Smell those starlings...

The good news is that both the lagoons have thawed out over the weekend, and waterbirds are slowly starting to return.  This morning's tally includes some smart shovelers, a few pochards and goldeneyes and good numbers of mallards.  Around 80 lapwings are roosting here, but the high tide this afternoon should bring in more waders.

Yesterday's highlights included a female hen harrier flying alongside the A55, a water pipit on the estuary and, perhaps the biggest surprise, a barn owl in the car park spotted by Kate from our coffee shop as she left for the evening - it's the first one seen here for more than a year.

The starling roost has been a real experience this week, with perhaps 15000 birds last night.  To conserve energy in the cold weather, they're not putting on spectacular aerial displays but are flying low over the ground, heading for the reeds by the boardwalk.  It means that you can be right in among them as they head for bed, amid their chattering, you can feel their beating wings and smell the ammonia from their poo (but wear a hat).

The birds of prey count has also been ticking over well.  To add to the red kites mentioned earlier in the week, we've had sparrowhawk and peregrine hunting regularly over the reserve, a kestrel here on Friday 10th (now a scarce species locally) and a merlin perched on top of the feeding station outside the coffee shop!  A male hen harrier was seen on three successive days over last weekend - we suspect that it was roosting here, then heading down to the coast to feed.  They really are a fantastic sight - how dare anyone kill them

With little seasonal migration underway, we don't expect to see much change in the variety of waders in midwinter, so three black-tailed godwits on Friday and three knots and 3 dunlins on Wednesday were a pleasant surprise; there were also 9 ringed plovers here on Thursday.   We've also seen woodcocks over the reserve (Tuesday 7th and Thursday 9th), typical movement here during cold, snowy weather.  The water rails have been having a hard time of it with the ground frozen, but hopefully they've been tucking into some of the fruit that we've put out for the smaller birds, donated by the Tesco store in Llandudno Junction and Tatws Trading in Mochdre - our thanks to staff at both.