Great shows from the beardies

Our two young bearded tits can sometimes be hard to see, but some days this week they've been real show-offs.  Standing on the bridge across the pond, you can sometimes see them feeding on insects at the base of the reedstems, but a few times this week they've been photographed and videoed perched on the tops of the reedstem, preening in the sunshine!

The bridge pond has also hosted a kingfisher regularly this week, the first of the winter (they don't nest here), but you need to approach quietly or it'll shoot silently over the bank onto the lagoon.  Another winter visitor that's made a return is little grebes, with up to four here this week, and the first wigeon has been seen, joining the goldeneye and pochards that have over-summered at Conwy.

But before we condemn summer to an end too soon, there have been plenty of summer sightings too.  A wheatear was spotted from the Carneddau Hide this afternoon and a whimbrel was among the curlews on the saltmarsh too.  Look out for the splashes of purple sea lavender among the spikes of samphire on the estuary too.  Our common sandpiper chicks are now almost indistinguishable from their parents, and have been a real success story for the reserve this year.  One of our great crested grebe chicks has made it too, almost as big as mum (or is it dad?).

Waders have included up to 20 black-tailed godwits, 15 dunlins, greenshanks, and a couple of ringed plovers, with up to 36 little egrets on the estuary.  And the last entry of the week's diary simply says "stoat on the rocks" - so, as it's Friday evening, that seems like a signal to the pub...