Day Trip Sunday 8th Feb 2015

A quick run down of a fantastic day out in N.Wales today. Started off by leaving the fog in England and heading to Connah's Quay NR. 36 Twite were in the tree by the West Hide car park. They were pretty flighty and flew over the fenceline of the field by the pool, this was in response to the car creeping along the track, much flightier than they were last year! Next we headed up to Old Colwyn & from the top lay-by, once the sun came out, we saw 2 drake Surf Scoters,7 drake Velvet Scoters and 5 Red-throated Divers amongst thousands of Common Scoters. Down the Conwy Valley many Buzzards were in the air but no Red Kites this time. However in what is generally agreed to be a lean year for them, it was nice to see a single Hawfinch in the big trees to the L.of the uphill lane at Llanbedr-y-cennin. Finally to the Nant Ffrancon valley in Snowdonia . The drive was really spectacular with the snow-topped mountains glistening in the sun. At the lay-by on the A5 (so well described in posts below) we immediately saw 5 Ring Ouzels in the field at the base of the slope on the lay-by side of the road. Calling Choughs were heard and eventually a mobile party of 5 birds was seen in the pony fields several fields behind the Ouzels.
All in all a great day out, in superb weather, a few other sites were visited but nothing else out of the ordinary to report! Managed a distant record shot of a Ring Ouzel, taken into the sun!!