​Leading ornithologists from across the world met in Bangor last week as the University hosted the European Ornithologists Union conference. It is only the second time the UK has been the venue for the event, which is held in alternate years. Symposia were held on a range of topics, from the effects of artificial light and climate change to urban birds and migration.

The British Ornithologists’ Union organised a fascinating day devoted to woodland birds, of particular interest to the host nation, since Wales holds important numbers of the UK’s declining migratory species such as Pied Flycatcher and Wood Warbler, and cryptic birds such as Hawfinch. It was an opportunity to share notes and knowledge with researchers across Europe who study the same species, from the alpine woodlands of Switzerland to Białowieża on the Poland/Belarus border, one of the last and largest remaining primeval forests in Europe.

Of particular interest was the Woodpecker Network, set up by Ken and Linda Smith to co-ordinate and support studies of the three species that breed in Britain and Ireland. Their work on Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers is a superb example of citizen-science, which collects valuable data from cavity nests across their range in England and Wales. It is a species that has become hard to detect as numbers have crashed: the Welsh Bird Report has documented only around 10 confirmed records annually in recent years. The Network awards exclusive pin-badges to anyone who finds a ‘Lesser Spot’ nest, such is the skill and dedication required.

2025 has been an excellent year at Lesser Spotted Woodpecker nests monitored, with the average number of chicks fledged bucking the long-term trend and more typical of continental Europe. Photos taken at nests show that parents were bringing in good quantities of aphids, an important part of their diet as chicks grow. The Network is testing the use of remote audio devices that constantly record sounds in a woodland, training computers to pick out calls and drumming. This may be an effective way of detecting Lesser Spotted Woodpecker early in the year, providing a way to survey their presence. That would help to answer the question whether they really have disappeared from most woodlands in North Wales.

Passage waders have dominated the local birding news. A White-rumped Sandpiper at Malltraeth Cob was the best find last week, the first ever in Anglesey. RSPB Conwy hosted Garganey, Wood Sandpiper, Spotted Redshank and Little Stint at the weekend, with Little Stints also at Gronant, Traeth y Gribin and, unusual inland, Aled Isaf Reservoir, Mynydd Hiraethog. Another Wood Sandpiper was at Malltraeth and RSPB Cors Ddyga, where six Cattle Egrets feed – appropriately – among grazing cows. A Spotted Redshank and two Spoonbills were at Gronant, the latter having earlier visited the Clwyd estuary in the company of a Black Tern. A Red-backed Shrike was a great discovery between Rhoscolyn and Trearddur Bay, while warm air brought migrant Clouded Yellow butterflies across the region. 

​Exciting news from Cors Ddyga, the wetland restored in the Cefni Valley over the last quarter century, where RSPB Cymru has announced that four Great White Egrets have fledged from two nests this summer. They are the first ever proven to breed in Wales, 13 years after the species first nested in the UK; more than 100 breeding pairs now breed in England.

One of the Cors Ddyga mums hatched in Somerset: its leg ring shows it was a chick at Shapwick Heath in April 2022 and a DNA test from a stray feather that it is a female. She visited several sites in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire in her first summer, then turned up at RSPB Burton Mere Wetlands in July 2023, but wasn’t reported again until a sharp-eyed birder at Cors Ddyga read the ABM on its red ring.

Great White Egrets are the larger cousin of the Little Egret, which has become a familiar sight in North Wales in the last two decades. Great Whites are a similar size to Grey Herons, standing at a metre tall, with a wingspan more than half as wide again. Great White Egrets have a bright yellow bill for much of the year, but this turns black temporarily when adults are in breeding condition.

For Great White Egrets, this is the latest step in their expansion across Europe, initially benefiting from effective legal protection after their plumes were targeted for the fashion trade until early last century. Wetland restoration and the warming climate have also powered the recovery, the Egrets benefiting from habitat created across Britain since the 1990s for Bitterns, which now breed at several sites on Anglesey. It’s thought that Great Whites have adapted their diet, able to exploit different sources of food as they spread west and north.

