 Ortolan Bunting (Steve Stansfield) A small songbird, the subject of numerous court cases in France, made appearances across Britain and Ireland last week, with six of the 15 records in Wales, including one on Ynys Enlli/Bardsey. Ortolan Buntings, bound for West Africa after leaving their breeding areas in countries around the Baltic Sea, were grounded after being caught in a weather-system moving north across Britain. Ortolans have become genuinely rare in Wales in recent years, part of a trend that has seen far fewer recorded in Britain as its global population has fallen. Numbers recorded in Wales each decade are half what they were in the 1960s and until last week’s six, only three had been recorded since 2020.
The Ortolans' misfortune is to be considered a gourmet delicacy in France, where tens of thousands were trapped and killed each autumn in the southwest of the country. Hunting was on a scale that contributed to a decline in the European population. Arguments raged for decades after Ortolan Buntings should have been properly protected under EU law, with successive governments accused of ignoring the practice. Eventually it committed to enforcing a ban in 2017, but it is not known whether trapping continues illegally on a damaging scale. Bardsey Bird Observatory also recorded a Western Bonelli’s Warbler at the weekend and seabird passage on Monday that included Sabine’s Gull, several Grey Phalaropes and Sooty Shearwaters. Other highlights around North Wales include a Dotterel that proved popular with birdwatchers on the Great Orme for a week, Black Terns at Rhos Point and Cemlyn, and a Turtle Dove at Y Foryd. Falling reservoir levels attracted a range of passage waders to exposed mud, including Wood Sandpiper at Llyn Cefni and Trawsfynydd, with a Little Stint also at the latter. Curlew Sandpipers and Little Stints were also seen on several of the region’s estuaries. Strong passage of southbound Swallows was evident last week, with many tens of thousands making an in impressive sight and sound as they roosted each evening in reeds at Llyn Maelog near Rhosneigr.
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 Jay (Derek Moore) A walk in the Lledr valley on Sunday, accompanied by the calls of Swallows swooping low over the uncut meadows, feeding up before heading south until next April. The Rowans are bright with red berries and Sycamores hang heavy with ‘keys’, the seeds at the centre of the flat ‘wings’ that will carry them beyond the mother-tree. But noticeable by their absence were acorns. Last autumn’s oak mast was among the most significant in living memory, resulting in huge numbers of seedlings this spring as the production was more than the rodents and birds could eat.
Looking at many hundreds of oaks here, I couldn’t see a single acorn, and I predict that one consequence will be that Jays – the one member of the crow family in the UK that shuns black feathers – will move far and wide. This is most noticeable at the coast, where Jays gather in numbers reluctant to venture out to sea. The largest such movement ever recorded in Wales was in autumn 2021 when daily counts of up to 300 were made at single sites, mainly in the south although Holy Island and Pen Llŷn both saw groups of more than 70 Jays in the second week of October. For a deeper dive, I wrote this blog about the phenomenon for the Woodland Trust Nature’s Calendar project. Watch out for a repeat performance this autumn. Wader passage has picked up this week, with a count of 400 Ringed Plovers at Llandanwg, several Knots and 10 Greenshanks below Porthmadog Cob, Spotted Redshanks at RSPB Conwy and Malltraeth Cob, and Wood Sandpiper and five Ruff on Cefni Reservoir. This week started with a Spoonbill on Anglesey’s Inland Sea while last week saw Black Tern off Afon Wen near Criccieth, a Great Shearwater from the Holyhead ferry, seven Roseate Terns passed Bardsey and a Mediterranean Shearwater from Cemlyn. To the east, a Garganey was on Shotwick lake, eight Ruffs at Gronant and the first Pink-footed Geese are already back from Iceland on the Dee estuary.  Swallow (Dave Parry) Signs of autumn proliferate across the parched countryside, not least from drought-stressed trees already dropping leaves. Stepping on to Ynys Seiriol, usually human-free, we surprised many dozens of Woodpigeons that were used to gorging undisturbed on ripe and juicy elderberries. We were there to check the network of monitoring stations now that the island’s seabirds breeding have fledged. Relieved there was no evidence of rats having returned to the island, we could enjoy the groups of Cormorants, Kittiwakes and Shags that remain on the cliffs for a few more weeks, and the first Turnstones already back from Greenland.
