Star bird this week was a grey phalarope, initially seen on the estuary during strong winds on Thursday, and subsequently relocated later that afternoon on the Deep Lagoon by Marc Hughes, who took this excellent photo. It fed busily throughout Friday enabling lots of people were able to see this little Arctic wader, many for the first time, as it swam in circles (known as 'spinning'), plucking tiny insects off the surface of the water. We've had a few recorded at Conwy over the years, but this was the first one since 2011.
The other surprise of September has been the continued presence of swifts. At least one has been recorded every day this month, up to and including Sunday 17th, which is a week later than we've ever seen them before. I'd speculated that perhaps it was just a single bird that was 'stuck' here, at a time when most of its brethren are in Spain, or already south of the Sahara, but visitors reported three or four together yesterday, so these are late passage migrants. Large numbers of house martins, sand martins and swallows have been feeding over the lagoons too, with up to 10,000 of the latter hunting here on Friday evening before going to roost in the reedbeds.
Other summer migrants still around are chiffchaffs (many), blackcaps (now just a few), plus lesser whitethroat, sedge and reed warbler, all recorded on Saturday 16th, a fairly late date. A few wheatears have been seen through the week, and the white/pied wagtail migration has been one of the best autumn passage we've seen for years.
Other highlights this week were greenshank (daily, including today - 17th), stonechat and kingfisher on Saturday (16th), bar-tailed godwit (also Saturday), two golden plovers on Thursday (14th), 121 little egrets and whimbrel on Wednesday (13th), and twite and curlew sandpiper on Sunday (10th). Choughs have started to be seen each morning, flying over the reserve into the Conwy Valley; 10 on Wednesday (13th) is the highest total so far,
In the rare moments of sunshine, between the heavy showers, we've spotted red admirals, migrant hawker, southern hawker, common darter, drone-fly, marmalade hoverfly, hawthorn shieldbug and helophilus pendulus (a hoverfly).
Finally, if you've visited this week, you'll have noticed that we've started to cut vegetation alongside some sections of the trail. We will soon be widening these, upgrading them to make them even more accessible for visitors, which will involve some temporary closures in the coming weeks. Keep an eye on Facebook and Twitter if you're planning a visit to check when this is happening.
Julian HughesSite Manager, Conwy