Another full day birding!!

I managed another full days birding today! The Mrs and the kids all had plans that involved friends and not me so I had a full day pass!!

For a while I had been planning on visiting a few coastal sites in North Wales.  Alan Davies, he of the biggest twitch fame and tour leader with bird watching trips wrote a feature in Birdwatch magazine suggesting a number of sites worth a visit in autumn. I know its hardly autumn but I decided I'd give it a go anyway. I had no intention of visiting all the sites in Alan's itinerary and if I'm honest I was mainly just after seeing some species I don't see very often, namely Slavonian Grebe, Red-necked Grebe and Red-breasted Merganser. 

The most likely looking place based on Alan's article, and from info on twitter was Llanfairfechan. The tide looked good and was at a reasonable time so at 08:00 this morning I was Wales bound! 

The journey takes around 1 1/2 hrs so it was just before 10.00 when I arrived - needed a bit of breakfast en-route. The car park at the promenade is brilliant. You can reverse your car into the parking spaces and sit with the boot open and scope in front of you while you scan the sea. Proper armchair birding. Plus its free parking - English coastal towns take note please.

My view from the car park

Straight away it was obvious there was a good number of Great Crested Grebes about which inspired confidence that the other two target Grebe species might be around. There was a good number of sea duck out on the horizon which I assumed were Common Scoter, and a few flocks that came closer in were all that species. A nice surprise was a couple of Long-tailed Duck that gave a nice but distant flypast. I don't think I've ever seen as many Red-throated Divers in one place. There were numerous singletons plus flocks of five and six plus a huge (for me) flock of 16 flying out on the horizon. I thought I had two Slavonian Grebes in flight, but they to were distant and I couldn't hand on heart say they were definitely Slavonian.

I sat at the back of my car until around midday when it started to quieten down, and then went for a walk westwards along the coast towards the small salt marsh area. There were numerous Oystercatchers along the beach but no Snow Buntings - something I thought might have been a possibility. The salt marsh is a gem of a spot. Wigeon, Pintail, Teal and Curlew were all there in numbers plus a few Knot and Redshank. Just off the marsh small parties of Red-breasted Mergansers were loafing around. A great little spot.

Cheeky Jackdaw - love their blue eyes

Red-breasted Mergansers

Wildfowl City

By this time it was around 1pm and I needed to be heading back in a homeward direction to be sure I was back for the kids at tea time, so I decided I'd call in at Parkgate to see if there was any Harrier action. I wasn't to be disappointed. I arrived at 2.15pm and immediately noticed what looked like a 'ring tail' harrier quartering the marsh. I quickly grabbed my bins and scope out of the boot and had good but distant views of a Hen Harrier. A little later a Marsh Harrier put in an appearance, and at one point I had both Hen and Marsh Harrier in the scope at the same time. A little later and a second Marsh Harrier was found further to the north and I picked out a very distant Peregrine perched up on an old tree branch out in the estuary. Sadly virtually all the birds were too far away for any good shots but the Hen Harrier did a reasonable flyby that allowed me some record shots, and the phonescoped Peregrine at least looks like a Peregrine. Well to me it does. 

Ring tail Hen Harrier

Hovering Harrier

Distant Peregrine

 Sunset at Parkgate