There's no doubt about the star bird of the last week. This smart male ring-necked duck was found by regular visitor Marc Hughes early on Sunday morning, and many local birders were keen to see it. Originating in North America, it's only the sixth ever recorded in North Wales, and it's the first seen at Conwy.* It arrived, and presumably went, with a gaggle of five pochards, which may prove to be the last…

Last week, you may have read or heard about the latest monitoring results from the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme. It wasn't good news. Although 2017 was better than 2016, it proved to be the seventh worst year for butterflies since the survey started in 1976. You can read all about the results on the Butterfly Conservation website.

That 2017 was a better year was illustrated by our own results at Conwy, but we…

It is Spring, isn't it? Yesterday I thought it was, walking around the reserve in a t-shirt, a couple of commas being the first butterflies of the year here. Today, I'm not so sure...

Summer migrants have slowly started to arrive this week, with more chiffchaffs and sand martins around, plus our first swallows (Tuesday 3rd), blackcap, white wagtail, willow warbler and common sandpiper (Wednesday 5th). Perhaps…

Usually by the end of March, good numbers of the early summer migrants have arrived. But March 2018 has been untypical, both for the prolonged cold weather dominated by easterly winds, and for a huge low pressure system over Iberia that effectively closed the door on northbound birds in the middle of the month.

Our first chiffchaff, on 11th March, was actually a bit earlier than the average, but with only a few days…

So, there was Winter, just sauntering along with its usual mix of wind, rain, and then more rain, and just as the days started to lengthen, snowfall, frosts and freezing winds scattered birds across Europe and deposited them in unexpected places. Many visitors and social media followers reported redwings and fieldfares in their gardens, and we had a good number on the reserve last weekend, the latter very unusual here…

The signs of Spring are here if you look for them - catkins on the alder trees and the daffodils starting to push up in the clawdd wall by the Visitor Centre - but we are still in the grip of wet and windy weather. There are plenty of birds to enjoy on the reserve, with lapwings and wigeons especially plentiful, both species taking advantage of the islands that were cut last month. We have raised the water level in the…

Next week, from 7-9 February, we will have a digger on the nature reserve, using a flail to cut back some of the scrub. This blog explains what we’re doing, and why.

Nature reserves should be amazing places for nature. But they don’t just ‘happen’.

We use our ecological knowledge and experience to manage the habitats for the species typical of that site, or for the very specific needs of plants…

The new year has so far produced a nice variety of bird sightings for the reserve with some surprises thrown in among the more regular suspects.

A small number of brent geese have been wintering around the mouth of the Conwy estuary recently, some of which have evidently made their way a little further up river producing sightings from the reserve with eight seen flying over on 10/1, and a single bird over on 12/1…

Every day that I'm at Conwy, I typically start with some birdwatching. I 'open up' the reserve, unlocking the hides and checking the trails, and perhaps doing jobs as switching on the water pump or checking some of our mammal monitoring stations. And, of course, I note the birds that are around, so that we have some information for visitors arriving at the Visitor Centre when we open at 9.30am.

This first…

The star attraction over the past couple of weeks was undoubtedly a hen harrier which made daily appearances between Monday 11th and Saturday 16th December (photo by Bob Garrett). The 'ringtail' bird, a name given to female and juvenile hen harriers because of the barred appearance on the tail was thought to be a first year, and delighted visitors with its graceful hunting displays over the lagoons in close proximity…

The water rails have been the stars of Conwy in recent weeks, with up to four on show at any one time, and the total number on the reserve must be in double-figures. In Welsh, these are rhegen y dŵr, literally 'runner on the water', an appropriate title for a bird that you often only see legging it across a gap in the reeds.

