​Falling water levels in the Cefni Valley are attracting egrets into fields at RSPB Cors Ddyga that are busy with many young Lapwings, most already fledged. Up to four Great White Egrets and a Cattle Egret are with a dozen or more Little Egrets and Grey Herons, and Bitterns make occasional flights across the nearby reedbed. Several broods of Shoveler are loving the shallow pools, with Teal and Pochards nearby and an occasional Hobby overhead. It was great to hear Curlews still calling on Monday, evidently still watching over chicks that are close to fledging from pasture managed by farmers working with the Natur am Byth species recovery project.

An adult Rose-coloured Starling visited a Caernarfon garden last week, a Turtle Dove was on wires by the road to Porth Neigwl, a Ring-necked Duck remains at Llyn Brenig and a Wood Sandpiper was a good find at Llyn Trawsfynydd. A Whooper Swan on the Glaslyn estuary appears to be uninjured but didn’t leave for Iceland with the rest of its flock. An unseasonal Black Redstart was at Cemlyn, where North Wales Wildlife Trust wardens counted more than 1000 Sandwich Tern and 280 Black-headed Gull chicks. Mercifully, Welsh seabird colonies show no signs of the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza that was so devastating last summer.

Three broods of stripy Great Crested Grebe chicks are at RSPB Conwy, where Common Sandpiper has bred once again. While many birds are still busy with their breeding season, some waders are already returning from their breeding grounds to the north, presumably having failed to breed. A Greenshank at Morfa Madryn on Sunday morning was my first of the autumn and numbers of migrating waders will increase in the next two months, with the first Green Sandpipers expected in the next week.

North Wales Wildlife Trust is running events for Swift Awareness Week in several towns where the birds still nest, to encourage local people to champion these declining summer migrants. Events are in Llanberis, Trefriw, Menai Bridge, Bethesda, Holyhead, Wrexham and Holt in the next three weeks. Book a place on their website. And while you’re thinking about Swifts, please do sign this petition calling on Welsh Government to require homes for Swifts to be incorporated into new buildings.

Young birds and failed breeders are already starting to disperse. Three Cattle Egrets at RSPB Cors Ddyga on Monday are perhaps the start of a post-breeding dispersal from colonies farther south that last autumn topped out at 14 birds in October. Across the wider Cefni Valley, where the Natur am Byth project is working with farmers to help Water Voles and Curlews, all the Curlew nests within temporary electric fencing have hatched. Some chicks are already three weeks old, just a couple of weeks away from fledging.

The Ring-necked Duck remains at Llyn Brenig and a Hooded Crow at Llandudno’s West Shore, with others recently on Bardsey and on Anglesey at Newborough and Traeth Coch. A Common Scoter alighted on Llyn Arenig Fach for a couple of days, perhaps an early returning migrant to Cardigan Bay from Russia. A Black Redstart was a surprising summer visitor to Llanfair Talhaiarn and 100 Swifts over Bagillt is noteworthy for its relative rarity: there were only four counts of larger numbers in the whole of Wales last year, indicative of the decline in this tropical migrant.

Browsing the results of the latest BTO/JNCC/RSPB Breeding Bird Survey results shows that Swift numbers in Wales fell a further 16% in just one year to 2023. It was one of 24 species in lower numbers than the previous year, with other big losers including Curlew (-31%), Wheatear (-28%) and Buzzard (-19%). A greater number of species, 36, increased on the previous year, including Red Kite (+28%), Redstart (+25%) and Swallow (+23%). The real value of the BBS is the long-term trends, however, and the biggest losers since 1995 remain Greenfinch, Curlew, Swift and Yellowhammer, all of which have decline by 75%. In other words, for every four individuals of each species in the Welsh countrywide 27 years ago, there is now only one.

Last week, a petition calling on Welsh Government to require “Swift bricks” to be incorporated into all new buildings was launched. Backed by RSPB Cymru, Wildlife Trusts Wales and local Swift groups, it already has more than 1600 signatures, but needs more than 10,000 to trigger consideration for a debate in the Senedd.