Most Swifts have already departed; the last I saw over our village was during the recent partial eclipse, when gulls streamed overhead as though to roost. Dozens of Swallows gathered on power lines at Llyn Celanedd and others swept low over the heather on Mynydd Hiraethog, collecting insects that will power them towards South Africa. A Wood Sandpiper on the margins of Llyn Trawsfynydd, and Little Stints at Cemlyn and Morfa Madryn last week were already well into their journeys from northern Siberia to West Africa, as are Yellow Wagtails on the Foryd and Clwyd estuaries. Other birds move shorter distances: hundreds of Meadow Pipits, Linnets and Goldfinches over the Great Orme on Monday morning, for example. Feathered migrants are not the only creatures to fly. Painted Lady butterflies, previous generations of which hatched in the Sahara earlier this year, have been numerous, and warm air currents have also brought Clouded Yellow butterflies. A migrant Red-veined Darter dragonfly was found by staff at Bardsey Bird Observatory at the weekend, a Ruddy Darter at RSPB Conwy recently shows this species is expanding its range farther, as were Small Red-eyed Damselflies on Anglesey for the first time this year. But dragonflies need freshwater, so drought conditions can be bad news for our resident species.  Pectoral Sandpiper (Chris Jones) A Pectoral Sandpiper drew visitors to RSPB Conwy last week, one of only half a dozen of these waders in North Wales in the last decade. Although sometimes elusive behind vegetation, its early autumn arrival meant that it retained some breeding plumage from the high Arctic tundra in Siberia and North America.
The majority of Pectoral Sandpipers migrate through the US interior en route to the pampas of Argentina each autumn, even those that breed in northern Russia; a return journey of up to 30,000 km comparable to Arctic Tern in distance. Some ‘Pec Sands’ follow the Atlantic seaboard of North America, others the Pacific seaboard to Australasia, and it’s even possible – though unproven – that there is a regular flyway through Europe to Africa, meaning that individuals seen in Britain could come via Canada or Russia. Two Cory’s Shearwaters were over flat calm seas off Bardsey at the weekend; a seabird usually associated with a southwesterly gale. Other scarce sightings include a Little Stint at Cemlyn lagoon, Quails singing at Morfa Aber and Gwalchmai, and a Garganey reported in Bodnant Garden. Short-eared Owls were unseasonal at RSPB Cors Ddyga and Point of Ayr. Most auks have left their nesting cliffs, but recent boat trips around Ynys Seiriol/Puffin Island report up to 30 Puffins on the sea, another encouraging sign of ground-nesting seabirds responding to the removal of Brown Rats. Further to news of the expanding population of Black Guillemots in North Wales came confirmation of nesting near the mouth of Anglesey’s Dulas estuary, a site with no confirmed breeding for many years. As the seabird colony at Cemlyn quietens, North Wales Wildlife Trust reports that 1735 pairs of Sandwich Terns nested, alongside smaller numbers of Common and Arctic Terns, and four pairs of Mediterranean Gull.  Dotterel (Henry Cook) Wales-wide drought, major moorland and grass fires, unprecedented heatwaves and warnings of food supply impacts should leave no one in doubt about accelerating climate change. A recent report by the British Trust for Ornithology and the RSPB shows how it is rapidly reshaping the UK’s bird populations, highlighting that seabirds and upland breeding species are the most vulnerable, compounded by unrelated factors such as continuing habitat degradation and human disturbance.
While ‘generalists’ and Mediterranean bird species are expanding northwards, Wales’ place on the edge of the European continent means several are at risk of national extinction, and others potentially from the whole of the UK. Dotterels, a wader that nests on the boulder plateaux of Scottish mountains, have declined by 89% since monitoring started in the late 1980s, and although. We know little about the larger but unmonitored Dotterel populations in Scandinavia and northern Siberia, but as the Arctic Circle recorded its hottest June on record and parts of northern Russia were 38° Celsius last week, there are real concerns about the impacts on birds breeding there. National Trust has called on the UK government to treat nature as critical national infrastructure, putting investment in peatlands, wetlands and other habitats on a par with transport and energy because of the protection they provide for people, property and the economy, including farming. The BTO/RSPB report emphasises the importance of well-managed areas designated for nature as refuges for birds under pressure and ‘landing sites’ for colonising species, making the landscape more resilient in the face of climate chaos. Wales has much to do: resource constraints at Natural Resources Wales mean that the condition of around half the wildlife features in our Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) is unknown, and for only 10% is it favourable. In a report earlier this year, the Interim Environmental Protection Assessor for Wales called on Welsh Government “to devote sufficient resources to provide for effective management of sites now and for ongoing monitoring to enable decisions to be made on future management”. Rarity of the week was a Pectoral Sandpiper found at RSPB Conwy on Monday, while a summer-plumage Great Northern Diver at Porth Colmon was an unseasonal sighting. A Quail continued to sing at Cemlyn over the weekend, but there were no new arrivals in what was almost certainly the biggest summer for this species since record-breaking numbers in 1989. |
Bird notesA weekly update of bird sightings and news from North Wales, published in The Daily Post every Thursday. Archives
October 2026
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