With the autumn pulse of migration over, much of what is seen in North Wales over coming months will depend on weather conditions across northern Europe. A brief stop at Llyn Trawsfynydd en route to the Welsh Ornithological Society (WOS) annual conference was my first encounter this winter with large numbers of Fieldfares, while a couple of Scaup fed on the reservoir among similar but smaller Tufted Ducks. Both signs of the year turning.

Scarce visitors elsewhere included Curlew Sandpiper and Spotted Redshank at RSPB Conwy, a Spoonbill up the Conwy estuary and Snow Bunting on the Great Orme. Autumn’s Yellow-browed Warbler passage dribbled to an end with singles near Pwllheli and, unusually, inland at Betws-y-coed. Evidence of proper winter came with the first half dozen Purple Sandpipers at Rhos Point, back from a summer in western Greenland. From the same area came small groups of White-fronted Geese flying past Pen Llŷn and Bardsey, heading for the Dyfi estuary or the Irish Republic. A paper in the journal British Birds reports the global population of Greenland White-fronted Geese has fallen 58% in 25 years, with repeated spring snowfall the most plausible explanation of breeding failure. The problem in their northern breeding areas is localised cooling, a vivid example of the challenge posed to migratory birds of the differential chaos of a changing climate.

Weekend storms brought a handful of Pomarine Skuas and Little Gulls to our coasts, Leach’s Petrel past Rhos Point and Sooty Shearwaters off Bardsey, Porth Ysgaden and the Great Orme. While many hundreds of Great and Cory’s Shearwaters passed Pembrokeshire, one of each past Tonfanau were the sole reports in North Wales. Late Sandwich and Arctic Terns were seen from watchpoints around Anglesey with a Common Tern off Rhos Point; a Long-tailed Duck is on Shotwick Lake.

Bardsey Bird Observatory staff are kept busy in October with daily census and ringing effort. Large numbers of birds migrating over the island last week included over 1000 Chaffinches counted on one day. A recent highlight was Little Bunting, a visitor from northeast Europe that should have been well on its way to winter in southern China. Of the 39 accepted Welsh records, 16 were from Bardsey.

But rarity is a matter of perspective. Bardsey’s 17th Little Bunting makes it far more common than the island’s fourth Cetti’s Warbler that also landed last week. The explosive call of Cetti’s Warbler is familiar to birders visiting wetlands on the coastal fringes of North Wales, although it is a hard bird to see. The chestnut-coloured bush-warbler is unique in Europe, the other three members of the family all live in south or east Asia. Although the first Welsh record was also on Bardsey, in October 1973, since Cetti’s Warblers don’t migrate, it took more than 25 years for the breeding population to spread from Kent to Anglesey, one wetland at a time. It’s a bird taking advantage of habitat restoration and the warming climate; on holiday in Brittany, I noticed they are now common away from water. Will that be the case here in a few decades?

Other highlights on Ynys Enlli/Bardsey were Siberian Chiffchaff, Lapland Bunting and several Yellow-browed Warblers, with others across the water near Uwchmynydd and at Holyhead’s Breakwater Country Park. Bird of the week on Anglesey was a showy White-rumped Sandpiper at Malltraeth Cob, while a Hoopoe was seen at Llanfachraeth and a late Arctic Tern at Porth Cwyfan.

On the mainland, a Dartford Warbler reported at Sealand on Monday is the first Flintshire record for decades; a Glossy Ibis fed in fields near Aber Ogwen and a possible Central Asian Lesser Whitethroat foraged in bushes at Porth Meudwy.

Finally, I was honoured to be awarded the British Trust for Ornithology’s Dilys Breese Medal at a ceremony in London last week for, among other things, communicating the world of birds and the work of the BTO, including through the Daily Post BirdNotes column over the last 17 years. More information in this post.

Last week (16 October 2025), I spent a wonderful evening in London at the British Trust for Ornithology’s Awards evening, held at the Society of Wildlife Artists’ annual “Natural Eye” exhibition at the Mall Galleries. The evening celebrates the fabulous work of painters, sculptors and illustrators from all over Britain and the efforts of ornithologists and enthusiasts in support of birds and the BTO.

The BTO makes up to six awards each year: Medals for communicators, contributions to the Trust’s scientific work and for outstanding commitment to the BTO, and three awards in conjunction with the Marsh Charitable Trust for Ornithology, Local Ornithology and Young Ornithologist.

