A good week for waders...

...but they don't stick around

The week started with great views of a wood sandpiper, a species that is scarce in North Wales but becoming annual at RSPB Conwy.  Showing well in front of the coffee shop and the boardwalk, on Monday evening (10th), it started calling, displaying and hovering over the boardwalk screen - but we've not seen it since Tuesday evening. 

Later in the week (14th), we found a winter-plumage grey plover on the estuary at low tide, and then a superb summer-plumage grey plover outside the coffee shop at high tide.  Another scarce visitor to the reserve, with just a couple of sightings each year.  On Wednesday (12th), a knot was on the shallow lagoon (increasingly shallow as we've had so little rain in the last two months), having earlier been spotted on the high tide roost by the Conwy bridge.

And throughout the week, small numbers of dunlins, ringed plovers, black-tailed godwit, common sandpipers and whimbrels have been on the reserve.

Ten minutes ago (11.30 am Saturday), a visitor walked in with a photo of a cracking male black redstart.  We've just been watching it on the picnic tables and the roof of the Visitor Centre!

A first-year male goldeneye appeared here on Monday 10th, displaying to the tufted ducks, then later pulling in a female.  They often occur here in May, dropping in for a few days before continuing their journey north.  The only other notable wildfowl is the now-resident black swan - whose owner turned up this week asking for it back!

The smaller birds are all busy with nest-building, egg-sitting or young-feeding.  Both the nestboxes on the Visitor Centre have families of house sparrows in them, with 'sprogcam' showing two harassed parents bringing food in to four hungry mouths on the screen in the Visitor Centre.  Several garden warblers are singing around the reserve, more than we usually have, and a lesser whitethroat is rattling near the bridge pond.  Songbird migration has slowed right down, but a few white wagtails and wheatears have been on the estuary this week and there are plenty of swifts, martins and swallows feeding over the lagoons.