I made my second visit on Sunday to the two squares above Conwy that I monitor for the Breeding Bird Survey, the main source of our knowledge of trends in populations of widespread species. There were so many birds, it took me almost an hour to walk each kilometre, carefully recording everything I saw and heard. In the square counted almost every year since 1994, this year has seen a record number of species (42) and the highest ever counts of Blackbird, Blackcap, Chiffchaff and House Sparrow.

Improved weather conditions last week are welcome news for birds whose eggs hatch in June, but may have come too late for some species. The dry and cold April meant that insects were in short supply, especially for aerial feeders such as Swallows and House Martins. The hard, dry ground made it difficult for wader species too, such as Curlews and Lapwings. Walking on moorland in April, even the sphagnum was crispy underfoot, conditions we often don’t witness in Wales even in late summer.

It was the wettest May in Wales since records began, with several centimetres of snow lying in the uplands early in the month. This suppressed insect numbers, with moth enthusiasts reporting a terrible start to the season. Swollen rivers washed out first nesting attempts by Sand Martins and Kingfishers, and many broods of Starlings, Great Tits and Blue Tits starved in their nests. These single-brooded species will be especially hit, as they rarely rear a second brood. Birds that can lay another clutch of eggs may do better, although later broods are usually smaller.

Some warblers have arrived later than usual, some by a couple of weeks, and for those that nest in reedbeds, such as Reed and Sedge Warblers, the reeds are only now large enough to support a nest. Choughs in west-facing nests suffered during windy and cold conditions in early May, but elsewhere they have fared better. Pied Flycatchers in southwest Britain have nested later than usual, with smaller clutches of eggs than usual reported, but ringers in North Wales report eggs hatching on typical dates last week and good size broods.

The warmer weather also brought an influx of birds from continental Europe. A Golden Oriole sang at Llanfairynghornwy, near Wylfa, on Friday, a Common Rosefinch sang in a Holyhead garden and others were at Cemlyn Bay and Bardsey. A Quail sang near Ynys, on the Dwyryd estuary, and a female in meadows near Penygroeslon became only the 138th ever to be ringed in Britain & Ireland. Rarity of the week was an Eastern Subalpine Warbler near Carmel Head, only the second in Wales away from Bardsey or the Pembrokeshire islands.  A Spoonbill on the Glaslyn Marshes was only the third record there and two Avocets at RSPB Conwy on Saturday are likely to have been failed breeders from elsewhere.

Pink-and-black Rose-coloured Starlings have arrived in huge numbers in southwestern Europe in the last week. Around 100 have been reported in Britain in recent days, including three in Holyhead, and singles in Valley, Beaumaris, Cemaes, Cemlyn Bay, Rhyl and on Bardsey. We could be on course for a record year, and unlike many rarities, these Rosy Starlings are quite likely to turn up in towns and gardens. 
​
A new national avifauna, The Birds of Wales, will be published in July. Liverpool University Press is accepting pre-orders for £25 (plus p&p), which is £20 below the published price. Click here for details and to order, using the code WALES50 to get the discount.

Sad news from two of Wales’ Osprey nests, just weeks after the outrageous destruction of another Osprey nest at Llyn Brenig. All three chicks died in the nest by the Afon Glaslyn last week, following several days with no food provided by the adult male, which had suffered a wing injury. One of three chicks at Cors Dyfi also died last week, having been accidentally suffocated just hours after hatching.

The history of Ospreys nesting in Wales is one of 451 species documented in a new book, The Birds of Wales, published by the Welsh Ornithological Society and Liverpool University Press next month. As one of the editors, I’ll confess some relief at signing off the final proofs last week, two years and two days after our first meeting to plan the venture. Four of the editors are based in North Wales, as were many of the expert authors of species accounts and photographers whose wonderful images illustrate the book. The front cover and frontispiece paintings are by Anglesey-based artist, Philip Snow.

Wales is significant for its populations of Chough, Hawfinch and Pied Flycatcher, our Manx Shearwaters are of global importance, and the bird observatories on Skokholm and Bardsey have played an important role in the study of migration. Only a quarter of breeding species have experienced an improvement in status since 1900 and one-third of Welsh breeding species are projected to lose some or all of their geographic range here by the end of the century.

The Birds of Wales will cost £45, but you can pre-order it for £25 (plus p&p) until 30 June. Visit liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/books/id/54476 and use the code WALES50 at the checkout.

It was a quiet week for migrants, but Spoonbills were seen on the Dee Estuary and Anglesey’s Inland Sea, Hooded Crows at RSPB South Stack, Cemlyn Bay and Ynys Llanddwyn, and Great Northern Divers off Cemlyn and Beddmanarch Bay. 

