Can’t beat a bit of Bully!

Bullfinch (Aled Williams)

Readers across North Wales have noticed Bullfinches more frequently in recent weeks. The bright red underparts of males and the glossy black cap of both sexes are obvious on winter days when trees are bare and the long winter has drained the colour from the countryside. Several people report Bullfinches visiting gardens for the first time in their memory, including one in Menai Bridge for the first time in 40 years. Others have seen them in unusual places, such as four feeding on Ash keys blown onto the pebble beach at Aber Ogwen, one of which is shown above.

Unlike in Scandinavia, Bullfinches in Britain are not migratory, although ringed birds have moved more than 100 miles on occasions. For the first few weeks of 2025, the reporting rate on BirdTrack (a measure of the frequency that birdwatchers encounter species) was way above average in Wales, although it returned to normal this month. The reporting rate in BTO’s Garden BirdWatch is also up: the highest rate for January in Wales since 2018 bucked a declining trend in recent years. Whether increased sightings translate into a larger population remains to be seen. The Welsh breeding population has been fairly stable over the last quarter century but fell by 25% in England.

Small numbers of Bramblings are also moving into gardens as seed sources elsewhere run low: a feeding station above Caernarfon had 16 this week. Rarer visitors in the region include a well-watched Glossy Ibis at Rhuddlan nature reserve, Caspian Gull with several Water Pipits at Gronant and Snow Buntings on Yr Wyddfa’s Llanberis Path. At least 19 Hawfinches were around Caerhun church at the weekend, the largest count in the Conwy Valley for some years. A Red-necked Grebe remains on Anglesey’s Llyn Penrhyn, along with more than 50 Pochards that is a decent count in North Wales these days.
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Green-winged Teals remain at Glan-y-Môr Elias and the Conwy estuary, as do Black Redstarts at Kinmel Bay and the Great Orme, with another at RSPB South Stack. The Inland Sea hosts Slavonian and Black-necked Grebes as well as Scaup and Long-tailed Duck, six Jack Snipe were seen at Cors Geirch and 15 Purple Sandpipers in Cemlyn Bay.