Leading a course in the Carneddau on Sunday, it was good to see young Wheatears foraging among the rocks, a Pied Flycatcher dropping from a branch to grab insects, and a pair of Redstarts commuting with small green caterpillars to a nest in the roof of a cottage. For others, such as the Siskins calling from the highest branches of the forestry plantation, the breeding season is already a distant memory. So too for the Ravens tumbling over the summit and Long-tailed Tits working their way through the oak trees, having already formed a flock in readiness for winter.

We heard two Cuckoos, which may be my last until next April. Many are already heading south. Of 12 Cuckoos tracked by the British Trust for Ornithology, six are in France including one already close to the Riviera resort of Cannes. They should soon be joined by JAC, ringed near Llandegla in 2021, which is heading south through Herefordshire after spending spring in the same area of moorland near Wrexham. Another Welsh-tagged Cuckoo - Daniel - remains in Montgomeryshire, mainly on moorland above Lake Vyrnwy but with occasional forays to a site 20 miles east on the Shropshire border, identical to movements that it made last summer.

A Wood Sandpiper at RSPB Burton Mere Wetlands on the Dee estuary is another sign that the northern hemisphere is about to tilt away from the sun. Over the coming weeks, expect to see more waders dropping into North Wales as they head towards the equator from their Arctic breeding sites.

Hooded Crows were again at RSPB South Stack and the Clwyd estuary, with one over Cors Bodeilio, near Pentraeth. A Rose-coloured Starling was near Caernarfon airport, and a moulting Whooper Swan remains around Porthmadog Cob having been unable to fly to Iceland with the rest of the Glaslyn flock in spring.

As my groaning shelves testify, I love a bird book. A well-researched volume is more definitive in its answers than an internet search, and I love the feel of the pages, the rich artwork and photographs in my hand. But there is some information for which the web is far superior, especially for sharing and visualising data almost in real time.

The United Nations Convention on Migration Species recently launched a Eurasian-African Bird Migration Atlas, which for the first time maps the movements of millions of individual birds that have been ringed and found subsequently, over more than a century. The results, open to all at migrationatlas.org, enable ornithologists to understand better how different parts of the flyway are connected between seasons, but also how that is changing with climate disruption.
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It is a goldmine that I will doubtless spend long winter evenings digging into. At the weekend, I watched a male Ring Ouzel feeding three begging juveniles that had not long left their nest in the Carneddau. From the Migration Atlas, I can see that there have been just two exchanges of Ring Ouzels from North Wales: one between Bardsey and southwest France, the other between Conwy and the Grampian Mountains. However, added to all the Ring Ouzel data from both continents shows that these form part of a movement between Britain and Morocco, where they spend winter with other Ring Ouzels that breed in the Alps and Scandinavia. In a few months, these young Carneddau birds could be sharing Juniper berries with birds hatched in Norway and Switzerland.

​Understanding bird movements is also essential for those tracking highly pathogenic avian influenza. A lack of testing makes it hard to be certain, but reports from seabird colonies across Scotland, and in tern sites in eastern England, the Netherlands and France, indicate that ‘bird flu’ could be catastrophic for some species. Wales’ only Little Tern colony at Gronant – which now has a live stream from the beach - is having a record year, with over 200 nests, so wardens will be watching nervously for symptoms. The Animal & Plant Health Agency urges anyone finding a dead bird to report it on 03459 335577 and not to touch it.

Rose-coloured Starlings have been spotted in gardens in Llandudno Junction and Llanfechell in the last week, perhaps the start of a westward European movement that we have witnessed in the last two summers. A handful of waders, such as Whimbrel at RSPB Conwy and a Greenshank on the Alaw estuary, are a sign of southward migration as failed breeders leave their Arctic breeding grounds and make an early move to their wintering areas. A Yellow-legged Gull was at RSPB Conwy on Sunday, a Hooded Crow on the Clwyd estuary and six Mediterranean Gulls on Porthmadog’s Llyn Bach, including one ringed near Leipzig last summer. Two Black Swans on the Inland Sea and one at Aber Ogwen originate from a collection.

