Dusted off the bins recently and squeezed in a bit of birding. A Hooded Crow was around Tregele for a week at the start of the month. Yesterday I went to Cemlyn to try and do some seawatching but got distracted chasing a Purple Sand and a Whimbrel over the rocks. There were plenty of Manxies offshore and 40 Gannets in view at one time.
Llanbadrig had 2 Leach's and a Sooty Shearwater today. I had a quick look but had to pick up the little'un so couldn't stay for long, but I always find things a bit distant here as Middle Mouse keeps most birds that little bit further out. I moved to Bull Bay headland, which I like as things are closer here, including a nice Summer Plumaged Red throated Diver. However its a bit un-nerving wandering around a windswept headland with a three-year old so I plumbed for Octel in Amlwch on the mound by the old Windmill, seawatching from the car, with Little Shaun in the back with a bag of Monster munch to give me a bit of time. This is one of Martin Jones's haunts and as expected he had arrived just before me. I gave it about 30 minutes and managed to pick out a Sooty Shearwater amongst the Manxies whilst playing I-spy with Sion. That was before the Monster munch ran out and the cries of "can we go home now" from the back of the car got too loud to ignore.
Good Stuff Steve. I had the Leach's and Sooty off Llanbadrig. I'd started early morning at Lynas but the brids were all too far out in the heat distortion(!) I decided to head West and hope they'd steer a bit closer to land. I ended up at Llanliana, just East of the look out concrete thing on the hill there. It was a bit too high for my liking but very shelterd, and the birds were maybe a tad closer so I stuck it for over 4 hours. Only other birds of note were 4 bonxies, 2 Arctics a red-throat and a Peregrine that I picked up way out and had me baffled until it got a bit closer. Not been to this bit of coast before - looked really interesting - especially the valley with the reed-bed. Are there any good records from here? There's also a pond /small lake but appears to be inaccessible. BTW only realised I was at Llanlliana, not Llanbadrig after checking the mapwhen I got home
ReplyDeleteCheers Rhys. That bit of coast always looks great for passage migrants. The marsh has breeding Reed Warblers some years. Just inland from there the loop to the vineyard then round to Llanbadrig always looks promising. I'm not aware of any rarities along that stretch but that is probably due to the fact that people don't visit it that often and there's a lot of cover to hide in. I'm sure it would be a fantastic spot to set up some mist nets.I was going to do Carmel head tomorrow, but I may try there instead, watch this space........
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