. It’s the latest of its kind recorded in North Wales this century, and there must be doubt about its ability to survive the winter. BTO satellite-tagged Cuckoos have been south of the Sahara for several weeks, although one from the Republic of Ireland made it to southern Greece before reversing back to eastern Germany and is currently in southeast France.

Bangor Bird Group events return this week, with a programme of talks each Wednesday evening from now until mid-March. Most are online, kicking off with a birding tour of Panama in the company of Steve Culley on 9th, with some events planned for Pontio later in the season. Tickets can be booked via the North Wales Wildlife Trust website.