At the tip of Pen Llŷn, Ynys Enlli is known for its spiritual heritage and a destination for Christian pilgrimage. It is equally significant as a sanctuary for weary travellers migrating up the west coast of Europe. The Bardsey Bird & Field Observatory has played a vital role in the study of bird migration since it opened in 1953, and next year will celebrate its own platinum jubilee.

The everyday work involves counts and bird-ringing, supplemented by monitoring of breeding seabirds through the summer, but last Thursday was one of those that the wardens dream about. A Thrush Nightingale sang into the late evening but moved on overnight. It is a species never seen alive in Wales before, with just a single record of one found dead on the island in 1976. Earlier in the day, a Golden Oriole and a Red-spotted Bluethroat, also spring overshoots from the European mainland, were found in the space of 30 seconds. A supporting cast of Black Redstart, Turtle Dove and Wood Warbler that day wasn't too shabby either, and Spotted Flycatchers continue to arrive there from Africa.

Another Golden Oriole was found there on Saturday and a Marsh Warbler on Monday, while a Siberian Chiffchaff has taken up territory on the island. Although singing enthusiastically, is unlikely to attract a female, since those should all be on their breeding grounds in Russian forests.

Elsewhere, two Hooded Crows are at RSPB South Stack and another flew ashore at Gronant on Saturday, with a Little Gull at nearby Talacre. Little Stints were at Point of Ayr, Afon Wen and the Alaw estuary last week, and a Curlew Sandpiper at Foryd Bay on Sunday. A Roseate Tern is on Cemlyn lagoon and a Black Tern spent several hours at RSPB Conwy last Tuesday.  A Quail is calling above the Conwy Valley, and four have been ringed near Pengroeslon in the last week. 

A visit to a seabird colony should be a memorable experience, an immersion in one of the wonders of the natural world. Britain’s seabird cliffs and islands are of global significance, and Wales alone holds half of all the Manx Shearwaters on the planet. But for experts monitoring seabirds this summer, it’s a worrying time. Images of sick and dying Great Skuas on Scottish islands were followed by hundreds of dead birds, including Eider ducks and Pink-footed Geese, on the Sutherland coast, and now ornithologists visiting a Gannet colony at Hermaness, Shetland, have shared photographs of dozens of dead birds, their carcasses picked over by scavengers such as Great Skuas and gulls. Last winter, up to one-third of the Svalbard Barnacle Goose population is estimated to have died of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) on the Solway Firth.

Wardens and ornithologists at Welsh seabird colonies such as South Stack, the Skerries and Ynys Seiriol/Puffin Island are keeping a close eye on the health of seabirds such as Kittiwakes, Guillemots and terns, while in Pembrokeshire checks are being made on one of the world’s largest Gannet colonies, on Grassholm. Seabirds are already under pressure from human activities including climate change, rat infestations, recreational disturbance and construction developments at sea, and the United Nations has declared that wild birds are the victims of HPAI viruses. The virus has already had devastating consequences for some poultry farms and, according to some reports, reduced by 40% the number of gamebirds released this summer following outbreaks in France, where many Pheasants and Partridges are bred.

It’s a critical time for seabirds, with the first Sandwich Terns at Cemlyn ready to hatch their eggs this week and a pair of Mediterranean Gulls incubating a clutch there. At Gronant, wardens are appealing for public help to stay away from the nesting colony of Little Terns and for more volunteers to help protect the birds.

Unusual sightings this week include Little Gulls off the Great Orme and Cemlyn, six Mediterranean Gulls on Porthmadog’s Llyn Bach, three Spoonbills reported near Rhyl and two Siberian Chiffchaffs singing on Bardsey, although a rarer visitor was the first Jay on the island for more than 28 years. The week has seen three Osprey chicks hatch at Glaslyn, bringing the total hatched by female ‘Mrs G’ to 52 since she first nested there in 2004. Osprey nests on the Dyfi estuary and Clywedog Reservoir also have three chicks.

