Stormy days and badger nights

You may have noticed that it's been a bit stormy recently!  Conwy escaped the worst of the tidal surge on 5 December, and when we saw pictures of some of our reserves in eastern England, we felt relieved (for a report about the effects on our reserves in Norfolk and Suffolk, read Steve Rowland's blog). Without Thomas Telford's Conwy Cob - the embankment that leads to the bridges - we would have taken more of a battering, as Deganwy did, but even so, Friday morning saw me picking my way through several inches of debris along 800 metres of the estuary path. At least five concrete and polystyrene pontoons had been washed up, along with a dozen mooring buoys from the estuary. It was clear that, for the first time anyone can recall, the tide had properly washed over the footpath, scouring some of the gravel surface and leaving a tideline across the track.

Some of our volunteers responded to an early morning call, and with staff who were available too, we spent a morning clearing a way through the debris. We've made it passable, though will need to go back and clear the tonnes of wood and vegetation that will otherwise smother the flowers on the path edges, such as bee orchids. We picked up many bags' worth of litter too - it's shocking to realise how much plastic and polystyrene is in the sea until it ends up on your doorstep.  But everyday, fish, dolphins, seabirds and jellyfish have to live in the junk that we throw away.

The Harbourmaster's team will come and clear the pontoons and remove the buoys in the next couple of weeks.

The unusual weather conditions didn't bring us any surprising wildlife, although a whale almost got stranded along the coast at Pensarn, being helped back out to sea by the RSPCA and RNLI.

More stormy weather this weekend brought a couple of shags into the estuary, not a bird we often seen south of the bridge, and rarely recorded on our montlhy Wetland Bird Surveys. This morning's WeBS count also included the three long-staying scaup (they've been on the lagoons for more than a month now!) and a pintail that has been with us for even longer.

Small numbers of pochards and goldeneyes are on the Deep Lagoon, but with the weather remarkably mild (it was 17 Centigrade in Llanfairfechan on Thursday!), we wouldn't expect to get many more Arctic waterbirds at the moment. There are lots of bullfinches around at the moment - Glyn saw four males on a bird feeder in the wildlife garden yesterday - and there have been a few siskins and fieldfares too.  Two whooper swans flew over last Saturday (7th) but didn't stop.

Over the last couple of weeks, we've been finding some holes dug in Y Maes, the landscaped area behind the Visitor Centre. We suspected that a badger had been paying a visit, and when we checked our motion-sensitive trailcam, we found we were right! We've had signs of badgers before, such as hairs left on fencing and a wasps nests opened up, but this is the first time we have seen one for real, well, virtually.

We have set up a new Facebook page that covers all the RSPB's activities in North Wales, including Conwy. If you use Facebook, why not head over there now and give us a 'Like' so that you get all our news in your timeline. In the next few weeks, we'll be closing down the RSPB Conwy Facebook page, and migrating all our news to the North Wales page.