Conwy bittern

The bittern at Conwy RSPB was showing quite well for a time in the reeds by the side of Benarth hide looking across from Talyfan hide. Watching for reeds moving often revealed its presence and a couple of times it was observed walking in full view at the front of the reeds. Apparently it's been confirmed there are 2 bitterns present.

Traeth Lligwy 8/1/13 Barn Owl and Black-Throat!

Had a very rewarding afternoon at Traeth Lligwy. Hot-footed it down to Lligwy from the house and added another eight species to my 'Foot It' list. And it did stop raining as predicted!

Highlight was a superb Barn Owl hunting the marsh behind the car park, which flushed 15 Snipe. First time I've seen one here in 15 years, a real bonus. It was great to see it floating around in the dusk, There was also one Black Throated Diver, seven Red Throated Diver and four Black Guillemot on the sea. Twenty Fulmar were on the cliffs and a good flock of 15 Sanderling fed on the waters edge. Had a Woodcock flying over Mynydd Bodafon as dusk came.

Other recent sightings in the past week: Four Whooper Swan near Treysgawen Hall, Four Crossbill and a Goosander at Llyn Cefni, Purple Sandpiper at Moelfre, up to five Jack Snipe on Mynydd Bodafon, Water Pipit at Traeth Dulas.  

Help with feather ID





I found these whilst birding in Scotland this week. They were lying on the moorland in a big pile, probably predated. The feathers show a slight greenish tinge. The third from the left shows a white tip. My feather ID is poor but could they be from something like a Black Grouse? My phone is just there for a size comparison.

 

Bangor Bird Group: an exciting 2013!

Hello guys,

Just to let you know that Bangor Bird Group is back up and running this week for it's weekly Wednesday evening meetings.

There is a varied list of speakers, covering many topics which are more often than not heavily bird-related!

This semester we'll here from the likes of Ruth & Alan (from The Biggest Twitch), local Wildlife Trust representatives and the head of species conservation from the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust among many others!

Meetings take place in the Brambell Building of Bangor University (number 38 on this map).

As we're half way through the Bangor Bird Group-year membership prices have been reduced to £10 (£8 concessions/£7 student). That's around 83p per talk!! If there's just the odd one that takes your fancy then just turn up and pay £2 on the night.

Hope you can make it!

From all of us that make up Bangor Bird Group x

PROGRAMME:                          JANUARY- MARCH 2013

ALL ARE WELCOME

CROESO I BAWB         

Wednesdays	TOPIC	SPEAKER
9th     Jan	A Wildlife photographer’s Year	Ron Evans
16th   Jan	GPS tracking of Birds on Puffin Island	Louise Soanes
Mon 21st NB Extra meeting  on Monday    Held in the University Memorial Building next to Brambell Bulding on Deiniol Rd frontage 7.30 pm as usual	Birds and People: Pushing the boundaries	Ground breaking stories of bird ID, the places and the people by Martin Garner of Birding Frontiers Mixing architecture and birding : Arctic Norway- The making of a nature destination by Tormod Amundsen of Biotope
23rd   Jan ♣	From Spotted Rockrose to Snowdon Lily, a gallery of Welsh Plants	James Robertson
30th   Jan	The Wildlife of Svalbard	Dewi Edwards
6th     Feb	Texas and Carolina – Birding in the deep south	Alan Davies and Ruth Miller
13th   Feb	South Africa – Birds and Wildlife of the Kruger National Park	Dave Owen
20th   Feb	Saving the spoon-billed sandpiper	Baz Hughes.  Head of species conservation, Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust
27th   Feb ♣	North Wales Wildlife Trust – the first 50 years and what next?	Frances Cattanach, Director of the Trust.
6th     Mar	Cuckoos (BTO)	Kelvin Jones
13th   Mar	Birds at NWWT reserves in North Wales	Ben Stammers
20th   Mar	Central American Birding Bonanza – Costa Rica (plus short AGM)	Stephen Culley

♣= Joint meeting with North Wales Wildlife Trust

Meetings are in the ground floor Lecture Theatre of the University’s Brambell Building on Deiniol Road, Bangor and start at 7.30 pm prompt. (The doors of the building are required to be closed at the start of the meeting at 7.30)                                                                                      

Anglesey and North Wales Highlights

A good trip up today to Anglesey and North Wales resulting in 92 species for the day (including Barn, Little and Tawny Owl on our home ground).

