Summer songbirds and geese from the east

Ring Ouzel (Evan Griffith)

Days lengthen incrementally and as the new year dawns, nature contemplates the next generation. The shoots of garden daffodils are already emerging and Rooks in the village hang around the remains of last year’s nests, guarding them from other pairs, if not from winter gales yet to blow. Above the Dysynni, the expressive “kronk” of Ravens rings across the valley as a pair fly in close formation, mimicking each other’s moves before one drops away and barrel-rolls above an oakwood whose lichen-crusted limbs twist skyward but canopy twigs never touch. Ravens will lay eggs in the second half of February, so now they reinforce the pair-bond and find broken branches to build up a nest that may have been decades in use, by multiple generations. When their chicks fledge, the oaks will be clothed in green from which Pied Flycatchers and Redstarts sing.

Remarkably, several Pied Flycatchers have been reported in the southern half of Wales in December, including one in Gwent that had been ringed in Meirionnydd’s Artro Valley in spring 2024. A male Ring Ouzel, another summer visitor, fed along a track in the Carneddau on Boxing Day, while a Common Sandpiper on the Clwyd estuary is less surprising: around 20 winter on Welsh coasts.

Arctic air brought geese from the east. European White-fronted Geese were recorded more widely than usual, including a handful in North Wales: one at RSPB Conwy and two each at RSPB Cors Ddyga and on the Clwyd estuary, where 600 Pink-footed Geese feed.
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Surf Scoters remain off Old Colwyn and Black Rock Sands, two Snow Buntings and a Water Pipit at Gronant, and the Great Orme’s Shorelark was refound. A Long-tailed Duck is on the Inland Sea and a Twite was at the entrance to nearby Penrhos Coastal Park, while Scaup were in Foryd Bay and on Shotwick Lake. Black Redstarts were at Kinmel Bay and Tywyn.