The rapid greening of the hawthorn leaves on hedgerows, surprisingly advanced for the third week of March, is starting to hide early nests delicately woven by Long-tailed Tits, Blackbirds and Dunnocks. It’s a reminder to put the hedge-trimmer back in the shed for the winter, and to leave part of the lawn uncut so that emerging insects can find pollen and nectar.

Chiffchaffs are now widespread in our woodlands, Sandwich Terns have been at several coastal watchpoints and Sand Martins are already exploring potential nest sites. The descending cadence of Willow Warblers, which used to be unusual in March, have been heard in several places, and six House Martins at RSPB Conwy last Friday were the first of the year in North Wales. Bird observatory wardens have returned to Bardsey, kicking off with a Firecrest on Sunday, among 219 migrating Goldcrests ringed on Sunday and Monday. They caught 177 Goldcrests all year in 2022!

Ring Ouzels are back on breeding territory in Nant Ffrancon and around Aber Falls, a few days after the first northbound bird stopped on the Great Orme. A pair of Garganeys were at RSPB Cors Ddyga on Sunday and an Alpine Swift was reported over Talacre on Wednesday. Several Ospreys have passed through the region; one caught a fish at Llyn Brenig on Sunday, but was not one of the breeding pair. Females have returned to nest sites on the Dyfi estuary and Llyn Clywedog, and those in North Wales should arrive in the next 10 days.

Winter birds are shipping out, but almost 50 Great Northern Divers in Caernarfon Bay, a regular stop for northbound migrants. Four Velvets Scoters and two Surf Scoters remain at Llanddulas, a Water Pipit was at RSPB Cors Ddyga, Twite at Gronant, Fieldfares on Mynydd Hiraethog, and Redwings and Bramblings over the Great Orme. In the Dee estuary, Hilbre Bird Observatory’s first Bearded Tit was a surprise last week and a Long-billed Dowitcher is at RSPB Burton Mere Wetlands.

[text updated on 28 March to reflect increased numbers of Goldcrests on Bardsey, and the return of two nesting Ospreys on the previous day]

Past the spring equinox, a mass movement of birds from the tropics and southern hemisphere is underway. Over the next eight weeks, hundreds of millions of birds will move north. The first Swallow and Garganey were in North Wales a fortnight ago, but more migrants arrived in the last week. The first Sand Martin was at Gronant last Wednesday and Wheatears on the Great Orme from Thursday, with more of each at numerous locations in the following days. Three Garganeys were on Glaslyn Marshes on Sunday and Swallows have been seen in Llandudno and Aber Dysynni. In Pembrokeshire on Sunday, Skokholm Bird Observatory noted its earliest Willow Warbler in almost a century of recording.

Birders on coastal headlands witnessed Meadow Pipits on passage, including a few that show peachy plumage. These orangey-washed birds may have unusually strong red pigmentation in their feathers, but seem to occur more frequently in western Britain during late March and April than elsewhere. But no-one knows whether they represent a discrete breeding population.

The standout migration event has been Alpine Swifts, a species that breeds no closer than the northern foothills of the Alps. They have been reported from more than 60 locations in Britain and Ireland in the last week, with multiple counts in many places, including nine over Bray in Co. Wicklow, visible from Anglesey in clear conditions, just 53 miles away. One was reported in Rhos-on-Sea last Thursday, but more may appear as these highly mobile birds attempt to relocate to central Europe.

Winter visitors will remain for a few weeks yet. Weekend sightings included Snow Buntings at Amlwch, Kinmel Bay and Gronant, where 21 Twite forage for seeds on saltmarsh plants, and an Iceland Gull at Moelfre. Two Slavonian Grebes in breeding plumage on the Alaw estuary will soon be heading north.