Highlights from the day:

Penrhos CP - Slav Grebe, 275+ Brent Geese including 6 Dark Bellied,  150+ Golden Plover with many Bar Tailed Godwit, Grey Plover and Knot

Holyhead Harbour - 3 Great Northern Diver and 6 Black Guillemot in various plumages

Valley Lakes - Long Tailed Duck

Malltraeth - Greenshank

Aber Ogwen - Smew from the car park as the tide was coming in. Spotshank + Greenshank

Llandudno - no sign of the Waxwing initially on the approach to the Links Hotel however thanks to advice from Alan headed into the housing estate on the east, and as we approached the adjacent road to the A470 it appeared the 8 Waxwing had sneaked back to the trees beside the road.

Rhos Point - 3 Purple Sandpiper

RSPB Conwy - 2 Firecrest heard around the Bridge Pond and a brief glimpse of 1. Missed out on the Bittern but had enough to compensate in the day!

In all not a bad day! Just hope the elusive Green Winged Teal shows on one of our local reserves tomorrow now!

Andrew + John

Llangefni Dippers

That's the good thing about being a birder. One minute you are waiting for your wife to come out of Asda with some new school trousers for your son and you are losing the will to live, next minute you are deeply engrossed in your favourite hobby!I was in the Adsa car park in Llangefni by the river so I thought I would have a quick look for Dipper. Due to consruction they seemed to disappear from Llangefni after 2003.However single birds were seen again onwards from 2009. There was never any proof of breeding again until recently.This spring I thought I heard two birds calling then breeding was confirmed again this July when Brian Iddon saw a juvenile at the site. I only found this out this week when I received his 2012 records. Today I checked and quickly locked onto a Dipper and soon after it was joined by another which was great!The first pair I had seen in years here. I took a few photos and only realised today that Dippers actually have silvery white underside to their primary and secondary wing feathers!You learn new things all the time. This is the main site on the island for Dippers but we do get the occasional records from smaller rivers by Cadnant, Llanfairpwll, Penmynydd and even Pengorffwhysfa. It was great to see a pair togeather today after so many years!

Tasmania for 6 days, Dec 12

A timely post as eastern Tassie is just recovering after severe bush fires and record temperatures in the last week.  We were there just over two weeks ago!

We left Perth following a shambolic service from Jetstar (i might have already mentioned that) causing a two then three hour delay.  Ryanair are a dream compared to this!  We picked up the hire car and headed into Hobart city centre for one night/2days.  Birds around the city included Masked Lapwing, Australian Magpie, Blackbirds were everywhere, Starlings too, House Sparrow and Goldfinch.  Is this really the other end of the world? An obligatory visit to the botanic gardens in any city added Noisy Miner, Yellow Wattlebird, Little Wattlebird, Eastern Rosella, Grey Teal and Pacific Black Duck.  The city harbour and Salamanca areas had a great vibe with bustling restaurants, bars and markets. Heading north the next evening we stayed in Swansea as a means to break the journey (and cost of accommodation).  We arrived late but a walk around the added Superb Fairywren, Musk Lorikeet and reading the information in the chalet we found out there was a Short-tailed Shearwater colony about 500m away on Waterloo Headland so at dusk we took a stroll and waited.  There was no sign of anything out over the sea but the burrows were everywhere then just after dusk they started to appear zooming over the burrows causing us to take cover behind a tree and an information sign.  One at a time they crash-landed and scurried through the vegetation before their bubbling and wailing calls gave us the spooks and we left them to it.

 Short-tailed Shear and Musk Lorikeet at Swansea

A short drive the next day saw us on the Freycinet Peninsula.  On route, the amount of road-kill is a bit disturbing but if nothing else was an indicator as to what was out there.  The arable land on the way was alive with Skylarks whilst a few Dusky Woodswallows and group of Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos were seen on the road to Dolphin Beach and a White-bellied Sea Eagle flew overhead.  A walk to Wineglass Bay lookout and further walk down to the beach added Tasmanian Thornbill, Scrubtit, Yellow-throated Honeyeater, Grey Shrike-Thrush, Forest Raven and finally Hooded Plover which was proving quite tricky and were to be the only ones of the trip.  Around Freycinet Lodge were more Superb Fairywrens, Green Rosellas.

 Bennett's Wallaby at WGB car park

 Wine Glass Bay from view point

 Female Superb Fairywren

male SFW at Freycinet

                                      
                                                  

 Grey shrike-Thrush and Hooded Plover at WGB

  The Nuggets from Cape Tourville with breeding bird list

                                      

 Echidna having an ambidextrous scratch and central farmland- fairly barren and void of things unfortunately.  Really should be bush or forest!