I was deeply honoured to be awarded the Dilys Breese Medal “for outstanding communication of BTO activities” by the BTO Chair, Professor Zoe Davis. Dily Breese was a former Vice President and Hon. Secretary of the BTO, and a renowned natural history producer. She was born and brought up in Wales, joining the BBC in the mid-1950s and working in its famous Natural History Unit from 1970.
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Below are my words of acceptance, but before that, I’d like to pay tribute to all the winners last week:

• Colin McShane (Belvide Ringers), winner of the Bernard Tucker Medal
• Heather Coats (Gower), winner of the Jubilee Medal
• Dr Rob Thomas (Cardiff), winer of The Marsh Award for Ornithology
• Hampshire Ornithological Society, winner of The Marsh Award for Local Ornithology
• Ramandeep Nijjar (Walsall and Reading University, winner of The Marsh Award for Young Ornithologist)

In Holyhead’s Breakwater Country Park last week, I scoured the trees and bushes for migrants. Realistic enough not to expect a lost waif from North America, although Veery, Mourning Dove and Northern Parula are all exotic names to feature from other parts of western Britain and Ireland recently; I hoped for a Yellow-browed Warbler or Firecrest fresh from a North Sea crossing. A copse full of squeaking calls from Goldcrests renewed my flagging hopes: five-gramme balls of fizzing energy are worthy of a second look in their own right.

Head on, their tiny eyes are just a centimetre apart and their black “moustache”, formed by a dark line that runs from the base of the bill, give them a look of grumpiness. Anthropomorphism aside, these Goldcrests may have arrived from Scandinavia earlier that day and are in search of tiny insects in the Sycamores and brambles. If they can’t replace body fat and protein lost during their migratory exertion, they may not survive the night. Weighing less than 20 pence barely causes the tiniest twigs to bend.

I found no scarce visitors, although a Firecrest was at nearby Soldier’s Point and others were at Groeslon, Caerhun and Porth Eilian last week, with two on the Great Orme on Monday. Also evident everywhere on Anglesey were Skylarks in groups of up to 30, passing overhead to the southwest. Some were beyond my eyesight, their migration given away only by dry, rolling contact calls to keep the group on track.

Bardsey Bird Observatory saw the pick of the rarity action, with Radde’s Warbler, Red-breasted Flycatcher and Siberian Lesser Whitethroat arriving from the east into their ringing nets. Lapland and Snow Buntings, Ring Ouzels, Fieldfares and Redwings were on the Great Orme on Monday after the airflow turned to the east.
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North Wales Wildlife Trust confirmed last week that 2400 pairs of Sandwich Tern fledged more than 1900 chicks at Cemlyn in the summer. The site had accounted for 60% of all the Sandwich Terns breeding around the Irish Sea in 2024, after the species was hit badly by bird flu. Cemlyn also held 300 pairs of Arctic and Common Terns, two pairs of Roseate Terns and two pairs of Mediterranean Gull. You can catch up on the season's news from Chris Wynne and Nick Richards in this recording.

Weekend storms brought passage seabirds to North Wales, with hardy birders at storm-lashed watchpoints to see skuas, shearwaters and petrels perfectly at home in these conditions. Sabine’s Gulls were seen from several locations, adding to the record year for sightings of this high-Arctic gull. Leach’s Petrels, pushed into the mouth of the Mersey, made their way west after the storm passed, seen from Rhos Point, Anglesey and Bardsey, with several Long-tailed Skuas and 22 Grey Phalaropes in one day among the suite of seabirds recorded by Bird Observatory staff.

A Wryneck was a great find on the Great Orme’s west side on Monday and a Turtle Dove was photographed in Cemaes Bay. Both species were also on Bardsey last week. A Hoopoe landed in a birders’ garden at Burwen, near Amlwch, on Monday, presumably one reported at Bull Bay recently. Two Slavonian Grebes are off Aber Ogwen, where a Glossy Ibis stalked among the waders and gulls; another Glossy Ibis was behind Porthmadog football club on Monday.

As Storm Amy arrived from the west, a few Redwings progressed from the east, crossing the North Sea. Step outside on a clear night this week and you should hear the high-pitched ‘tseep’ of the thrush vanguard using the full moon to head southwest. From the same direction, the first Yellow-browed Warblers were at Holyhead and Bardsey last week and Whooper Swans have crossed our shoreline from Iceland in recent days too.

The British Trust for Ornithology has announced that it will organise a Bird Atlas over four years from autumn 2027. It will be the fourth Britain & Ireland atlas of breeding birds and the third undertaken in winter, a 20-year stocktake of birds in every 10-kilometre square. I love ‘atlasing’ as it takes me into places I might never visit, looking and listening for all the birds in villages and towns, woodland and cropped land, coast and mountain. There is much to organise and success will need involvement from everyone able to identify birds. For the first time, the BTO will partner with the Welsh Ornithological Society to help recruit and train volunteers.