The wintry weather has paused the start of spring for some. Several Stonechats alongside the Conwy estuary on Saturday had perhaps been pushed downhill from nesting territories they had already established. In Bala, a flock of finches included 20 Bramblings, forced to take on extra food from a garden during spring migration to Scandinavia. The first Curlews were on territory in Mynydd Hiraethog last week but may have had second thoughts as the snow fell. This young Robin had probably left its nest several days prior to being photographed on the Prestatyn-Dyserth Walkway on 9 March. The egg from which it hatched would have been laid in early February.

Local readers have also seen Blackbirds carrying food to garden nest sites this week. Juvenile Crossbills in Clocaenog are less surprising since they time their breeding to the availability of pine seeds and so frequently nest in mid-winter. A Swallow at Felinheli, Sandwich Tern in Holyhead Bay and Garganey reported at RSPB Conwy are early returnees from Africa, while the first Wheatear and Sand Martins are in southern Wales.

The Baikal Teal remains at Foryd, near Caernarfon, Surf Scoters off Llanddulas, Snow Bunting at Kinmel Bay and five Ruddy Shelducks on the Clwyd estuary. A Black Redstart was near RAF Valley on Sunday, two Long-tailed Ducks off Llanddona and a dozen Twite at Gronant.

Bird Book of the Year, judged by the British Trust for Ornithology and British Birds, has been awarded to Low-carbon Birding, an anthology edited by Javier Caletrío. It shows how birdwatchers are responding to the climate and nature emergency by changing their behaviours. It is a timely decision to give the country's leading bird book prize to a work about how our interest affects the birds we love. The latest Sunday evening BBC nature blockbuster, fronted by Sir David Attenborough, highlights that Britain & Ireland can match wildlife anywhere on the planet. Coinciding with the series, WWF-UK, The National Trust and RSPB have kicked off a bilingual campaign to Save Our Wild Isles which calls on people to act for nature, and demand that business and political leaders do the same.

This week’s forecast Arctic blast of weather was prefaced by the appearance in central Anglesey of a duck from the east. A male Smew is on Cefni Reservoir, already providing a winter home to a Ring-necked Duck from North America. Smew visit from northern Scandinavia and Russia, where they nest in large holes, often made by a Black Woodpecker, in mature broad-leaved trees such as oak, willow and aspen.

The fortunes of these two ducks would astonish an ornithologist from a century ago. In recent years, the number of Ring-necked Ducks has increased and it is no longer considered a rarity by the Welsh Ornithological Society. Smew has become much rarer, however, as its winter range has contracted to the north and east, a phenomenon known as ‘short-stopping’. With climate change reducing the frequency of wintering waterbirds such as Bewick’s Swans here, expect fewer Smew to make it to Wales.

Sightings of adult male Smew are unusual – the last in North Wales was back in February 2006. While its English name is probably of Dutch origin, its Welsh name Lleian Wen (white nun) derives from the male’s appearance. Most Smew in Wales are ‘redheads’, a term used to describe females and males in their first winter.

Other waterbirds along our coast include Baikal Teal and Scaup at Foryd, near Caernarfon; Surf Scoters at Llanddulas and Benllech, and Long-tailed Duck and Black-throated Diver at the latter site. Four Slavonian Grebes are on Anglesey’s Inland Sea and another two were reported off Llanfairfechan at the weekend, where more than 120 Great Crested Grebes have gathered before they disperse to inland breeding lakes.

Chiffchaffs and Blackcaps seen recently may have overwintered here, but those showing traces of pollen around the base of the bill have probably arrived from the south, where spring is more advanced. A Swallow at RSPB Cors Ddyga on Sunday is the first of the year reported in North Wales. A Bearded Tit was reported from Gronant last week, the second record in the region in recent weeks.

Despite the cold wind, spring showed its face at the weekend: frogspawn in a farm pond, bright yellow Lesser Celandine flowers unfurling in the verges and Rooks arguing over the growing piles of sticks in trees whose leaves are yet to bud. The rookery at the edge of my village has grown from two to ten nests in the last week alone.

The Welsh Ornithological Society is seeking help with the second year of its national survey of rookeries. This farmland crow has declined by more than 60% since 1995 and since 2019 it has been illegal to kill Rooks or destroy their nests. The WOS survey asks people to census 2-km squares and to report any rookeries they count to the local records centre, Cofnod. Full details of how to take part are on the WOS website birdsin.wales.

