 Swift (Cellan Michael)  Enjoying the cooler garden, after a roasting hot Friday that broke temperature records across the country, the air above our village was suddenly alive with dozens of Swifts. Swooping, gliding, tumbling and chasing down tiny invertebrates beyond my eyesight, and quite likely theirs. Open-billed, they collect food in a pouch at the back of the throat. A few formed tight groups, screaming low over the rooftops, a sign that we still hold on to a small breeding population. The rest of the crowd, at least 50 strong, were either on a feeding trip from nests farther away, or more likely, were yearlings that hatched in 2025 and arrive mid-season from Africa to check out potential nest areas by finding the breeding adults.
A 15-year study by the RSPB Centre for Conservation Science found that 94% of Swifts reused the same nest site as the previous year. All the pairs studied were in nestboxes, but the research published last week highlighted the importance of gaps in roof spaces and ‘Swift Bricks’ embedded in the fabric of the building. My joyful Friday evening and the latest findings came at the start of Swift Awareness Week, which sees events in Menai Bridge, Bethesda, Holyhead, Llanberis and Machynlleth. Check the North Wales Wildlife Trust and RSPB websites for details. An Early Day Motion in Westminster welcoming Swift Awareness Week is sponsored by four Plaid Cymru MPs. There was strong support for mandatory Swift Brick installation among Senedd Members last autumn when it was debated following a public petition. The proposal was rejected by the previous Welsh Government, but campaigners hope that new Ministers will revisit the idea. A couple of Green Sandpipers at RSPB Cors Ddyga are the first sign of southbound migration, yet Quails singing above Capelulo and near Aberdaron last week was almost certainly still going north. A new book by Glenn Morris, published free online, celebrates the first 50 years of Connah’s Quay nature reserve and the adjacent RSPB Oakenholt Marsh, which is overlooked from the CQNR hides managed by Deeside Naturalists’ Society. The book provides an excellent summary of the site’s history and more than 250 species of bird recorded by generations of birdwatchers there. Download your copy from https://www.deenats.org.uk/reports/birdsofconnahsquay.pdf
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 Fork-tailed Swift (Joel Tragen) North Wales’ celebrity waterbird, a Western Reef Heron from West Africa that was found on Foryd and Caernarfon harbour earlier this month, gave birdwatchers a second chance last week when it was relocated on the Conwy estuary. Until Saturday, it spent low tide feeding at Conwy Morfa and moved upriver onto RSPB Conwy’s lagoons during the high tide. Hundreds more birders travelled to see this first for Britain, including some who had missed it the previous weekend when it changed its habits and left Caernarfon. Many will wonder where it will turn up next, with photos subsequently emerging that it had been in Pembrokeshire prior to its visit to North Wales. Birders watching the Reef Heron from Llandudno’s West Shore were surprised to watch a Bittern flying in from the sea, at a time you’d expect it to be hiding in a reedbed.
The heron’s moment in the sun was eclipsed briefly by Wales’ second Fork-tailed Swift on Ynys Enlli, where it was seen for just a few minutes on Saturday morning as it headed north. Bardsey Bird Observatory warden Joel Tragen was quick on the draw with his camera, managing to grab a few images that should ease the record’s journey through the rarities committee, clearly showing its white rump, scimitar-wings and mottled belly. The species, known as Pacific Swift in older bird books, has occurred in Wales only once, on the Gower peninsula in 2021, and only a dozen times across Britain. Once with a near-mythic status among British birders, half the records have occurred since 2020, and it is unclear why sightings have increased. Fork-tailed Swift has a wide distribution from eastern Siberia, through the outer Himalayas to the tropical forests of southeast Asia and wintering as far south as Australia. Elsewhere, a Spoonbill has fed regularly at RSPB Cors Ddyga and a Rosy Starling was in a Tywyn garden. An astonishing nine Quails were ringed over two nights on Pen Llŷn at the weekend, all hatched this year and with the potential to breed in Britain this summer. Quails were also heard at Penrhyn Bay, the Cefni Valley and on Ynys Enlli/Bardsey. As June temperatures are forecast to hit new records, RSPB Cymru has reminded householders to maintain good hygiene around bird baths to reduce the spread of disease. Use tap water, change it daily and give baths a thorough clean at least once a week. If that’s not possible, leave them empty. More advice on the RSPB website.  Nightjar (Chris Knights). Photo courtesy of the British Trust for Ornithology Populations of Nightjar, Woodlark and Dartford Warbler have increased across Britain, say organisers of the Heathland Birds Survey.* Last spring, birdwatchers counted numbers of the two songbird species, then went out at dusk on summer nights to listen for the indescribable ‘churring’ sound of the Nightjar.
