Gales bring seabirds – but how many sightings are lost?

Sabine's Gull (Christopher Bill)

The winds pushed passage seabirds to the coast over the weekend, including Sabine’s Gulls past Point Lynas, Ynys Llanddwyn and Bardsey, with a few Storm Petrels past the latter island. Another Sabine’s Gull was an unusual record for the Dee estuary, flying over Flint Castle on Friday, where the rare Hudsonian Godwit has been spotted intermittently throughout the week. A Caspian Gull, the fourth of the summer in North Wales, was at Gronant with a Spotted Redshank on Sunday.

Swallows and House Martins, buffeted by the gales, were not to be stopped in their determined southward flight, coming in low over the coast and on through the mountains of Eryri. A few Wheatears paused, but within weeks will be on the south side of the Sahara. Meanwhile, the first Pale-bellied Brent Geese arrived in Foryd Bay from their breeding quarters in eastern Canada.

Drawing together many thousands of bird sightings each year is a monumental task, and I am always staggered by the effort that goes into producing county reports each year for 12 of the nature recording areas in Wales, plus the two island Bird Observatories. Not only the rare visitors, but assessments of the status of breeding and wintering species. The Northeast Wales Bird Report for 2023 has been published recently (cofnod.org.uk/CBRG) as, just outside the BirdNotes area, has the report for Montgomeryshire.

With so many ways in which bird news can now be shared, it is a timely reminder to submit your records to either your Local Environmental Records Centre (Cofnod for North Wales), BirdTrack or eBird. So many valuable records must be lost each year because they make it no further than a social media post or WhatsApp message. Yet such records are essential when planners need to understand the importance of a site or local people want to defend places from potentially damaging developments. One recent example was a collation of ten years of waterbird records from the rocky beach at Rhos Point, used by Conwy Council to introduce a year-round dog control order.