The rush of spring migration is over, and most birds are concentrating on pairing up and nesting. The second half of May can spring surprises though. Warm southerly winds last week resulted in several Mediterranean migrants ‘overshooting’ to Britain. A Golden Oriole was a great find on Bardsey last week, and a Bee-eater over RSPB South Stack on Saturday would have attracted more attention had it not continued out to sea. Hobbies and Spotted Flycatchers are still arriving in North Wales from the south, while to the south a Dark-eyed Junco, Moltoni’s Warbler and Woodchat Shrike have been seen in Pembrokeshire.

Small numbers of waders are still moving north, with Little Stints on the Alaw estuary, Cemlyn and Traeth Cymyran at the weekend, with small flocks of Sanderlings. A Curlew Sandpiper was among a large flock of Dunlins on the Alaw estuary too. The Iceland Gull that wintered on the Little Orme remains in the area, favouring the rocks below Great Orme’s former lighthouse. Hooded Crows have been at RSPB South Stack, the Great Orme and Tregele. A Little Gull and two Mediterranean Gulls have been on Llyn Bach, near Porthmadog, and a Whooper Swan on nearby Pwll McAlpine may not have been strong enough to make the return migration to Iceland.

Birds are not the only migrants on the move. The southerly airflow has enabled good numbers of migratory moths and butterflies to arrive in Britain this week. Painted Lady butterflies, dark orange with black-and-white striped wingtips, are among the most obvious, their ‘journey’ having begun several generations ago in North Africa. Moth enthusiasts have also enjoyed day-flying Hummingbird Hawkmoths and nocturnal Striped Hawkmoths. With an 8 cm wingspan, they love feeding around Red Valerian, a common plant in North Wales. More than 100 Striped Hawkmoths have been reported on Twitter in the last week, according to @MigrantMothUK, the majority in southern England. But one found on Bardsey shows that they could turn up anywhere, and some may lay eggs here on bedstraw and dock plants.

I wasn’t the only one to exclaim “they’re back!” to no-one in particular last week. Through the open window came the scream of Swifts over the village rooftops. My partner teases me for my enthusiasm about their return, but knowing the dramatic decline in their numbers across Britain in recent years, I can no longer take their arrival as a certainty. And from comments on social media, I know that I'm not the only one to celebrate their return. As Blur once wrote about feeding sparrows, the Swifts' arrival gives me a sense of enormous well-being.

I heard Swifts over Llanberis and Penmaenmawr too, and witnessed a pair mating as they flew low over my house at the weekend. Their tiny feet had not touched anything solid since they left the edge of their nest cup last summer and headed to the humid air above the forests of central Africa. North Wales Wildlife Trust has installed over 500 nestboxes on buildings around the region since 2014, and another 80 have been put up in the Dyfi Biosphere Reserve this winter by the Machynlleth Climate Action Group. Read more about what local people are doing for Swifts in this article written for The Daily Post.

Another welcome spring sound, that of the Cuckoo, has rung across the hillsides in recent weeks. One, called Daniel that was tagged by the British Trust for Ornithology last June, has returned to RSPB Lake Vyrnwy after spending autumn in Chad and winter in Cameroon. After weeks of satellite silence, he popped up in Sicily in late April before arriving back in mid Wales via central France. Follow his travels on the BTO website.

A third pair of Ospreys has set up home in Nant Glaslyn near Porthmadog. In addition to the long-standing site used annually since 2004, a second nest had been occupied there in 2021 by a female released in Dorset’s Poole Harbour in 2018 and a male hatched on the Dyfi estuary in 2017. Now another Scottish female translocated to Poole Harbour in 2019 has set up home with a Dyfi fledgling from 2018. More details on the Birds of Poole Harbour website.

Most migrants are already on their breeding territories, and the last to arrive – Spotted Flycatchers – arrived in a rush from Monday, with a dozen on the Great Orme and almost 80 on Bardsey on a single day. A Hen Harrier over Bardsey on Saturday was unseasonal and a Short-eared Owl rested briefly on the Great Orme last week.