But they've been feeding in the open here, and photographers have been getting some…

With the winter season under way, we're well into our habitat management program which involves cutting back reed, bramble and willow scrub, and other long vegetation from various areas around the reserve. We carry out this work to maintain a variety of habitats to benefit a diverse range of wildlife, keeping areas open and preventing the natural succession to scrub and eventually trees which would otherwise occur. The…

Today was just one of those mornings when the nature reserve was alive with birds. The bushes and trees were hooching with thrushes, primarily redwings and blackbirds, fresh in from Scandinavia. There are plenty of hawthorn and rowan berries, and lots of rosehips, bright red in the sunshine, that will feed them for the next few days. Then I came across a flock of blue, great and long-tailed tits, with robins and wr…

The reserve had a taste of the Arctic this morning, with a whooper swan arriving (and then departing mid-morning) with a group of seven mute swans, and two scaup - a first-winter male and a female. The latter 'pair' of ducks arrived overnight, there having been a lookalike scaup here for several weeks, which is actually a female tufted duck with a broad white 'blaize' around the bill - an identification trap…

Thousands of children will get closer to Conwy’s wildlife thanks to the reserve’s new wetland exploration area

The Mayor and Mayoress of Conwy, Cllr Bill Chapman and Mrs Pat Chapman, joined children from a new Llandudno Junction school on 28 September to open an exciting new wetland exploration area at the reserve yesterday.

Pupils from Ysgol Awel y Mynydd primary school were the first to enjoy a pond…

If you were visiting Conwy on Saturday afternoon and wondered why some of us were peering intensely at the undersides of leaves, the answer is... Rust Fungi!

Expert mycologist Debbie Evans ran a workshop here to share her passion for what are probably the most overlooked organisms on the reserve, or in the countryside, yet I bet we've all seen them. Rust fungi are pathogenic fungi, and around 250 different species have…

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…

A quick update from us this week, to mention the highlights from the reserve:

• Big daily movement of house martins, with a smaller number of sand martins and swallows. Swifts has been seen almost daily, up to at least Sunday 10th, which is quite late for Conwy; they've usually left the area by the end of August
  
  
• Numbers of warblers are dwindling, with plenty of chiffchaffs still here but other species becoming…

Cast your mind back to early August's long summer evenings. We held two Big Wild Sleepout events, enabling families to camp at the nature reserve, see bats and moths up close, go on an early morning bird walk and, with the help of local astronomers, see the stars. One of our young volunteers, Amelia, made a short film about the event and has just sent it to us. She even composed the music!

Thanks Amelia, a nice…

Late August is a time of change; the school holidays are coming to an end, thoughts are turning to buying new kit for school, or returning to work. And if I see one more Facebook post telling me how many Fridays are left until Christmas...

But there's still plenty of nature-watching to be done. Indeed, late August/early September is one of my favourite times of the year, as you could see almost anything here.

While people queue at the airport for their Summer getaway, birds are lining up to follow them south. Not for two weeks in the sun or a theme park, but to survive the northern Winter in the humid habitats of the central African rainforest or the scrubby Sahel. But first they must pack away some proteins and fat to fuel them on their journey. And for that, they need plenty of insects, which they can find at Conwy.

Today's Wetland Bird Survey counted more than 1700 birds of 29 species, as numbers start to build following the breeding season. There were notable counts of little egret (62), mallard (136), curlew (273) and redshank (507), and the good thing about paying close attention to the common birds is that you can find some scarcer ones: Mediterranean gull (1), hobby (2), shoveler (3), dunlin (4), plus a wall butterfly…

Black-tailed godwit by Adrian Foster

We might only be half way through July, but as far as the breeding season goes for birds we’re now seeing the first signs that Autumn is not far around the corner. But there’s no need to be disheartened by such a thought, as we’re moving towards an exciting time of year for bird watching and over the coming weeks we can expect a build up to our peak numbers of wading birds, and…

A family of fox cubs has been delighting visitors who chance across them on the reserve this week, and we've seen some great photographs on social media, such as this one by Nathaniel Ramanaden. We all know that foxes cause strong emotions - you only have to read the responses on Twitter to some of the pictures shared by visitors.

Foxes cause mixed feelings for nature reserve wardens. First and foremost, they are…

If you walk in the hills around North Wales, you'd be forgiven for thinking that cuckoos are still a common summer visitor, and in some places they are. But in the lowlands, they've become an all-too-rare symbol of spring. In my ten Summers at RSPB Conwy, I've only previously seen one cuckoo, and most years, none are recorded. So it's been nice to see one daily this week, and by the descriptions we've received,…