The week started with our reserve Bioblitz, when lots of pairs of eyes, ears and equipment came to scour the reserve to survey the wildlife on the reserve. With almost 1000 records in, the current total stands at 439 different species recorded in one day, of which 56 species hadn't been recorded here previously. Once we have all the records in, we'll do a separate blog-post about the event, but in the meantime, you can see details of what we recorded on the Cofnod website.
Further small signs of Autumn migration came this week in the form of green sandpiper and black-tailed godwits (today), whimbrel and dunlin (yesterday), whimbrel and knot (Friday 8th), green sandpiper (Thursday 7th) and greenshank and wheatear (Sunday 3rd). Lots of sand martins have been feeding over the lagoons this week; unlikely to be local breeders, these are probably feeding-up as they make their southward journey back to Africa. These hirundines drew in a hobby last Sunday evening (3rd), a bird that only occurs once or twice a year at Conwy. An adult Mediterranean gull was found last Sunday and was seen intermittently through the week, up to Friday (8th).
Our great-crested grebe chicks are now quite big, almost the same size as the adults, and the mute swan family still contains four chicks.
The sunshine has been hard to find this week, but when it did appear, so did the butterflies, with ringlet, small tortoiseshell and painted lady on Monday (4th). During the bioblitz, we were pleased to see both emperor dragonfly and black-tailed skimmer ovipositing (egg-laying) in our ponds, the latter being the first proven breeding record at the reserve. Thanks to Shirley Bain for capturing a photo of the emperor dragonfly during our survey walk.
Look out for the sea lavender now in flower on the saltmarsh, and there are plenty of other colourful flowers too - check out our blog of 12 species to see here in July.
Julian HughesSite Manager, Conwy