​This rather odd message buzzed onto my phone on Saturday morning, and it was only when I saw the accompanying photo that it started to make sense. Nightjars are summer migrants, arriving back on heathland and clearfell forestry nesting areas in mid-May, where males display with an eerie ‘churring’ call from dusk. During the day, they sleep on the bough of a tree or fallen trunk, relying on their cryptic, mottled plumage to remain safe.

The Nightjar roosting at RSPB Conwy was just metres away from a busy footpath, but rather than selecting a tree, had chosen the back of a model heron placed in the growing reeds by staff as part of a children’s quiz trail! It was found by visiting birdwatcher Sean McCormack, who shared this video on Twitter, just moments after making the discovery. The Nightjar remained on its chosen roost all day, ignoring the steady stream of admirers who had a rare opportunity to study the bird in detail, right down to its ‘rictal bristles’. These are whiskers along the upper beak of nightjars, which may play a role in navigation, foraging and collision avoidance at night, although the exact function remains unknown. Not surprisingly, having lifted off to feed on moths on Saturday night, the Conwy nightjar was not seen again.
​
It had hitherto been a quiet week for unusual birds, as breeding species worked hard to find food and protect their eggs and young from the cold, wet weather. Sadly one Osprey chick from broods of three at Glaslyn and Cors Dyfi died at the weekend, but farther south, the first chick hatched at the Llyn Clywedog Osprey nest. A Storm Petrel found dead in the Crafnant Valley may have been a victim of Sunday’s storm. A Black Tern has fed off Cemlyn Bay since Friday, roosting with a couple of thousand Sandwich Terns on the lagoon island, where North Wales Wildlife Trust is celebrating 50 years of its leasing the nature reserve from the National Trust. There's a fascinating blog here about the history of the site before it was acquired for the nation.

A Scaup is at RSPB Valley Wetlands, a complex that in 1988 recorded the only case of this northern species nesting in Wales, and a Bonaparte’s Gull from North America was at RSPB Burton Mere Wetlands on Sunday.

A new national avifauna, The Birds of Wales, will be published in July. Liverpool University Press is accepting pre-orders for £25 (plus p&p), which is £20 below the published price. Click here for details and to order, using the code WALES50 to get the discount.

Many birdwatchers have reported Redpolls in recent weeks. Those on garden feeders are Lesser Redpolls, a species that will soon breed locally but widely across North Wales, especially in upland birch woods. However, some over coastal watchpoints are larger, paler and longer-winged than local birds. These are Common Redpolls, which breed around the Arctic Circle, although some don’t quite match the textbooks. It is suspected that many passing through North Wales in spring are Icelandic, though some may go on to Greenland or Canada. And where have they wintered? Around 80 Redpolls headed high to the northwest from the Great Orme on Sunday, while a flock of 28 was at Cemlyn last week. Redpoll taxonomy is complex, and I admire anyone who takes the time to observe them closely on a breezy spring morning. If you really want to take a dive into the identification of Icelandic Common Redpolls, you could do worse than start with this blog by the late Martin Garner.

The rarest birds of the week were at the most eastern and western points of the region. A smart male Woodchat Shrike was a great find on Bardsey, a spring migrant that had ‘overshot’ the Mediterranean after returning to Europe from west Africa. On the Dee Estuary, a Crane was found during a thunderstorm on Sunday, although it stayed resolutely 100 metres east of the national boundary, before moving on overnight. Cranes have made a wonderful recovery as a British breeding species, partly thanks to releases in Somerset of captive-bred birds. This one may have been heading for Scandinavia before being brought down to earth by the rain. Just beyond North Wales, a Squacco Heron was at RSPB Ynys-hir on the Dyfi Estuary last week.

On Anglesey, Short-eared Owls were over the Alaw Estuary, a Hooded Crow at RSPB South Stack and a Garganey at RSPB Cors Ddyga on Monday. A Hobby hunted the first emerging dragonflies at Cors Ddyga, but the sight of 20 of these sleek falcons over Fenn’s and Whixhall Mosses, near Hanmer, on Monday must have been truly impressive. It’s almost certainly a record count for Wales.

Fencing has been put up on beaches at Gronant and Point of Ayr this week to protect the Little Terns returning from Africa. These seabirds nest nowhere else in Wales, and the groups that protect them are reminding visitors to keep dogs on the lead when visiting these beaches. Ringing shows that Little Terns visit this coast from other colonies around Britain and Ireland, and last year one came from a colony in Denmark. In winter they head to West Africa, where a Gronant-ringed Little Tern was re-caught in Guinea Bissau in November 2019, the most southerly record of any British Little Tern. The North Wales Little Tern Group hopes to retrieve tiny geolocators that were attached to some birds in 2019, which will provide insights to the birds’ travels for nine months of the year. They are also appealing for volunteers to help warden the sites.