Two sites in North Wales have upheld their deserved reputation as among the best in Britain for scarce wagtails. RSPB Conwy scored first, with a Yellow Wagtail of the Iberian race found on Friday and relocated on Sunday. It is the first ever seen in Wales, although the nature reserve had a ‘near miss’ in April 2008 when a likely candidate was seen, but it proved impossible to record its call to clinch the identification. No such problem this time, with more birders carrying recording equipment and this week’s bird more vocal.

On Sunday, a possible Citrine Wagtail heard near Cemlyn lagoon on Anglesey was confirmed by a sighting in a nearby field. The bird remained all day, alongside a Blue-headed Yellow Wagtail. It’s only the 10th Citrine Wagtail in North Wales, a bird that breeds no closer than the Finnish border with Russia. By coincidence, the first Citrine Wagtail in North Wales was at RSPB Conwy in April 2008, found when I went looking for that putative ‘Iberian Wagtail’.

Now is the time to visit our broad-leaved woodlands, as the fresh leaves of Oak and Beech unfurl. For places to visit, check the excellent Celtic Rainforest Wales website. The project is doing great work to restore these sites by removing invasive Rhododendron and reintroducing grazing by ponies and cattle. Listen for Redstarts, Pied Flycatchers and Wood Warblers that recently arrived from Africa. The first two species nest in holes, but Wood Warblers nest in foliage on the ground, which is another reason to keep dogs on a lead in the countryside this spring.

Good numbers of Swallows finally arrived this week, with smaller numbers of House Martins and Swifts. Hooded Crows were on the Great Orme, Clwyd estuary, Bardsey and RSPB South Stack, while three Dotterels were on the summit of Foel Fras on Sunday. Two Avocets spent last Wednesday on the Conwy estuary, but didn’t linger.

The curious sight of the back end of a Chough wiggling above the grass, its head buried deep into a Rabbit hole, indicates the tough times that birds are having. The rabbit burrows on the Great Orme provide the Choughs with access to more moist and less compacted soil than on the surface, into which they can probe for invertebrates. Swallows and House Martins, now finally arriving in North Wales, will need wet mud with which to build their nests, but puddles are hard to find after an April that saw Wales receive less than half its average monthly rainfall. As any farmer can attest, the region’s grasslands that are home to our last remaining Curlews and Lapwings are dry, and will these hold enough insects for wader chicks to forage in the coming weeks?

With no substantial rain forecast, garden owners can help their local birds by providing a shallow bowl of water for birds to drink and bathe, and I know farmers who ensure there are puddles in the muddy corner of farmyards that Swallows can use. For the Choughs and waders, we have to hope for rain – but, then again, not so much that it washes the caterpillars out of woodlands just as the Pied Flycatchers hatch.

We are hitting the peak of spring migration, and last week saw a second wave of Ring Ouzels and Wheatears. ‘Our’ birds are already holding territories in the mountains, where some have already hatched their first chicks, but along the coast are birds that will head farther north: the Wheatears to Iceland, Greenland and even northeast Canada, and the Ring Ouzels to Scotland or Scandinavia. Up to half a dozen Ring Ouzels and two dozen Wheatears have been on the Great Orme each morning.

Rarity of the week is a Pectoral Sandpiper, a wader en route to its Arctic Russian breeding grounds but pausing in the southeast corner of Llyn Trawsfynydd, where an Osprey has been fishing regularly. The first Swifts and Spotted Flycatchers have been seen across North Wales in recent days and a Wood Sandpiper was at RSPB Cors Ddyga over the weekend. A Nightingale sang on Bardsey last week, the island had its first ever spring record of a Black Tern, and a 32-year old Manx Shearwater was caught and released. It had been ringed there in August 1989 and had not been handled since August 2000, two days before ringer and assistant warden Ed Betteridge was born!

