The arrival of the first Summer visitors is always special. They bring hope and as the days lengthen, the prospect of warmer days and balmy evenings. As usual, chiffchaffs were the first to be heard, their bi-syllabic song being first heard on Friday (10th), and there are now several around the reserve (photo above by Bob Garrett). Our earliest ever singing chiffchaff was just two days earlier (in 2014), and the early theme continued on Saturday (11th) with our earliest ever sand martins, two days earlier than in 2015. A few more have been seen through the week, most recently on Thursday (16th). Our first - and so far only - wheatear was on Saturday (11th) while a white wagtail on the saltmarsh on Thursday evening (16th) was the earliest first arrival since 2009 - by mid April, there can be upwards of 40 on the saltmarsh each day.
A great-crested grebe has returned to the shallow lagoon, but so far is without a mate. Gadwall numbers have been high (for Conwy), with 21 this morning, many of them paired-up. Shelducks return to the valley at this time of year, prior to pairing up and searching for sandy burrows in which to nest; there were 97 here on Monday (13th).
Some of our long-staying wintering birds will be heading northeast very soon: a firecrest was seen on several dates, most recently on Saturday 11th, and the overwintering water pipit on Thursday (16th). A few pochards, teal and wigeons remain, but the last goldeneye was seen on Thursday (16th). Redwings seen on Sunday 12th were part of a major exodus noted over large areas of eastern Britain the following night. Stonechats are another migrant we see in early Spring, and there were birds here on 9th and 11th. We assume these are birds that have wintered on the coast making their way up into the hills for the breeding season, but last year a stonechat ringed on the Great Orme in March was re-trapped in southeast Kent in the autumn, so its possible that some of our sightings could be birds heading from Europe to Ireland or Scotland.
Early Spring sees a changing of the gulls, with overwintering great black-backed gulls leaving us (though there were still a few around this morning), and lesser black-backed arriving to nest locally. An adult Mediterranean gull was a nice find on Thursday (16th), as was an Iceland gull that was on the Deep Lagoon for a couple of hours over high tide on Friday 10th (only the 6th record for the reserve). Last Sunday's Wetland Bird Survey (WeBS) found 60 common gulls, a decent count for the estuary.
It's nice to finally be able to write about some other wildlife, as insects emerge and flowers start to bloom. Cowslips are starting to flower along the bank near the Coffee Shop, and the earth bank beyond The LookOut is home to Clarke's mining bees, which were flying in the sunshine on Wednesday (15th). The warm weather also brought our first brimstone, small tortoiseshell and peacock butterflies, while Queens of buff-tailed and early bumblebees were found on Tuesday (14th) during the first invertebrate survey of the season, and tree bumblebees were spotted on Sunday (12th).
Tuesday also saw the first moth-trapping of the year, which produced a first for the vice-county (Denbighshire), a coastal flatbody moth (Agonopterix yeatiana). While waiting for the moths, there were several pipistrelle bats (not sure of the species as we didn't have a detector) feeding over the Bridge Pond. It's a good time to look for frogspawn too - there has been plenty of amphibious activity in the dipping pond.
Our habitat management work for the winter is done, and the rains associated with Storms Doris and Ewan enabled us to fill the Shallow Lagoon to the brim, in expectation that water levels will fall at a centimetre every day, creating lots of shallow, muddy edge when the waders arrive from the Arctic later in the summer. The rain also filled our new dipping pond without recourse to a hosepipe, and we're now leaving that for wildlife to inhabit during the spring and summer.
Julian HughesSite Manager, Conwy