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…

After the rush of Spring migration, nature is now settling into its breeding season. Some of our waterbirds have chicks, and it's a delight to watch the two stripy-headed great-crested grebe chicks poking their heads from beneath the parental wings, soliciting food. Thanks to Rita Jones for sharing her photo with us on Flickr. A little grebe brood has also hatched, and unwilling to give their young a free ride, the…

We've had some wonderful wildlife on the reserve this week, including a few local rarities. And our visitors have taken some wonderful pictures, so rather than writing a long blog, we thought we'd showcase some of the best we've seen.

A blue-headed wagtail (the continental race of yellow wagtail) stayed from 27th April to last Wednesday (4 May), sometimes showing very well. Sometimes it wanted a better…

Imagine being a chick. For the last few weeks, you've been cosseted in an egg, warmed by the downy feathered lining of your nest and the warm belly of your parent(s). Most birds - generally females - have a 'brood patch' of bare feathers so that eggs and chicks get warmth from the adult's blood vessels.

Then, when you're too big to stay in the egg any longer, you fight your way out of the egg, chipping…

April has dawned with its typical weather of sunshine and showers. But between the rain and hail, new birds are arriving and Spring bird migration gets properly underway.  So, what's the consensus about arrivals so far?

The first sedge warbler (Friday 8th) was earlier than the average, though not our earliest (5th April 2011) - thanks to Dave Williams for the photo. A fly-over yellow wagtail (Sunday 3rd) was very…

Typically, as soon as the schools broke for Easter, the weather broke after almost a month without rain. But the rather grotty weekend weather didn't deter people from getting out and seeing wildlife.

This was our first week of 'proper' Spring migration, with small groups of sand martins passing through since the first on Sunday evening (20th), swallow on Wednesday (23rd), wheatear on Saturday and Sunday…

There's definitely the feel of change in the air at the moment, with more signs of spring being seen daily. A chiffchaff has been singing away, cowslips are starting to peek above ground, yellow coltsfoot flowers speckle the grass, and the leaves on the wild privet bushes are unfurling along the edges of the Wildlife Garden. If you peer in the waters of the Bridge Pond you will see the bottom of the pond covered in…

February will be remembered here as one of the best months for murmurating starlings for many years.  By the end of the month, at least 30,000 (and that's  a conservative estimate) were coming in to the reedbeds to roost, preceded on calm evenings by spectacular displays across the sky. This band of brothers (and sisters) stretches the length of the reserve, from Llandudno Junction to Glan Conwy, and many people have…

Improved weather over the weekend has encouraged more people to get outside, and made it easier to see some of the smaller birds. Firecrests have been seen in several places over the weekend, suggesting that at least three are present, while the water pipit was seen on the Shallow Lagoon islands today (14th). A Cetti's warbler was refound and photographed (by Henry Cooke) on Friday and seen by some of the visitors…

We've no idea where January went! We've been busy on the reserve, planning our events for this year, making some alterations to the kitchen in the Coffee Shop, cutting back bramble along the trails and creating new micro-habitats, and installing solar PV panels on the roof of the Visitor Centre to generate electricity - continuing towards our goal of reducing our carbon emissions at Conwy.

While we were busy…

Is it boring to start with the subject of rain? Today is our 60th consecutive day of rain at the reserve - the last dry day here was 11 November! Some of the paths are now pretty wet, and we recommend wellies or walking boots over the next few days. But there is snow on the peaks of the Carneddau mountains and it's certainly colder today, so perhaps we'll start to see a few more birds arriving here from farther north…

Thankfully, the Conwy Valley flooding hasn't affected the reserve, except that it's created some new ponds where we didn't have them before. The levels in the lagoons are rising back towards where we want them to be for the forthcoming nesting season, and this has pushed feeding snipe from the reedbeds out into the open. Benarth Hide is a good place to get views of these wonderful waders, with groups of…

Will it ever stop raining? The last 24-hour period we had without rain was 11 November, and today has been another day of wind and rain. It doesn't encourage you to get out and see wildlife, so well done to those who have donned their waterproofs and gone for a walk. On the upside, the weather has put almost 50cm of water into the lagoons over the last few weeks, and the teals, gadwalls and mallards appreciate that…

Despite the horrendous weather conditions, the Wildlife Explorers club were still determined to carry out their Marshmalloween! To start off, the group learned about fire safety and how to light a fire without causing a kafuffle. Once prepped, the large group faced the wind and rain to get to their fire lighting stations armed with hay, cotton wool and kindling, as well as a flint and steel.

