Blustery conditions over the weekend have made searching for songbirds a bit challenging, but on the lagoons things are a little easier, especially since two of our volunteers spent Friday clearing the willows and willowherb from the edge of the causeway, opening up the views from the Tal-y-fan Hide. Up to 20 dunlins and 30 black-tailed godwits have joined greenshank and knot on the muddy edges over the weekend, with bar-tailed godwit here today. A wheatear has been present on the estuary path most of the week, where a young stoat has been toying with the immature carrion crows, running at them to force them briefly into the air.
Friday was probably the best day of last week, with two Sandwich terns (a juvenile begging for food from an adult), yellow wagtail over the saltmarsh, a combined count of 54 little egrets on the lagoons and estuary, redstart near the wildlife garden and the first goldcrests of winter near the Tal-y-fan Hide. The bearded tits were calling from the reeds to the left of the Tal-y-fan Hide. On the water, up to eight little grebes have been here this week, along with our long-staying goldeneye and pochards.
Still mornings earlier in the week were great for warbler watching, with a few garden warbler, lesser whitethroats and whitethroats in the bushes, and loads of blackcaps, chiffchaffs and willow warblers. A marsh tit was seen on the wildlife garden feeders again, the first sighting in several weeks. A dead guillemot was found washed up on the shoreline this morning, perhaps exhausted after being blown in from the Irish Sea over the last couple days.
Please note that, owing to staff training, the coffee shop will open at 11.30 am on Wednesday 1 September. That's also the day that work should begin to create new islands for waders in the dried-out lagoon outside the coffee shop.
Julian HughesSite Manager, Conwy