Mute Swans: where do they all come from…?

Pacific Golden Plover (Mark Sutton)

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.