Shrikes and Spoons visit North Wales

Spoonbill (Michael Thackeray)

Late May is a time that migrants from southern and eastern Europe can arrive in Britain having travelled farther than intended in their journey from Africa. Prolonged high pressure has provided perfect conditions for these scarce visitors, with Black Kites and Hoopoes in North Wales in recent weeks. Monday brought two Red-backed Shrikes to the region: a male near Llangefni and a female at Cilcain in the Clwydian hills.
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Their presence was an echo of former times, for Red-backed Shrike used to be a widespread breeding species. Thomas Eyton, friend and contemporary of Charles Darwin, wrote one of the first books about the birdlife of North Wales in which he described “some dozens of them” feeding on grasshoppers on the slopes above Llynnau Mymbyr near Capel Curig in 1838. Regular breeding in Wales ceased soon after the Second World War, with the last known nest in North Wales in the Aber Valley, from which the eggs were stolen in 1952. Records in the region average less than one each year in the last 60 years, and this was the first instance of two on the same day.

An Iberian Yellow Wagtail, potentially the first Welsh record of this form, is near Llanfwrog on Anglesey, although a candidate on the Conwy estuary in 2022 remains with the British Birds Rarities Committee. A Spoonbill has spent several days in the Cob pool at Malltraeth, using its huge spatulate bill to sieve for food. One at Pwllheli last week may have been the same individual, but two others were over Rhuallt on Friday. A Black Stork flew over North Stack last week and while not rare on the coast, Aled Isaf Reservoir in Mynydd Hiraethog was an unusual location for a Whimbrel.

Wildlife Trust wardens are watching a pair of Roseate Terns, Britain’s rarest breeding seabird, that has settled among other terns at Cemlyn lagoon, where the first Black-headed Gull chicks have hatched. Up to three Little Stints and a Curlew Sandpiper fed in the Alaw estuary and a White-tailed Eagle was reported near Llangollen at the weekend.