These nocturnal summer visitors, which can open their mouth horizontally and vertically to catch flying insects - such as moths - like a big sweep net, saw the biggest change. The number of Nightjar territories counted in Wales was 30% higher than in 2004 and the area occupied expanded by around 50%, with increases particularly in northwest and mid Wales. It’s a reversal in fortune for a bird that was once common in woodland and ffridd, its association with bracken-covered slopes reflected in the old name “Fern Owl”. Its crepuscular habits, cryptic plumage and strange call led to a suite of rural myths, some dating back thousands of years, such as the claim that it would suckle on nanny goats. Nightjar populations in Wales fell through the 20th century as lowland heaths were ploughed and uplands improved for sheep grazing and planted for timber. More recently, they moved in to the temporary open habitat created by clearfelling, before new trees are planted or regenerate naturally. Dartford Warbler, on the other hand, is a relative newcomer to North Wales, with the first breeding in 2011, only a few years after the first sighting. The survey reports that its breeding distribution has remained largely unchanged in Wales since 2006 and, while the number of territories recorded dropped slightly from 41 to 33, organisers consider that with large amounts of suitable habitat not surveyed, the population is stable, if not increasing. ‘Darties’ nested on Anglesey for the first time last year, the most northerly site in the world, having bred at several sites on the mainland in recent years. Unlike most warblers, they do not migrate south in autumn, so have to tough it out through a Welsh winter, suffering during prolonged periods of snow and ice. Woodlarks were widespread in Wales until 200 years ago, but a series of cold winters and changes in farming and forestry caused their national extinction. The last breeding record in North Wales was in the late 1960s, and Woodlarks are now a scarce visitor to the region. They nested sporadically in South Wales and last year’s survey failed to find any signs of a return. All three species are projected to increase their range and numbers as the climate warms, providing suitable heathland habitat is maintained. Critically, the southern range of Dartford Warblers is expected to move north away from its Iberian stronghold, and maps already show losses in Italy. Nightjars, however, have an additional challenge as the distance to their wintering grounds increases. Studies based on Nightjars tagged in North Wales, among other places, suggest that migration distances will increase by up to 40% by the final decades of this century, depending on land-use at their stopovers between here and central Africa. Caernarfon’s Western Reef Heron attracted birders throughout the week before doing a ‘Friday night flit’. Many will wonder where the West African visitor will appear next, as photos posted online suggest that the bird was on Pembrokeshire’s Cleddau estuary on 13 May. Aside from a very unseasonal Iceland Gull at Bangor Pier, it was a quiet week for migrants in North Wales. Two Quails on Bardsey and one in Mynydd Hiraethog were part of a wider movement into Britain, two Spoonbills were on Anglesey’s Braint estuary, Hawfinches visited a Conwy garden and a Hooded Crow returned to the Clwyd estuary. *The Heathland Bird Survey was delivered by the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) and the RSPB, and funded by Natural England and Defra.  Western Reef Heron (John Riley)  Caernarfon residents woke on Sunday to an array of expensive optical equipment lined along the harbour wall. Britain’s first Western Reef Heron has attracted birders from across the country since it was found on Saturday morning on the nearby Foryd. With bluish-grey feathers, including wispy plumes on its body as well as several long feathers from its crown, this is a dark-morph individual, substantially easier to distinguish from white-morph birds that can easily be overlooked as Little Egrets. It has spent much of its time feeding on the muddy shores of the tidal bay, but also comes to the Seiont estuary, especially at high tide when it perches in trees that line the western bank.
The Western Reef Heron originates in West Africa, so most birders’ have only limited experience of the species, most usually in The Gambia, but like most herons, they can travel widely. The number of records has increased in southern Europe and, since the 1980s some have crossed the Atlantic, but the Caernarfon bird is one of, if not the, northernmost ever. The enormity of the find, by Simon Hugheston-Roberts who also found Wales’ first Bufflehead at the same site last December, is illustrated by the fact that of the 636 species on the British List, only five have their first records in North Wales – although a White Tern at Llanberis last year awaits confirmation as a sixth. One visiting birder found a Blue-headed Wagtail on Sunday along the coastal road west of Caernarfon. Elsewhere, a female Woodchat Shrike has entered its second week at RSPB South Stack, feeding on the plentiful supply of insects on the reserve’s heathland. A Black Redstart was reported below the A55 at Penmaenmawr and up to 15 Mediterranean Gulls have been on Porthmadog’s Llyn Bach.  Woodchat Shrike (John Riley) RSPB South Stack hosted two different types of shrike at the weekend, one attracting plenty of attention from visitors. A female Woodchat Shrike spent several days hunting below the Visitor Centre. The name ‘butcher bird’ is enshrined in their scientific family name Lanius (from the Latin laniare, ‘to tear to pieces’), owed to their habit of impaling prey on a sharp thorn. She was seen spiking lizards and bumblebees on the Western Gorse that is a feature of the Anglesey coastal heath. Remarkably, another species of shrike – a male Red-backed – was found at the southern end of the reserve, on Penrhosfeilw Common, on Saturday, but soon vanished.
Both shrikes are scarce visitors to Wales, but the Woodchat is rarer. This was the first on Ynys Gybi/Holy Island since one at Porth Dafarch in 1928, and the odds of a repeat are getting smaller. The population is classed as Near Threatened and the northern edge of its breeding range has contracted south in recent decades, as changes in farming out-compete the changing climate. Red-backed Shrikes have gone the same way. They used to breed widely across Wales but declined over a couple of centuries as farming changed the landscape; it was very common on ffridd, a habitat of which we have lost so much. In the 19th century, many were trapped by the gruesome practice of ‘liming’ – caught on twigs coated in a sticky substance from which they couldn’t release themselves – on Ynys Gybi headlands. The last Red-backed Shrikes to nest on Anglesey were near Newborough in 1917 and on the mainland in the Aber Valley in 1952, but males occasionally turn up and hold territory for a few days. One did exactly that last month in Mynydd Hiraethog. Other scarce visitors to the region include a colourful adult Rosy Starling in a north Anglesey garden, Quails on Mynydd Bodafon and Ruabon Moor, a couple of Little Stints on the Alaw estuary and a Spoonbill at RSPB Cors Ddyga. |
Bird notesA weekly update of bird sightings and news from North Wales, published in The Daily Post every Thursday. Archives
July 2026
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