The switch in wind direction has opened the doors for summer migrants awaiting encouragement to move north. Swifts arrived in numbers across the region, and so have waders that will move on to the Arctic Circle to breed. Dotterels have been on the Great Orme, Foel Fras and Cemlyn in the last week, the Alaw estuary hosted more than 250 Dunlins, 200 Ringed Plovers and a Curlew Sandpiper on Monday and there were also waders a-plenty in Foryd Bay and the Clwyd estuary. Whinchats were scattered along the coast, including 15 at Point of Ayr alone on Sunday, and Black Redstarts were at Aberdaron and RSPB South Stack. A couple of Yellow Wagtails at RSPB Conwy on Saturday included a ‘Channel Wagtail’, a hybrid of the continental Blue-headed variety with the near-endemic British form. A Wood Warbler singing outside the Leisure Centre in Queensferry was away from its usual habitat of western Atlantic oakwood - evidence that you can find birds pretty much anywhere during migration!

A reward of £3000 has been offered for information leading to the conviction of anyone for the destruction of the Osprey nest at Llyn Brenig last Friday. People across the UK reacted angrily to the appalling photograph of the nest platform lying in the shallows of the reservoir, and the sad image of two Ospreys looking at where their nest had been, just days after the female laid their first egg. It reminded me of the Loch Garten Osprey nest platform being attacked with a chainsaw in 1986, but that was while the birds were away in Africa.

While most were horrified, I can’t imagine how the staff and volunteers felt on Saturday morning. Monitoring a rare bird such as Ospreys is an emotional investment, and the news must have been devastating. Full credit to Welsh Water and the North Wales Wildlife Trust for acting so rapidly to open up a second nest platform and to build and erect a replacement. They will be watching the birds’ behaviour closely to see whether the pair will continue their breeding season.

Most people find it incomprehensible why someone would do this, but it highlights the challenges faced by birds against a tiny minority with a grudge against nature. Ospreys are, thankfully, rarely targeted but persecution and intentional disturbance remains a problem for other birds of prey in parts of the UK.

In happier news, the first Lesser Whitethroats, Spotted Flycatchers, Garden Warblers and Hobbies of spring were reported in North Wales over the weekend, and a White-tailed Eagle was tracked by its satellite-transmitter across North Wales for two days early last week. One of several young eagles released on the Isle of Wight, it spent a morning exploring the Arenig mountains south of Ysbyty Ifan.

It was glorious to spend the sunny weekend exploring the woodlands, hills and coast of Meirionnydd, where the delayed unfurling of the leaves made it easier than usual to find the classic Welsh woodland trio returning to the worryingly dry rainforest. Pied Flycatchers and Redstarts were exploring holes in the lichen-dressed trees as potential nest sites, while a freshly-arrived Wood Warbler uttered its staccato song, reminiscent of a coin spinning to a stop. I finished on the Dwyryd estuary, hearing the seven whistles of a flock of Whimbrels refuelling en route to Iceland. Large flocks of Whimbrel elsewhere in the region included at least 80 in Bangor harbour and 57 on Bardsey.
​
I failed to hear a Cuckoo, but others were heard from several upland locations from the 20th, and other first migrant records included Lesser Whitethroat on the Great Orme on 22nd and a Swift at RSPB Conwy on the 24th. Demonstrating that spring migrants can appear anywhere, a pair of Whinchats was a good find on a farm at Glanwydden and a Wryneck was a top tick in a Rhyd-y-clafdy garden, near Pwllheli. 

​Rarest bird of the week was a Black Kite over South Stack on Monday, marking the opening of the new RSPB Visitor Centre. A single Dotterel was on the summit of Foel Fras, a White Stork was reported near Wrexham and a Lapland Bunting showed well near Cemlyn. Two Wood Sandpipers and up to seven Mediterranean Gulls are at RSPB Burton Mere Wetlands.

Another pair of Ospreys has set up home in the Glaslyn Valley: a four-year-old male that fledged from Cors Dyfi in 2017 with a three-year-old female that hatched in Scotland but was released in Dorset’s Poole Harbour as part of a translocation project. Other Ospreys have been spotted around Llandudno, Bangor, Dinas Dinlle and Cemlyn this week.

​The cool airflow of the last week probably suited two Dotterels that landed in heather at RSPB South Stack at the weekend. These plovers nest high on mountain plateaux in Scotland and Scandinavia, but a few stop in North Wales each year. Some rest-points are used every spring, especially in the Carneddau mountains, but a quarter of Welsh records are coastal, such as the Anglesey headland adopted by these two males. Unusual among birds, male Dotterels have less colourful plumage than females. Once she has laid eggs, the male incubates alone, using his muted colours to hide him well among the bare ground and sparse plants. His mate moves on, perhaps hundreds of miles to the north, to find another male with whom to repeat the process before she heads back to North Africa for the winter.

