Shall I compare thee to a... brick?

The rest of the country may find it hard to believe but, with the exception of a couple of days, we've had weeks of wall-to-wall sunshine at Conwy. Flowers have bloomed, insects have buzzed and birds have bred successfully in the warm conditions. Now, as we head into the summer holidays, the water level in the lagoons is dropping noticeably from evaporation and the growth of tens of thousands of reeds. In fact, it's exactly where we want it to be, and lots of damp mud is being revealed.

Damp mud means lots of food for wading birds, and even with the tide out this morning, hundreds of redshanks had stayed to feed, evidence that they like it. Mixed among them were common sandpipers, dunlins, whimbrel and a few black-tailed godwits. These godwits are on their way south from Iceland, stopping at Conwy to feed at our muddy service station.

As Adrian Foster's wonderful photo shows, these long-legged birds, a little larger than a redshank, are still in their splendid breeding finery: brick-orange head and breast, and beautiful 'tortoiseshell' wings that reveal a broad white stripe in flight. When describing birds, I think I use 'brick-orange' only when talking about godwits. It's the same colour as old-fashioned London Brick, but this hardly seems a fitting way to talk about one of the most elegant birds we see at Conwy. Anyone have a better description of this rich orange colour?

While some waders are on the move, we still have others with chicks. There are several half-size oystercatchers on the islands, and - after missing last year - common sandpipers have again nested here; the island to the left of the Carneddau Hide is the place to look, but I saw one chick fly this morning, so they may not be there for too much longer. Our great-crested grebe chicks are two weeks old, and only able to fit one on each parents' back. Look on the Shallow Lagoon - but there is also a third adult on the Deep Lagoon.

Also fledging are lots of warblers, and there are noticeably more willow warblers and red-capped blackcaps (either females or juveniles) around the scrubby areas. A garden warbler this morning might be one already moving locally. The second brood of three house sparrows in the Visitor Centre nestbox are starting to flap their wings, watched by lots of visitors thanks to our nestbox camera. We expect them to fledge in the next few days.

Many swifts have been feeding and drinking in the lagoons this week, and it will only be a couple of weeks before local breeding birds leave for Africa - perhaps ones at Conwy this week are already on their way? We've also spotted sand martins this week, certainly birds migrating south. A couple of wigeons and a dozen teal are moulting here, while kestrel, snipe and Sandwich tern last weekend are all scarce sightings here.

We're seeing lots of lovely photos on our Flickr page, and on Twitter. Last Friday, a visitor tweeted a photo of a four-spotted chaser dragonfly taken here, a species we don't see frequently - a great record.  The sunny weather has also brought out lots of meadow browns and gatekeeper butterflies, and a few commas and speckled woods. The best area to see butterflies is the Ganol Trail, which we re-opened recently as the lapwings and oystercatchers have fledged. We'd like to thank everyone for observing the closure of that area over the last month to give our breeding waders the best chance.

A fox has been a regular sighting this week, often in front of the Coffee Shop, and we've had quite a few stoat reports too - we love the photo of the cheeky kits that Steve Ransome shared with us!