Are you a list person? Lots of nature enthusiasts keep lists. Lists of birds you've seen, in a day, in a year, at a local patch, on holiday. I've even heard of someone who keeps a list of birds they've seen from the smallest room. In the summer, I always keep a list of dragonflies and butterflies I've seen when I'm out walking. As a species, we tend to like lists - they bring a sense of order to what we are…

Next week (19 February) sees the start of the next stage of our Conwy Connections project, the construction of Y Maes.  This is the area between the Visitor Centre and the Coffee Shop and will become a much more interesting and fun place to spend time.  There are more details below, but the main thing to know is that we will be open throughout the building project, this part of which should finish in early April.  There…

It's been a brilliant few weeks here on the reserve for folk wanting to get their year list of birds off to a great start, as we've played host to a huge variety of different birds on our tiny patch of great habitat. Just the last fortnight has seen daily (although sometimes it has required a lot of patience to see it!) sightings of our long-staying firecrest, two whooper swans on 13 Jan and ten on 15 Jan, a

At the last Wildlife Explorers meeting we decided to have a walk around the reserve to do some bird watching . We all got a pair of binoculars and were shown how to use them properly. It's trickier than you think ! 

We set off along the estuary track and the first thing we spotted was the heronry in Benarth Woods. With the binoculars we saw around 8-10 herons in the trees, we hadn't even realised that they were…

The Bittern has continued to be the talk of the reserve this week, the much wanted bird for visitors. Many have been lucky, managing to see one in flight, swimming, or even running across the grass in front of the Coffee Shop! On Sunday, multiple sightings made us suspect that two Bitterns were present, and by Wednesday, we'd pretty much confirmed this, though we don't yet know of anyone who has seen both together.…

It's now been two weeks since our wintering Bittern was first seen at the reserve.  Most sightings have been in flight, usually around the Shallow Lagoon, but yesterday, a few lucky people saw something quite special - the bittern swimming across the water in front of the Benarth Hide.  Fortunately, among that lucky few was photographer Bob Garrett (whose excellent images are regularly shared on the RSPB Conwy Flickr…

Christmas treasure hunt

Last month the RSPB Wildlife Explorers had a treasure hunt. We had six teams. Each team had a map and we had fourteen clues to find.  The clues were hidden around around the RSPB reserve. Each clue was a letter. At the end we had to make a word from the letters we found.

It was very hard but it was a very fun game because we kept getting stuck and couldn't find the clues.

After the treasure…

Our big news this week is that we've got a Bittern on the reserve. It announced its presence with a fly-past the Coffee Shop on Friday morning (21st) and then showed several times on Saturday morning. It's a couple of years since one wintered here, and we hope that it will stay, although the high water levels will limit its feeding opportunities, as the reedbeds are as full as we've seen them for several years. The…

Rhaid eich bod wedi clywed ni'n son am Gysylltiadau Conwy erbyn hyn; mae'n gyffrous iawn! Ei fwriad yw creu lle gwell ar gyfer plant, teuluoedd a phawb i fwynhau natur. Rydym ni eisiau siarad gyda'r rheini sy'n ganolbwynt i'r project - y plant. Wedi'r cwbl, mae nhw wedi bod yn rhan o'r broses gynllunio ers y cychwyn cyntaf...sy'n hirach na rhai o'r staff! Dyna pam rydym ni wedi penderfynu…

You must have heard us talking about Conwy Connections by now; it's very exciting! The makeover is all about creating a better place for children, families and everyone to get up close to nature. We want to talk to those at the heart of the project - the children. After all, they've been involved in the planning process since the beginning...longer than some of the present staff! This is why we've decided to launch…

Welcome to RSPB Conwy Wildlife Explorers group’s first Blog – we hope you will enjoy reading this.

Our group meets the first Saturday of each month at the Reserve. We are a group of young people aged from eight up to teenagers, who love being outside and getting our hands dirty – and luckily we don’t mind getting wet.

Over the next few months, after our monthly meetings, we will be keeping you…

The last two weeks have seen Waxwings arrive along the North Wales coast, from Caernarfon to Connah's Quay.  Llandudno and Wrexham hosted flocks into treble figures, though they seem to have quickly moved on.  We've had several sightings at the reserve, with a flock of 40+ on 13th November, 30-40 on 15th and 23 over the reserve today (24th).

