Time for chicks

This is a tense time for wardens on nature reserves - there are lots of young birds around, and they won't all survive, so how are ours doing? The great-crested grebes still have both chicks on the Shallow Lagoon, now around half the size of the adults. The youngsters still try to hitch a ride on the back of mum or dad, but are regularly turfed off! Our pair of little grebe has raised two of their three chicks, and they're almost the same size as their parents now, but with stripy heads. Look out for both families in front of the Tal-y-fan Hide this weekend.

The Shallow Lagoon also hosts a family of mute swans, which hatched four cygnets earlier in the week. All four are being closely shepherded by their parents, and have taken to sitting in the sunshine on the island in front of the Coffee Shop. The young Canada geese have formed a crèche, and are usually to be found hanging out on the Paddocks, visible from the Carneddau Hide, and the first brood of oystercatchers hatched on Wednesday. Our big news today is that a brood of 11 tiny gadwall has hatched and were in front of the Coffee Shop this morning. Of course, not all will survive, and that's fine, it's how nature works (if it didn't, the World would have been over-run with gadwalls some time ago!).

With May turning to June in few days, some of the songbirds have stopped singing, indicating that they have active nests. For example, we haven't heard a lesser whitethroat for a week, and song thrushes are distinctly mute. But others, which started to nest earlier, will already have concluded their first nesting attempt and are singing again. That's why we've started hearing a few chiffchaffs and willow warblers once more. Our house sparrow family, which we have watched grow over the last couple of weeks via the screen in the Visitor Centre, fledged four young this week, and an adult has already returned, perhaps to check it out for another clutch

Linnets occur regularly at this time of year, feeding on seeds on the saltmarsh, and we often wonder where they are nesting. This week, a chance discovery means we think we know, so we're hoping that we can prove nesting here for the first time in years. Thanks to Gary Mantle for the great photo uploaded to our Flickr page.

Spring migration is drawing to a close, although we have seen Greenland-race wheatear (today and last Monday, 23rd), black-tailed godwits (26th), white wagtail (Tuesday 24th and Wednesday 25th) and Sandwich tern (Saturday 21st), and big groups of swifts hunting over the lagoons every morning presumably haven't yet reached their final destination. The rarest bird last week was a turtle dove that flew over the Bridge Pond last Friday (20th), the first here for many years, and now sadly all too rare across Britain. The cold weather earlier this week has made it tough for insect-eating birds, so let's hope June is kinder.

The cool weather has kept insects from spreading their wings, but this week we've seen orange tip, common blue, small white, holly blue and green-veined white butterflies, while large red and common blue damselfly and broad-bodied chaser have hatched and are flying. And we're all very envious of the visitor who saw an otter here last Sunday morning (22nd).

Sarah, who has been our Warden since 2011, leaves us today for a new role on Orkney. She has helped to shape the reserve we see today, and we now understand the ecology and biodiversity of Conwy much better as a result of her work.  We're going to miss her hugely, and so a big thanks from all of us and good luck in Scotland.

So we're looking for someone with that passion, and practical conservation skills, to be our next Warden.  If you, or someone you know, has the skills and enthusiasm, please see our website (closing date 10 June). If your passion is for food and for great customer service, we're also recruiting an Assistant Catering Manager for the Coffee Shop with, we think, one of the best views in Wales. See our website for details of that too (closing date 5 June).