The UK birding world has been all a twitter in the last few weeks with ‘megas’, firsts for Britain and 1000’s of migrants arriving from Siberia and Scandinavia. However, the majority of excitement occurs on the east coast where the birds first make landfall. Britain’s 4th Eastern-crowned warbler was discovered at Bempton Cliffs RSPB along with a host of other rare/scarce migrants, but a black-browed albatross on the same day as the warbler must have been something special (check out their recent blogs). But it’s a relative of the dunnock that has caused the biggest stir, with Britain’s first 5 records of Siberian accentor turning up along the east coast (Dailypost report).
Yellow-browed warbler at RSPB Bempton Cliffs on 7th October by Gavin Chambers
In the west of Britain we get far fewer of these scarce migrants and even less so inland, such as Lake Vyrnwy. However, for the first time on the reserve we found a couple of yellow-browed warblers on 11 October. One around the new play area in the village, more on that later, and one along the purple trail. These birds are slightly smaller than a chiffchaff and breed predominantly in Siberia but travel the 3000+km to Britain across the North Sea each year. They are very elusive, often feeding high in tree canopies, and are often found by their distinctive ‘tseeweest’ call among mixed tit flocks. The bird around the new play area stayed until at least the 15th but has probably moved on now.
Other winter migrants from Scandinavian have started to arrive with large numbers of redwing visible all around the reserve and recently small numbers of fieldfare have been seen moving through. There has been an increase in lesser redpoll, siskin and crossbill numbers in the last couple of weeks, our blue trail being a good place to search for these species. A late osprey was seen by visitors on the 11th and some very lucky visitors got views of a couple of otters from the centenary hide on the 14th.
Top: 2 of the 4 juvenile mute swans; Bottom: flock of mandarin (Photos by Gavin Chambers)
Though familiar birds to everyone, we were surprised to hear about 4 juvenile mute swans at the top end of the lake on 17th, the first for a couple of years. Thankfully they stayed for me to add to my winter list (now at 62nd species). There has also been several mandarin at the top of the lake including at least 4 stunning males. An immature common gull, another ‘rare’ bird at Lake Vyrnwy, was seen off the dam on 19th but was later found hobbling around the Artisans café car park and seemingly unable to fly so was taken to the local vet (63rd species).
As previously mentioned, we have a new play area that has been created over the last couple of months and is nearing completion. It will be open to the public on the 26 October, further details can be seen here.
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