​Colour-ringing, the practice of attaching lightweight plastic markers to the legs of birds, has its critics. Seeing birds with a colour ring makes some people feel that birds are ‘de-wilded,’ an illustration of human intervention. I’m not a bird-ringer, but when it’s done for the purpose of gaining new knowledge and especially to contribute to their conservation, I see its real value. Because it can be seen with optical equipment, the reporting rate is far higher than standard rings, which are only found when caught by another ringer or after the bird is dead. In the last couple of weeks, I’ve found Black-headed Gulls in North Wales that hatched in Poland and Nottinghamshire, illustrating the wide area from which birds visit our coast. Our understanding of places used by foraging Choughs is greatly enhanced by a long-running project in North Wales.

Most Ospreys hatched in Wales are colour-ringed, and this week Dan Brown - originally from Bangor and leading a wildlife tour in Scotland - photographed an Osprey at RSPB Loch Gruinart on Islay in the Hebrides. It had hatched beside the Afon Glaslyn in 2017, but this was the first sighting of ‘Z8’ since it departed on its first migration five years ago. It probably stayed in West Africa for a couple of years, so where is it heading to breed? This year’s Osprey nest at Glaslyn has two eggs, while the nest at Cors Dyfi already has three, and the first was laid at Llyn Brenig on Monday. Passage Ospreys have been over Belgrano, Gronant, Mochdre, Penrhynside, Malltraeth and Holyhead in the last week.

On my visits to Pen Llŷn and the Great Orme over the weekend, dozens of Greenland Wheatears paused on migration before the final leg of their journey north. But my counts were small compared to more than 200 on Bardsey on Sunday. Whinchats were at several coastal watchpoints on Monday, while other migrants included a Dotterel at RSPB South Stack, Little Gulls at Connah’s Quay and off the Great Orme, and a Curlew Sandpiper on the Alaw estuary. An Egyptian Goose that was briefly on the Conwy estuary, and an unusual bird in North Wales despite breeding widely across central England, has relocated to RSPB Cors Ddyga. A Hawfinch on a feeder near Denbigh is a superb garden record.

Many people are wondering where the Swallows are, with far fewer reported than is usual at the end of April. Unsettled weather in central and southern Europe may be responsible, so let’s hope for a change over the weekend.

 This Thursday is World Curlew Day, the annual celebration of the eight species of curlew found worldwide. Two of the eight are almost certainly extinct, one is listed as Endangered and two more are Near Threatened, which means the outlook is not bright. The last category includes Eurasian Curlew, of which 400-600 pairs nest in Wales but are at risk of extinction here by 2033 without urgent action.

Musician Merlyn Driver has travelled across the UK to produce a double album from various artists inspired by, and including, Curlews. Merlyn visited Mynydd Hiraethog and the National Trust’s Ysbyty Ifan last summer to record the birds on their moorland breeding grounds. The first track, Simmerdim, was released this week, with profits going to the RSPB’s Curlew conservation work. Fans are hoping that with enough downloads, Curlews could make it into the charts.

Organisations involved with Curlew conservation are asking for readers’ help monitoring breeding birds across Wales this spring. Partners in Gylfinir Cymru, which includes the Farmers’ Union of Wales, Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, RSPB and BTO Cymru, have joined forces with Local Environmental Records Centres Wales so that anyone can report suspected territorial pairs. You can report sightings away from the coast at bit.ly/curlewcymru (neu bit.ly/gylfinircymru yn Gymraeg). BBC Radio Wales is marking World Curlew Day with a special edition of Country Focus devoted to the people who are helping to save the species from extinction in Wales.

One member of the family not currently at risk of global extinction is Whimbrel, and it was good to hear its seven short whistles on the Conwy and Anglesey at the weekend. Spring passage was boosted by improved weather: Wheatears flooded in from Wednesday and the sky was full of Swallows at Carmel Head on Monday. Star bird was a Black-winged Stilt that dropped into RSPB Cors Ddyga briefly on Sunday before flying to Lancashire, while a Dotterel at Llanfwrog was a good find on Monday. A Hoopoe was reported at Penmon, the first Wood Warbler of the year on the Great Orme and Lesser Whitethroat at Amlwch. Cuckoos were seen at several locations last week, and the first Swift of spring in North Wales was at Fairbourne last Thursday.