A Cambridge University study has highlighted the slow take-up of alternatives to toxic lead ammunition. Lead shot from spent cartridges is ingested from the ground by birds and fragments of bullets and shot in carcasses can be scavenged by birds such as raptors and Ravens, as well as mammals. Up to 100,000 birds are thought to die of the sub-lethal effects of lead poisoning each year, even though lead shot use over wetlands has been banned in Wales for two decades. The new study shows that 94% of Pheasants sampled contained lead shot. The proportion of Pheasants shot with a non-lead alternative has increased from 1% to 6% in the last year, but there are just another two years before farming and shooting organisations had planned a voluntary end to the use of lead shot. Professor Rhys Green from the University’s Zoology department said “If UK game hunters are going to phase out lead shot voluntarily, they’re not doing very well so far. The small decrease… is nowhere near on track to achieve a complete transition to non-toxic ammunition in the next two years.”

Having gone missing for a week, the male Baikal Teal is again in Foryd Bay, along with a Scaup. Two Surf Scoters and up to 10 Velvet Scoters are off Llanddulas and a Slavonian Grebe off Pensarn. A flock of Pink-footed Geese is at Gronant, with Twite, Jack Snipe and Yellow-legged Gulls nearby. Water Pipits were spotted at Gronant and at RSPB Conwy, where another Scaup and a couple of Spotted Redshanks have wintered. A Firecrest was in Newborough Forest at the weekend and a group of Ruddy Shelducks on the Clwyd estuary last week. A Hooded Crow remains at Bychestyn, near Aberdaron, and Slavonian Grebes and Scaup are on Anglesey’s Inland Sea.

With early Sand Martins already in southwest England and Wheatears in west Wales last week, keep an eye open for the flash of a white rump on coastal headlands or the hills, although northerly winds will surely slow down the advance guard of migrants.

Bangor Bird Group meets in person for the first time in three years on Wednesday 1 March, with a free public lecture at Pontio by Professor Tim Birkhead. Birds and Us reviews human interactions with birds throughout our 12,000 years of documented history from Egyptian Ibis Mummies, through scientific experimentation, engineering mimicry and artistic inspiration, to concern for their conservation and wellbeing. For details and tickets, book here.

Seaducks, known as scoters, feature regularly in Bird Notes, but rarely interest anyone without a high-powered telescope. Even then, a view usually involves black dots flying halfway to the horizon or bobbing on the sea, glimpsed briefly between the waves. Small numbers of Common Scoters winter in Cardigan Bay and larger flocks are frequently off Benllech and Llanddulas-Pensarn. Liverpool Bay is designated a Special Protection Area for Common Scoters (and several other species), requiring the UK and Welsh Governments to take measures to secure their conservation.

Aerial surveys ahead of windfarm installations show the scoter flock in Liverpool Bay to be very mobile. It has numbered almost 290,000 birds in recent years – remarkably, that’s more than twice the current estimate of the average UK wintering population, and more than one quarter of the global total. Numbers may peak in late winter as Russian- and Scandinavian-breeding Common Scoters here since October are joined temporarily by those that wintered in the North Sea and stop here on their way to Iceland.

Each winter, a few rarer scoters are seen from shore: Velvet Scoters that also breed in the Eurasian tundra and Surf Scoters, their rarer North American relative. Last week, all three species were unusually close to land, enabling some of the best photographs to be taken in Welsh waters. The image above won Henllan photographer Tony Pope the Photo of the Week award from the Birdguides news service. Up to eight Surf Scoters have been seen at one time off the Conwy coast in the last decade, and it’s interesting to speculate where these go each summer, as well as how many more there are beyond our eyesight.