With the club split into…

Although it feels more wintry feeling around the reserve today. with no frost (yet!) a few summer flowers continue to bloom, and there are still midges and wasps around. A flock of around 20 siskins are regular in the alders near the Tal-y-fan Hide, and a smart lesser redpoll was busily feeding on the seeds on the seeds of traveller's joy (old man's beard) outside the Benarth Hide this morning. Signs of colder…

OK, so perhaps an exaggeration, but in a week that several places in North Wales had multiple firecrests, the reserve took its share with at least five at one time (on Saturday 31st). There were still two this morning (Friday 6th), so who knows how many have passed through? Some may stay for the winter, as RSPB Conwy is a regular wintering site for these tiny birds that weigh just 6 grammes (one one-fifth of an ounce…

Over the last few days, a major new artwork has been installed next to the roundabout from which cars and coaches access the nature reserve. Here's what it's all about.

A couple of years ago, our Conwy Connections project made lots of improvements to the reserve, including building The LookOut and creating Y Maes behind the Visitor Centre. As part of that project, we commissioned a new artwork to be located…

John Loder has spent the summer as Assistant Warden at Conwy, finishing last Friday. We asked him to give us the lowdown of what he spent his time doing, and what he will remember of the place.

There’s a certain irony that a civil engineer who first worked in North Wales in 1987, building tunnels and bridges and suchlike for the A55, should, more than a few years later, end up working at a nature reserve created from…

The biggest surprise of the week was the appearance of three spoonbills on Sunday; after commuting up and down the estuary for a few hours, they quickly settled on the Deep Lagoon and fed hungrily. The three stayed until Wednesday morning, when they headed west, being reported over the RSPB's Malltraeth Marsh nature reserve on Anglesey.

These three obviously like RSPB reserves, for the previous day they had been…

We got busy with the digger last week and reprofiled the islands in front of the Carneddau Hide.  It has created lots more shoreline habitat for waders, and denuded them of vegetation that was deterring birds from using them. It's also really opened up the views, both across the islands and more widely across the lagoon, as the lower islands don't block the view of the water. 

We then moved the digger to the…

At RSPB Conwy, we're passionate about getting young people outside and experiencing nature first-hand. And we’ve got some great news...

 Free visits for primary schools in North Wales

A new exciting partnership between the RSPB and the supermarket chain Aldi means that primary schools in north Wales can benefit from free, staff-led visits to our nature reserve during 2016. Aldi are donating all revenue from…

The Autumn Equinox has passed, so nights are slightly longer than days. The nights are cooler, leaves turn from green to red and yellow, and there are fewer insects to be found.  It will be October soon, and our summer visitors are racing south, heading to Africa before the northern food supply runs out. These are birds without borders, needing good habitat in pit-stops on their 2000 mile journey.

Many of our summer…

Next week we’ve got a digger back on site to carry out some work on the Deep Lagoon to improve the area for breeding and roosting birds. It's going to be messy - here's why we're doing it.

The islands directly in front of Carneddau Hide have had fewer and fewer waders nesting on them in recent years, and are very rarely used by roosting waders at high tide. The islands stand very tall above the water…

I'm Rhianna Braden, I'm 14 years old and I am currently volunteering at RSPB Conwy as part of my Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Award.  I will be blogging about some of the reserve's events, such as the Wildlife Explorers Group that meets monthly at the reserve.  Wildlife Explorers is the junior membership of the RSPB, and the events at Conwy are for members aged eight and upwards.  I joined them for their meeting…

Firstly, a few words about our water. Every year, during the summer, the water in the lagoons drops as a result of evaporation (the sun and the wind) and transpiration (the reeds that grow in the water).  Each day (without rain) through the summer, the water level drops by 1cm. This is replaced only by rainfall, and to provide some context, in the last 90 days, 16cm of rain has fallen, so that's a net reduction of about…