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.