As well as being the first proven in Wales, these are also among the most northern Great White Egret nests in Britain. The Rare Breeding Birds Panel, which documents all records of UK species that have fewer than 2000 pairs, shows that RSPB Burton Mere Wetlands, just over the Flintshire border, was the most northerly until the first pair bred at RSPB Loch of Strathbeg in Scotland in 2024, representing a huge leap in range.
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It will be fascinating to see what happens next. The Somerset Levels accounts for more than three-quarters of the UK population, having responded to large-scale habitat restoration in the county. Birders will be watching to see whether the youngsters stay in the Cefni Valley and this becomes the foundation of a new population in North Wales.

Wherever I walked at the weekend, it seemed that each bush, tree and hedgerow contained a Chiffchaff. Not the disyllabic, shouty song that heralds spring and continued into July, but the softer “hweet” call used to contact each other while they moult, on migration and in scrubby desert around the Mediterranean where most British Chiffchaffs spend the winter. While we are quick to note the first summer migrants, it’s harder to know when you’ll hear your last unless you keep a careful record. It's one reason that I use BirdTrack, the bird sightings smartphone app, to maintain a list of every species I see and hear.

The Chiffchaffs I heard at the weekend – on Anglesey, Eryri and on the Llŷn – may be local breeders that are moulting their flight feathers before departing south, but other migrants with farther to travel are definitely on the move.

Each wetland I visited on Anglesey provided sustenance for Sand Martins by the hundred, with dozens of Swifts too. House Martins, on the other hand, can have chicks in nests well into September, and it was a thrill to watch a dozen feed on insects over the hillside above Llyn Dinas, where the National Trust is encouraging natural woodland regeneration. A family of Spotted Flycatchers – a Red List bird of conservation concern – were enjoying the invertebrate feast too.

More unusual sightings this week included a Sabine’s Gull drifting north on the sea from Bardsey, a Balearic Shearwater off Porth Ysgaden, and Storm Petrel, Arctic and Great Skua off Rhos Point, in the wake of last week’s strong winds.

The first Teal and Wigeons of winter were recorded on local Wetland Bird Surveys (WeBS), the scheme that monitors the fortunes of the UK’s waterbirds. A recent study led by the British Trust for Ornithology showed that by combining winter data across temperate countries, scientists could produce waterbird indicators to track numbers and breeding performance in the remote north, where surveys are impractical. Since Arctic areas are experiencing the greatest impact of climate warming, this approach might be the only way to track changes faced by the birds we share.

Populations of most breeding birds are measured in pairs, or sometimes, singing males, and while most small songbirds attempt to nest every year of their short lives, the same is not true of larger birds. Choughs, for example, start to breed only at three years old and so non-breeding young birds are a really important component of the population. So too for seabirds, which may not recruit into the breeding population until they are five or six. I was mulling on this while counting 110 Mute Swans at Aber Ogwen, among which a couple of escaped Black Swans hang out. A site record 58 Mute Swans were at RSPB Conwy recently. The total from these two sites alone is greater than the entire breeding population in North Wales. These non-breeders are moulting their flight feathers where they feel safe on the water. Ringing shows that summer gatherings of Mute Swans in North Wales include birds from Cheshire, Shropshire and Staffordshire. Successful parents moult close to their nests while guarding their cygnets that have yet to fledge.

Early August is a good time to listen out for Yellow Wagtails, a migrant that breeds in just a few fields on the Flintshire/Cheshire border and not to be confused with Grey Wagtails that nest beside our rivers and are also bright yellow underneath. Yellow Wagtails pass over our coast as they head back to Africa. Several fed with Pied Wagtails along Traeth Lafan last week and others were over Gronant and RSPB Cors Ddyga, where two Garganey and a couple of Mandarin were seen. A Pacific Golden Plover on the Alaw estuary on Saturday was only the fourth ever seen in Wales, but the second on Anglesey, after one at Malltraeth in 2021.

Three Quails called by the Dee near Holt on Sunday and downstream, a similar count of Spotted Redshanks fed at Connah’s Quay. Hundreds of Common Scoters passed across the Pennines into Liverpool Bay, from which the occasional stray pitched down in the wrong place, such as on the boating lake at Shotwick. Storm Floris brought Little Gulls to Porthmadog’s Llyn Bach and Gronant, where a Yellow-legged Gull roosted on the beach. A couple of Egyptian Geese were near Llanedwen at the weekend and four Great White Egrets are on the Conwy estuary.