Rhyl or the Caribbean? A shorebird’s choice.

Lesser Yellowlegs (Chris Jones)

Thousands of people cross the Clwyd estuary daily on the ‘blue bridge’ between Rhyl and Kinmel Bay or the newer, traffic-free Pont y Ddraig. Precious few notice that, while not on the scale of the internationally-important wetlands of the Dee or Traeth Lafan, the mud beneath supports tens of thousands of birds across the year; many others use Rhyl Marine Lake, Brickfield Pond Local Nature Reserve and farmland on each side of the county line. Among the typical visitors since the turn of the year is a Lesser Yellowlegs, more slender than our native Redshank; they breed in the boreal forests of Canada and it should now be around the Gulf of Mexico or in South America. Having flown to the wrong side of the Atlantic, probably carried by a storm system, being here wasn’t really a matter of choice; but aside from the temperature, it affirms the value of wetlands across the globe. A handful of the 30+ Welsh records have overwintered and this is the first in the north to occur in January.

Downstream from the American shorebird, a Black Redstart overwinters in Kinmel Bay dunes; other long-stayers include Shorelark on the Great Orme and Snow Buntings at Gronant, and west of Caernarfon, Foryd’s rare Bufflehead was seen at the weekend but can be elusive. A Green-winged Teal is on a flooded field at Llay, near Wrexham, a drake Smew on Anglesey’s Llyn Alaw and Velvet Scoters were again off Abermenai Point.

Snow had receded by the time I undertook the British Trust for Ornithology’s Winter Bird Survey above Conwy at the weekend, but its effects lingered. Valley fields and woodland were busy with foraging birds, including Stonechats usually at a higher elevation, but the heath was near-deserted save for an occasional Wren and Robin. Mistle Thrushes were starting to sing as the days lengthen and Rooks bickered in their nesting trees; we are just seven weeks away from the average earliest date for Sand Martin, usually the first trans-Saharan migrant to arrive in North Wales.