  Driving into the country we headed for Derwent Bridge in order to explore the Lake St Clair area of Cradle Mnt/Lake St Clair National Park.  A walk from the park’s VC to Lake St Clair (Australia’s deepest lake) passed through some stunning forest habitat and the air was quite fresh.  The area reminded us of New Zealand’s south island and the local chalets had their woodburners fired filling the air with a sweet eucalyptus smoke.  The woodland provided the Tasmanian Silvereye, Strong-billed Honeyeater but best of all at least three Pink Robin.  What an unbelievable colour clash; ‘Calpal’ pink and black flitting about the branches in the southern beech.  The temperature dropped to 6 degrees C that evening- cooler than home!  The next morning the calls of Black-faced Cuckooshrikes and Black Currawongs filled the forest and a group of parrots high up in the canopy.  After a while grilling them I made enough out to realise they were Swift Parrots.   We left early, driving from here to Bruny Island but we stopped in Mount Field NP on the way adding Bassian Thrush, Sulphur crested Cockatoo and more Pink Robin on the 1.5hr return walk from the VC.  

Derwent Bridge bush and Pink Robin below

                                      
                                                    

Tasmanian Pademelon Thylogale billardierii

                                     

Tasmanian Scrubwren and another Echidna at Derwent Bridge

                                     

We reached Kettering to cross to Bruny in the afternoon.  As soon as we arrived we drove south over the neck to South Bruny where we stayed in a basic chalet.  After previous research I’d hoped to stay at or at least visit the renowned Inala reserve but I don’t mind saying that the tariffs were unfortunately way beyond my means.  So I’d have to seek out all that I could myself on Bruny.  Unfortunately I hadn’t really done much research.  I thought things might have been slightly easier and I certainly didn’t appreciate the size of the island!  Where exactly do you find 40-spotted Pardalotes on an island 100km long!!   Other birds found were numerous Tasmanian Nativehens, Spotted and Striated Pardalotes, Kelp Gull, Black-faced Cormorant, Olive Whistler, Crescent Honeyeater, Pallid Cuckoo and a Greenfinch!  That night I googled a bit of information on 40-S Pardalotes and circled a couple of sites on the north island on our way off the island and back to Hobart for a 3pm flight the next day.  It would be cutting it fine and i was kicking myself. That evening we went back up to the viewing platform on The Neck to see the Little Blue Penguins and several hundred Short-tailed Shearwater come to land just after dusk.  The next day though we first headed south to South Bruny NP along lighthouse road checking a couple of spots for 40-Spots to no avail in strong winds.  From the lighthouse a Shy Albatross sheared through the bay and unexpectedly a small quail ventured out from a pool by the car park and I can only think it was a Swamp Quail.  A White-fronted Chat fed on the short grass (my only other sighting was on Rottnest Is in WA).  The drive back added Fan-tailed Cuckoo and a superb view of a White-bellied Sea Eagle flying out of the woodland.  A walk through the bush became a bit unnerving as the landscape was recovering from fire and a couple of snakes were seen on patches of bare earth.  Wild flowers were abundant but passing through a group of trees a pair of Bassian Thrush got my attention as they were obviously displeased with something on their patch.  Unfortunately it was a snake eating their chicks in a nest only a metre off the ground. 

                                                              View from the Neck

 ST Shearwater and LB Penguin viewing boardwalk by night, normal viewpoint by day

 Green Rosella at Alonnah, S Bruny 

 Lighthouse Rd, South Bruny NP.

White-fronted Chat at the lighthouse

                                  

 Pallid Cuckoo at Alonnah and snake eating Bassian Thrush chicks 

 wild flowers coming back after the last bush fire!

We had to leave enough time to drive back up to Hobart for our flight so it was time to head off the island.  I tried the first site for 40-spots but only saw Striated, a couple of other birds could have been but views were inadequate.  I tried further along the road and missed out again before returning back and trying again at the first spot.  A couple of birds flitting through the eucalyptus canopy were looking good, one flew towards me, over my head and into trees thankfully at eye-level for me and after a bit more flitting it appeared; a cracking little Forty-spotted Pardalote.  A time check and it really was time to leave, catching the ferry within minutes and heading north for our flight to Melbourne and a Christmas in the sun.

We really didn’t have enough time to do everything and were limited to six nights with two days around Hobart so exploring further afield or embarking on one of the long-distance walking tracks will have to be saved until next time!  Oh and seeing Orange-bellied Parrot too!  Give yourself at least a week or 10 days to do the whole place but you'll still want longer- its a great place about the same size of Ireland with similar roads too!  Please get in touch if you want any more info.

Robin