Other sightings in the last week include a Green-winged Teal at RSPB Cors Ddyga, Cattle Egrets at Valley, Water Pipit at Gronant and Ring-necked Duck on Cefni Reservoir. Slavonian Grebes are off the Great Orme, Pensarn and in Beddmanarch Bay, Hawfinches at Llanrwst and Llanbedr y Cennin, and long-staying Black Redstart and Snow Bunting at Kinmel Bay.

Wetland creation at RSPB Cors Ddyga in Anglesey’s Cefni Valley has been a spectacular success, as a weekend walk illustrated: to the bass notes of a booming Bittern, 500 Lapwings fed on the fields, interspersed with Pintails, Shovelers, Wigeons and a single Ruff. Marsh Harriers quartered over the reedbed and a Merlin perched up, taking a rest from hunting Meadow Pipits that it has perhaps followed down from the moors. I failed to hear the pinging call of a Bearded Tit reported here on Friday, the first on the island for some years. Habitat restoration here looks good for Bearded Tits to live year-round, and it would be great if they could establish a western outpost to add to their colonisation of the upper Dee estuary since 2019.

Rare waterbirds remain a theme of the North Wales birding scene, with the Baikal Teal at Foryd, west of Caernarfon, and Ring-necked Duck on Cefni Reservoir. A Surf Scoter is with several Long-tailed Ducks off Benllech and two are with Velvet Scoters off Llanddulas. A Slavonian Grebe was off Pensarn and five wereoff Penmaenmawr, a sight that used to be more frequent here. More than 50 Great Northern Divers are in Caernarfon Bay, off Pontllyfni, a regular gathering point in late winter before they head to their Arctic breeding grounds.

Whooper Swans were with Goldeneyes on Llyn y Dywarchen, near Rhyd Ddu, on Sunday as I walked up nearby Mynydd Mawr to the honking calls of barrel-rolling Ravens and a Kestrel hovering over the heather. The swans may be passing through, as were a flock of Meadow Pipits near the summit. An overwintering Snow Bunting remains at Horton’s Nose, Kinmel Bay, while a group of Pale-bellied Brent Geese at the mouth of the River Clwyd and a Long-tailed Duck in the estuary were unusual.

Volunteers at RSPB Conwy are organising a walk for young birders (age 8-16) during half term, on 25 February, with the potential for more such events if there is sufficient interest. Visit the RSPB website for more details and to book.

A rare duck that breeds in northeast Russia and usually winters in Japan and Korea, was a surprise find in Foryd, west of Caernarfon, on Sunday. It is the first Baikal Teal recorded in North Wales, and comes less than a month after the first in Wales, at Llangorse Lake in Powys. It is tempting to assume this was the same male and there’ll be close scrutiny of the photographs, but interestingly the Powys bird was with Teal and the Foryd bird with Pintails, which may point to different individuals. Waterbirds that are out-of-range often stick close to birds from the same area, and while Wigeons and Teal originate from the east, the few ringing recoveries of Pintail in north Wales suggest an Icelandic origin – although some Pintails in Ireland arrive from the east. To add to the intrigue, a female Baikal Teal was at a South Yorkshire gravel-pit in mid January, and individuals have also been seen in southern Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands and Greece this winter.

Baikal Teal had a slow journey onto the list of birds accepted as wild in Europe because its colourful appearance made it popular in waterfowl collections. Modern science was key to changing our understanding. Stable isotope analysis can be used to infer diet, foraging and climatic origin from a feather sample, using the ‘signature’ embedded during its growth. A Baikal Teal accidentally shot by a hunter in Denmark in 2005 had an isotope signature characteristic of the climate found in the extreme tundra of Russia, suggesting that the species could make it to Europe. The Danish results prompted testing of a museum specimen obtained in Essex in 1906, and this too had feather isotopes likely to be from northern Asia. Up to 2021, a dozen Baikal Teals considered to be wild had been recorded in Britain, but none in Wales.