Our firecrests have been popular and a little more reliable (though they…

The real highlight of the last couple of weeks has been two firecrests, seen regularly in the Carneddau Hide/Bridge Pond area. These birds have become a regular winter feature at the reserve, although they can be a little tricky to see sometimes, needing a bit of patience to track them down. Watching them flitting through the bushes, gleaming in the sunshine first thing in the morning, is a real treat though, and makes…

As the first dusting of snow covers the top of the Carneddau hills, we've definitely swapped over our summer visitors for the winter migrants now. The last swallow left us on 6 October, and a week later the first redwings arrived, followed closely by fieldfares on 25 October. Mind you, some signs of summer are still with us, with common darter dragonflies hovering over the ponds on sunny days towards the end of October…

Croeso i’r ail fwletin! Y tro yma, dewn ni â’r newyddion diweddaraf ichi o’r datblygiadau diweddar gan gynnwys eglurhad syml o sut mae’r paneli solar thermal yn gweithio, manylion o’r cynlluniau diweddaraf a gwybodaeth ynglŷn â’r digwyddiadau cyffrous a drefnir yma yn ystod y mis nesa’. Os hoffech ymuno â rhestr ebostio Cysylltiadau Conwy, ebostiwch ni, os gwelwch yn dda:…

Welcome to our second Conwy Connections bulletin! This time we bring you exciting news about the latest developments of the project including an ‘idiot’s guide’ on how the solar panels installation work, details on the latest planning developments and information about the exciting events coming up over the next month. If you’d like to join the Conwy Connections emailing list, please email us: 

Diggers
Things have really started to get busy for our Conwy Connections project this week, as you'll notice if you visit - there are a lot of big yellow 'toys' beetling up and down the field outside the Visitor Centre.  For a quick recap of the project, see our earlier blog and Bulletin.  We've talked about this project for a long time, have been fundraising for it for around three years, and so we got quite excited…

The rain is pouring down as I write this, and it's amazing to think that just a few weeks ago we were sitting in the blazing sunshine sorting through mud samples looking for invertebrates. Each year we take a series of core samples from the mud in each lagoon, wash them carefully through a specialist sieve and then identify and count the numbers of invertebrates left behind, to help us work out whether we have enough…

Finally, summer came. Just as the schools went back and the summer migrants were ready to go. But this good weather at least means there is plenty of insect food for the migrants to eat before they start their journeys south.  Each morning the bushes have been full of chiffchaffs, with smaller numbers of blackcaps and lesser whitethroats. It's the time of year when anything can turn up - and on Monday (3rd), it did!…

We've had lots of interest this week from artists interested in our commission for an artwork to sit next to the reserve entrance, at the top of the sliproad from the A55.  If you haven't heard about it, you can read the full story here, and that's also where artists can download the brief. 

We're looking forward to seeing what artists suggest - what would you like to see representing Conwy Nature Reserve?…

The waders have been moving south for some weeks, but the songbirds started to migrate through Conwy too this week.  Some mornings there have been dozens of warblers - mostly chiffchaffs and blackcaps - feeding in the bushes, perhaps having just arrived from Scotland after crossing the Irish Sea.  Several redstarts have been around since last Thursday (16th), one splashing in a puddle on the entrance drive as I arrived…

Finally, something that feels like summer. Days when you don't have to wear a fleece, waterproofs or wellies. Days when your walk is full of colourful insects and flowers. Days to get outside even if Taekwondo or BMX racing is on the tv (three cheers for North Wales gold medallist Jade Jones, by the way).

After a terribly poor summer, butterflies have finally made an appearance this week, with lots of gatekeeper…

Many of our regular visitors will have met Angela Rogers, shop manager at the reserve since 2009.  We are desperately sad that Angela passed away on Tuesday.

Angela had been ill for some while, fighting illness in her inimitable way with strength, good humour and a laugh which filled the Visitor Centre.  Despite initially professing to know nothing about birds, she quickly discovered the joys of watching the birds in her…

The last couple of weeks have seen a great variety of birds here, and even brought us a new species for the reserve, a juvenile pied flycatcher, found by ex-Site Manager Alan Davies. They breed not too far away from us, up at Pensychnant on the edge of Conwy Mountain, so it's perhaps surprising that this is the first record. We've also had sightings of a few young redstarts over the last couple of weeks, another…

Conwy Connections: Enhancing RSPB Conwy for People and Nature

Conwy reserve’s visitors will soon be getting more from their visit than ever before. After good news from various funding partners, work will start on transforming certain areas of the reserve, improving the connection between people and wildlife. This project will provide exciting new opportunities for visitors enhancing the space for everyone, throughout…