Well firstly sorry for no posts in a few weeks,its not that ive stopped birding its just not much point reporting on my days out when there have been so many writting about the same birds etc.
Ok, so i was greeted by Dave on wednesday with "hiya mate, happy microphone day\!! 121212" , then old faithful "Charlie" jumped allover me lol.
So we started off the day in Kimel bay with it being a very high tide the waders where very close as where the Snow Buntings , a nice group of approx 20 birds with some striking males amongst them.
We then decided we would go to Point of Ayr as i had never been there before, we arrived and my god it was "FREEZING!!!!" we could of been on the tundra lol anyway we walked down to the hide with plenty of birds to watch, a striking Peregrine was one of the first flying over towards the lighthouse, good selection of finches and thrushes, then hold on a minute Waxwings! eight of them moved ahead of us towards the hide and disappeared around the back of the plant site.We both chatted about how good the area should be for warblers in the spring and we agreed we would definately be back in the spring when its a bit warmer lol. I also spotted a Brown Hare in the grounds of the plant along with plenty of Curlew.
At the hide we viewed what dave said where the usual birds and then the bleeper went off the Hawfinches where in caerhun , so we started the cold walk back to the car.
Just as we got back onto the main path back towards the carpark Dave was ahead of me with Charlie and i stopped as i thought I had heard a Bullfinch and as I havent had a good pic of one yet I stopped and scanned the shrubs on the south side of the path.
Whats that? a WARBLER! I called Dave back and we watched it for some time we agreed that it was a Chiffchaff ,BUT seemed duler than usual and some thing didnt sit right, so i snapped away and text Alan Davies to let him know I had pics that I would email him later. After Alan studied the pics he got back in touch and gave me the good news that he thought it was a Tristis Chiffchaff ,which was a first for both myself and Dave, Happy Days!! I also sent Steve Culley the pics and he was almost certain it was the tristis
too , made up! heres a few pics:
So we carried on back towards the car and through the trees I scanned the ducks on the frozen pond,loads of Mallard and a Red Head female SMEW! they got spooked and flew over our heads down towards the shoreline. Fantastic! I hadnt ever seen a Smew in the wild, so the day was even better now two first for me :-).
So we finished the very cold artic conditions on a major high, so whats next for us?
HAWFINCHES!!!
For two years after getting back into Birding after a very long absence these have eluded me :-(
But as they had been seen over the last two days in caerhun I arranged to meet Dave today (13th) at Caerhun after work, I arrived at 11.40 am to find Dave ther and also Alan N Ruth on their ADMIN day lol "i like admin days like that lol"
No sign of the Hawfinches, cold day but very bright, Dave left and later Alan and Ruth left also.So just me now and i waited and waited mmmmmm and waited . I was joined by a few other birders(sorry didnt get your names) and we waited around a bit longer. I decided to have a walk around the church and low and behold at the back of the church i found one Hawfinch sat at the top of the Yew in the left hand corner i quickly snapped a few pics but it flew up and was accompanied by another and dissappeared over the top towards the field side. ANOTHER FIRST!!! on a roll lol
I hung around as you do to try for that better pic , but no sign , so at 2pm and since i had been up since 4.45am with work and had to travel back to holyhead to teach this evening i called it a day, but I was also treated to overhead and distant views of a lovely Red Kite.
So cheers Dave, Alan, Ruth and Steve for all your help.
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