Adding a new species to a county list is, on average, a less than annual occurrence, but a single Caspian Gull was added to the avifauna of both Caernarfonshire and Anglesey within a few minutes, as one flew briefly across the Menai Strait from Upper Bangor. Caspian Gull is a rare visitor to Wales, with only 23 previous sightings. Acceptance of this record is subject to verification by the Welsh Birds Rarities Committee, which maintains the Welsh List of birds on behalf of the Welsh Ornithological Society. More photos, by Sam Prettyman, appear below.

Caspian Gull is a regular visitor to southeastern counties of England and has spread west across Europe in the last 100 years. As its name suggests, the species was found around the Caspian Sea in Kazakhstan, west to the Black Sea coast of Ukraine, at the start of the 20th century. The latest assessment, published in the journal British Birds, shows they now breed on the North Sea coast of the Netherlands, where numbers doubled between 2020 and 2022, to 105 pairs. At least 1000 probably winter in France each year. Lack of familiarity by many birdwatchers in North Wales – identification is clinched by build and posture as much as plumage – may be one reason that so few have been found here. Two in Denbighshire are the only Welsh records outside South and West Wales.

June is a quiet month for scarce birds, with few making long-distance movements. Llyn Brenig’s Ring-necked Duck was on nearby Llyn Brân last week, an Icterine Warbler on Bardsey and Hooded Crows at Rhoscolyn and Llandudno’s West Shore. A couple of Arctic Skuas were blown into the Menai Strait and a Pale-bellied Brent Goose that missed the flight to eastern Canada is summering at Foryd Bay.
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In just a few days, more than 1200 people have signed a petition calling on Welsh Government to require “Swift bricks” to be incorporated into all new buildings. The petition opened in the week that the UK Government refused a plea for similar measures to be implemented in England, despite a well-supported campaign by writer Hannah Bourne-Taylor. The Senedd petition, which can be found here, is supported by RSPB Cymru, Wildlife Trusts Wales and local Swift groups across the country. Swift bricks, along with wetland restoration and a Sustainable Farming Scheme that promotes habitats to support aerial insects, would be a cheap solution to help resolve the housing crisis for a migratory species that has declined by 76% since 1995. It seems like an easy win for the new Cabinet Secretary for Local Government, Julie James MS, who until recently had responsibility for nature recovery.

Ynys Enlli, off the tip of Pen Llŷn, is no stranger to rare birds, having notched up almost 40 species not previously recorded in Wales since Bardsey Bird Observatory was established in 1953. The “island of 20,000 saints” is home to thousands of breeding seabirds and typically eight pairs of red-billed Chough, almost 4% of the Welsh total. But it is almost 70 years since the rasping call of Corncrakes was heard regularly, although one does stop briefly on the island every few years.

A Corncrake was heard daily for a couple of weeks during April, having arrived from central Africa. The call has been likened to running a nail file across the teeth of a comb and is generally made at dusk and dawn, and frequently through the night. When it stopped calling, Bird Observatory staff assumed it had moved on to the Western Isles of Scotland, which hold almost all of the remnant UK population.

That was not the end of the story, however, as three different Corncrakes were heard on Bardsey during May. It is the first time since 2005 that the island held one through the spring but it’s the first year with multiple residents since 1956. The Bardsey records will soon be added to RSPB Scotland’s interactive observations map, part of a Lottery-funded project to save the species from UK extinction.

Corncrakes are secretive birds that hide in long grass, but with wildlife-friendly farming and an absence of rats and cats on Ynys Enlli, it is quite possible that the trio of males have attracted a female or two. Proving breeding will be a challenge, but if confirmed would be the first in Wales since 1992, when pairs bred in Anglesey and Denbighshire following a small influx.

Late migrants last week included Curlew Sandpipers on the Dulas estuary and at Rhos Point. Seven Egyptian Geese dropped into Cemlyn briefly, the Ring-necked Duck remains on Llyn Brenig, a Whooper Swan off Porthmadog Cob, and Hooded Crows were on Bardsey, the Clwyd estuary and the Great Orme.