...especially if you're a small bird, so keep those feeders topped up and if you have some leftover fruit, the thrushes will thank you.  Our birds are certainly thanking us for the fruit provided by Tatws Trading and the local branch of Tesco as it's about the only grub not under a blanket of snow.

Unfortunately the white stuff means we're closed today, which is a real shame because the place looks stunning.…

The good news is that both the lagoons have thawed out over the weekend, and waterbirds are slowly starting to return.  This morning's tally includes some smart shovelers, a few pochards and goldeneyes and good numbers of mallards.  Around 80 lapwings are roosting here, but the high tide this afternoon should bring in more waders.

Yesterday's highlights included a female hen harrier flying alongside the A55, a water…

Sorry for the lack of news over the last week; we've been struggling to get onto the reserve - and the lagoons have been mostly frozen, so there hasn't been a lot to report from there.  We have had some great raptor sightings though, with a short-eared owl last Thursday lunchtime, three red kites on Friday, a merlin perched on the feeder post outside the coffee shop on Saturday, and a male hen harrier putting in…

What with all the rain we had in the past week, and with some maintenance work we carried out on the valves on our water pumping system, we're finally beginning to see the water levels on the Shallow Lagoon rise. An increase of 14cm in six days may not sound all that much, but it's certainly made a big difference to how the lagoon looks, as you can see from the photo above taken from theTal y Fan hide today. There…

Top of the agenda this week are the starlings, with numbers growing each night.  An estimated 7,000 stayed with us last night, and our Lead Field Teacher Charlie saw hundreds flying up the Conwy Valley towards the reserve last night as she travelled home.  Until the clocks go back, between 5.30 and 6 pm is the best time, but  it's less spectacular on wet or windy evenings.

There are plenty of other birds on the move…

We've started to see the starling numbers build up this week.  We reckon that there are about 3000 roosting in the reedbeds - best seen briefly around 8 am when they all get up and leave, or around 6 pm as they're arriving in groups of 10 or 20.  Last night, a merlin made a bold raid on one of the groups, twisting vertically downwards, but the starlings scattered and it went to perch on top of the measuring gauge…

There's a real feel of autumn in the air this morning - a few more pochards on the lagoon (well, five), the first redwings of the winter leaving their roost site in the berry bushes, and I even dug out my woolly hat.  Best bird of the last couple of days has been a grey plover on the estuary, still feeding on the mud this morning, a species we only average once a year here.

Other waders over the last couple of days…

Finally, the effects of the drought seem to be easing off. The water levels on the lagoons have started to creep up at last after a few weeks of rain and some days when we have been able to pump water from the Afon Ganol. We have a very long way to go yet, but the work we carried out in front of the Coffee Shop has paid off, as we now have two moats of water surrounding the new islands that we created last month, and the…

A few things might affect your visit over the next few week, so please bear with us while we improve the reserve for you and for wildlife:

Thursday 30th: we'll be giving the islands their annual 'haircut', to keep it suitable for wigeons and lapwings.  This will be done at low tide, but there will inevitably be disturbance to the birds

Friday 1st: the shop will be open until 3 pm, then closed for stocktaking…

Star of the weekend has been a grey phalarope, which has given great views from the Benarth Hide.  First found on Friday morning, it's still present today.  This photo, by Adrian Foster, is one of many that have been taken from the hide - so quite why some people have felt it necessary to climb over fences and bunds to take photos from the shoreline is beyond most of the rest of the birdwatchers who've been appreciating…

What a blowy week!  Most of the local birders stood on headlands during the week and watched hundreds of leach's petrels, and a smattering of Sabine's gulls and long-tailed skuas zip along the coast.  None headed into the estuary (that we've heard about), so it's been left to the hardy few to get onto the reserve and search for birds...

Scarcest bird of the week was a first-winter yellow-legged gull on Monday…

Okay, so perhaps the digger wasn't meant to get quite so stuck in to the challenge of creating some new habitat in the dried-up lagoon.  But we soon dug him out and this work has now been completed.  Now all we need is some proper rain to turn the hillocks of mud into proper islands (though a female wheatear was happy to parade along the top this morning, unbothered by the lack of water).  Before the rain comes we will…

The low water levels are proving a bit of a wader magnet, with plenty of shoreline to attract the birds.  Today's tally has included 10 curlew sandpipers (a big total for here, as we usually only see one or two birds a year), 2 little stints, wood sandpiper and whinchat, all of which arrived on Sunday and remained today.  The whinchat was perched on the kingfisher post in front of the Tal-y-fan hide, while several swifts…

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…

The breeding season is done and as there is still a distinct lack of water outside the coffee shop, we're going to take an opportunity to create some new wildlife habitat at the reserve.  The lagoon has never dried out for this length of time before, so in the next couple of weeks a digger will be creating some new islands in front of the coffee shop, to provide new roosting and feeding habitat for waders.  We'll be…

The last few days have provided perfect autumn moments - calm mornings, the bushes bursting with berries and full of small birds.  At least two redstarts (one a smart male) have been around through the weekend, between the wildlife garden and the Carneddau Hide.  They're taking a break on their migration south, as doubtless are the dozens of blackcaps here today, far more than can have bred at the reserve.  There are…

Our two young bearded tits can sometimes be hard to see, but some days this week they've been real show-offs.  Standing on the bridge across the pond, you can sometimes see them feeding on insects at the base of the reedstems, but a few times this week they've been photographed and videoed perched on the tops of the reedstem, preening in the sunshine!

The bridge pond has also hosted a kingfisher regularly this…

I never tire of watching jays - there's something magic about that flash of blue in the wing.  They're not common on the reserve, owing to our lack of mature trees, so to find at least three this morning (and there may have been more) was a nice surprise.  A juvenile bullfinch was another nice bird this morning; I wonder whether they hatched nearby, we've been seeing the adults here for a few weeks?  High tide…

High tide this morning brought some great birds onto the reserve.  The 61 little egrets were impressive, presumably a mix of local breeders and their young, plus some from other sites in North Wales.  From memory, this could well be a local record on the estuary. 

Terns are rare birds at Conwy, so an Arctic tern in front of Carneddau Hide was a nice surprise this morning, but hasn't been seen since.  Two knots in summer…

This week has seen the return of a rare and elusive spectacle at Conwy.......water in front of the Coffee Shop! After torrential rain last night, we were finally able to see an increase in the water levels on the reserve after months of the water continuously receding. I suspected that struggling to get our small water pump up and running to move water from one lagoon to the other would tempt the fates - must remember that…

Just when you think that the breeding season is done, three squeaky, bobbing balls of feather come running across the mud!  There are three young common sandpipers on the island at the end of the boardwalk this morning.  Two were spotted on Wednesday, and we had a report of four yesterday, but however many there are, it's only the second time that common sandpipers have been confirmed breeding on the reserve.

Our other…

There's definitely a feeling of movement and change in the air on the reserve this week, with lots of sightings of birds we haven't seen for a while. Out in our Wildlife Garden, a juvenile great spotted woodpecker has been seen daily on the feeders, a marsh tit was showing well to 7th July and a jay was seen on the 6th and 7th. A couple of common crossbills flew over the reserve this morning, and we had two mistle…

A greenshank stands on the edge of the mud, preening its feathers, the threads of rain bouncing into the lagoon. It's shortly after 5 am and I've sought shelter in the Benarth Hide, listening to a sound that has become unfamiliar: heavy raindrops on the sloping roof. The shelducks, gulls and waders are making the most of this welcome shower, after weeks of dust that evoke the spirit of '76.

While they may…