Other unusual ducks in the region at the weekend include Ring-necked Ducks on Cefni Reservoir and Llyn Tegid. Two Surf Scoters off Llanddulas proved to be different from one off Benllech at the same time, the latter along with at least six Long-tailed Ducks and three Velvet Scoters. Five Ruddy Shelducks beside the Clwyd estuary on Sunday may have more questionable origin, and perhaps include birds seen recently on the Dee. Firecrests were at Bodnant Garden and Morfa Madryn, a Black Redstart at Aberdaron, four Hawfinches in Llanrwst, and Snow Buntings at RSPB South Stack and Kinmel Bay.

*This post has been updated from the original to reflect relevant information to the Baikal Teals seen in Yorkshire and Norway*

Hot on the heels of last weekend’s popular RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch (don't forget to enter your results!), Friday sees the start of the GWCT Big Farmland Bird Count. It asks farmers to spend half an hour  before 19 February counting the birds and submitting the results to bfbc.org.uk. Last year, 1900 farmers participated, recording Blackbird, Woodpigeon and Robin as the three most common species. 

I wonder if any farmers on Pen Llŷn will be taking part? My coastal path walk from Aberdaron to Uwchmynydd on Sunday was rich in birdlife. A flock – clattering is the collective noun - of three dozen Choughs made their space-invader calls as they tumbled over the cliffs, which are grazed by a small herd of beef cattle. A little farther on, a Kestrel swept low over a field, scattering a flock of Chaffinches into the hedgerow and spooking 60 Skylarks upward in a cascade of liquid trills. Flocks of Lapwings and Curlews, both Welsh Red-listed birds of conservation concern, foraged in roadside fields. It’s good to see farmers and the National Trust producing good conditions for wintering birds.

Anglesey’s second Surf Scoter and an impressive count of 215 Great Crested Grebes were off Benllech at the weekend. The duck was probably the one recently off Llanddulas, where a dozen Velvet Scoters were seen on Friday. Black-throated Divers were off Moelfre and Pontllyfni, Ring-necked Ducks remain at Cefni Reservoir and Llyn Tegid, a Snow Bunting at Kinmel Bay and a Little Gull was off Llandanwg. Up to 2000 Pink-footed Geese were at Towyn, surely the largest flock in the area since the fields were drained for agricultural improvement. In Flintshire, a Yellow-browed Warbler was found at Basingwerk Abbey and a flock of over 6000 Common Gulls at Gronant included birds colour-ringed in Estonia, Poland, Germany and Norway.

The monthly Wetland Bird Survey takes me to the Conwy estuary, and my January visit generally sees the highest numbers of waterbirds. Well over 1000 Dunlin huddled on the rocky groynes and hundreds of Turnstones and Oystercatchers aggregated above high water. It’s the month when I see the greatest number of Common Gulls, which winter in North Wales from their breeding homes in Scandinavia. My counts are small compared to the Flintshire coast, where more than 4000 Common Gulls are between Gronant and Talacre, some with coloured leg-rings that shows their Norwegian origin. Smaller than a Herring Gull, with green-yellow legs and a bill with a thick black band, it’s not well named in English as it’s less common than our other regular gulls at most times of year.

Also off our coast is a Surf Scoter at Llanddulas, Slavonian Grebe off Beaumaris, Velvet Scoter off Criccieth, Black-necked Grebe and Long-tailed Duck at Borth-y-Gest, and another two Long-tailed Ducks off Benllech. A Ring-necked Duck from North America is on Cefni Reservoir, European White-fronted Goose on the Afon Glaslyn at Porthmadog, Black Redstart at Kinmel Bay, and several Twite and a Siberian Chiffchaff are at Gronant.
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Next weekend is the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch, the UK’s biggest citizen science event of the year. I remember taking part as an eight-year old in the 1970s and it’s great to see multiple generations participating. You don’t have to feed birds to take part, or even to have a garden. Visit your local park for an hour instead. If you provide food and water, give the feeders and bath a good clean this week, air-dry thoroughly, and fill with seeds and water. Watch for one hour next weekend and visit rspb.org.uk/birdwatch to send in your results. Remember, the zeros or low counts are just as important as big counts!