Dotterel numbers in Scotland are in decline, but the reasons are complex, and appear to be related to late-lying snow, nitrogen pollution and rainfall in their African wintering grounds - there's a great WaderTales blog by Graham Appleton that explains the latest science.

Other summer migrants continued to arrive this week. It was great to wander around RSPB Conwy, reopened to visitors last week, to the scratchy songs of Whitethroat and Sedge Warbler. The first Whinchat of the year was at Dinas Dinlle on Monday, and RSPB Cors Ddyga hosted a smart male Garganey and early Reed Warbler. A few Redstarts arrived back in Welsh woodlands this week, and more Black Redstarts dropped in on their way back to breed in Scandinavia; most are coastal, so one near Penmachno last week was unusual. Ring Ouzels and Whimbrels have been in evidence along the coast, and Grasshopper Warblers are reeling at several wetland sites. A Wood Warbler was singing at Capel Curig on Monday and Twite are back in Snowdonia’s Nant Ffrancon.

An Iceland Gull followed the plough near Cemlyn, a Great White Egret was in the Alyn Valley near Caergwrle, a colourful Slavonian Grebe in summer plumage in the Menai Strait and a White Stork flew over Ruthin last Friday.

More than a million people participated in the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch at the end of January, including a record 53,000 people who counted 1,094,355 birds in Wales. Once again, the House Sparrow took top spot, while Starling stepped up to second and Blue Tit dropped to third place. Cold weather may have pushed Starlings west into Welsh gardens, while Blue Tit numbers have fallen by almost 20% in the last decade following several poor breeding seasons.

The annual Birdwatch is just one way to connect with birds. A YouGov survey found that 35% of people in Wales had seen wildlife near home over the last 12 months that they had never noticed before. It also revealed that 63% of people in the UK said watching birds and hearing their song added to their enjoyment of life during the pandemic, with 51% saying that lockdown has made them more aware of their local nature. So, how to maintain that enthusiasm as lockdown eases?

Spring migration provides one opportunity, and although cool winds slowed the arrival of some species, birdwatchers in North Wales saw good numbers of Ring Ouzels at the weekend: at least 10 in the Nant Ffrancon Valley, half a dozen each in Carneddau’s Anafon Valley and Tal-y-fan, and five at Minera, near Wrexham. The ‘Mountain Blackbird’ is Red-listed because of huge declines, but Snowdonia National Park is a stronghold and it’s vital that the right levels of grazing continue to support these special birds.

White Wagtails streaming north to Iceland are stopping on our beaches and fields to refuel. The Cors Dyfi and Glaslyn Ospreys have each laid their first eggs, while a new pair has occupied the nest platform at Llyn Brenig. Winters hangs on with Scaup on Llyn Brân, Surf Scoter off Llanddulas and a Snow Bunting atop Moel Eilio, just north of Eryri. 

The sharp drop in temperature will be a shock to hungry migrant birds arriving from Africa, and the insects on which many depend. It may also hinder resident birds that are already nesting, including those such as Mistle Thrush, Grey Heron and Dipper that have hatched young by early April.

Ahead of the northerly winds, migrants had been streaming in. Huge numbers of Sand Martins fed over Anglesey’s Cefni Valley last week, with smaller numbers of Swallows and House Martins, and Pied Flycatchers have been seen in several woodlands across North and Mid Wales. Other migrants seen this week include Whimbrels, Tree Pipits, Ring Ouzels and Common Sandpipers. Several Ospreys were spotted in local airspace, and a remote microphone recorded a Stone-curlew over Penrhyn Bay, a rare bird in Wales.

The RSPB’s Cors Ddyga nature reserve was filled with the calls of Curlew and Golden Plovers on Sunday morning. More than 200 of the plovers fed in the pools, many in their striking black-and-gold plumage ready to nest as soon as they arrive on the Icelandic, Greenland or Faeroese tundra. They shared the reserve with many White Wagtails also heading to Iceland, and several Little Ringed Plovers. Skylarks’ powerful song mixed with the falling cadence of freshly-arrived Willow Warblers, and early visitors heard the deep boom of Bittern. Earlier in the weekend, I’d counted 180 Eider ducks off Penmon Point, the largest number I’ve seen in the Menai Strait.

In Mynydd Hiraethog, a Black Redstart was on the dam at Llyn Aled Isaf on Sunday, a Scaup on nearby Llyn Brân and two Little Ringed Plovers on Llyn Brenig, where a pair of Ospreys has been seen. A Surf Scoter was off Llanddulas at the weekend, another close inshore off Talacre, and the wintering Iceland Gull remained at Rhyl’s Brickfields pond to Sunday, at least.

A new national avifauna, The Birds of Wales, will be published in July. Liverpool University Press is accepting pre-orders for £25 (plus p&p), which is £20 below the published price. Click here for details and to order, using the code WALES50 to get the discount.