Surf Scoters

4 Surf Scoter 3drk all from Llysfaen Station rd.Weather conditions good for Scoter watching and the rafts quite close inshore.

Morfa Madryn to Aber 01/11/12

On many trips down to Morfa Madryn over the past few years I have been struck by the amount of birds following the coast here during migration (Thanks to David Lee and Jen for confirming my theories!). So with light westerly winds and calm conditions I was down at Morfa Madryn at first light. From 07.25 to 09.10 there was some very good passage of birds moving west. I counted 1270 Chaffinch, 73 Siskin, 38 Brambling, 44 Greenfinch, 16 Goldfinch, 2 Crossbill, 18 Meadow Pipit, 7 Pied Wagtail, 4 Grey Wagtail, 1510 Starling and 1 Skylark. The finch passage petered out in the next half hour but the Starlings continued to move west until midday at least. Great to see some proper visible migration!
As the tide was rising the next three hours were spent general birding between Glan y Mor Elias and Aber Shore. Highlight was a very obliging Water Pipit strutting around on the saltmarsh at Aber (near the old outflow pipe) with 3 Rock Pipits for company. An unharvested area of barley stubble just east of here looks superb, and held 300 Chaffinch, at least 1 Brambling, Greenfinch, Linnet and House Sparrow in small numbers. Other birds included 27 pale bellied Brents, 2 Dipper, 1 Goosander, 8 Bar Tailed Godwit, 3 Black Tailed Godwit, 1 Knot, 30 Siskin, 2 Crossbill, 1 Goosander and 11 Skylark. At least 300 Redshank were on the west pool at Morfa Madryn with 60 Dunlin. Also one Lapwing displaying briefly!
An enjoyable morning!

Autumn's not over yet - Lleyn Birding part 1

October half term this year is a bit late in the season and I wondered whether I would miss out on a bit of migration watching this year. I have traditionally spent Teacher's Week down the Lleyn and enjoy meeting up with Lleyn stalwart Andy Clarke for some early morning vis migging on the Uwchmynydd headland.

Past Octobers have produced Glossy Ibis, Long-tailed Skua, Yellow browed warblers, Woodlark and good numbers of commoner migrants but it is a bit hit and miss. I come home from some Octobers with nothing at all to show for many hours in the field.

This year has seen a good start o the week with plenty of birds to keep me occupied. Highlight has been a fine Woodlark, always a joy to hear calling with it's fluty liquid whistle. The bird flew around the headland area for a good five minutes before pitching down in a near impenetrable grassy field and seemed to melt into thin air.

Andy Clarke found a nice male Firecrest in the valley on Monday and by Tuesday numbers had risen to at least two, with quite possibly three zitting around. Buntings have been represented by a Lapland south over Porth Meudwy and two fine Snow Buntings at Gimlet Rock, Pwllheli during horrendous weather yesterday.

The sea has produced a fine Great northern Diver off Llanbedrog, 3 femlae Velvet Scoter fairly close in off Criccieth, diving and devouring crabs for two days on the trot. A darke Scaup off here yesterday too.

Good numbers of birds seen with large numbers of Thrushes - 400+ Fieldfare one morning, 200+ Blackbirds in the area, thousands of Starlings passing west each day. Good numbers of Brambling (including several in stubble fields near the head land), Yellowhammer and Reed Buntings on the move, while flooded fields near Llanbedrog look superb and are currently holding 600+ Golden plover, 2 Black tailed Godwits, a Pale bellied Brent Goose, 30+ Dunlin, 20+ ringed Plover, 100+ Teal, 50+ Wigeon and good numbers of Pied Wagtails, Pipits and Skylarks. Looks spot on for a rare!

Gorgeous!

Always a thrill to see.

 It was good to see so many seaduck off Black Rock / Criccieth and with calmer conditions I'm sure there will be a good count of there. These female Velvelt Scoter (2 of 3 present) were much closer inshore than the 500+ Common Scoter present.

 

These two Snow Buntings were a welcome sight at Gimlet rock, Pwllheli during horrendous weather yesterday (hence the rubbish photo) - they actually showed very well!

Lots of resident and migratory birds around the headland. Up to 15 Chough around and some showing very well.

'Tristis' Chiffchaff

Over the past week we have had several monochromatic Chiffchaffs here on Bardsey. All of them that have been heard calling have sounded almost identical to Common Chiffchaffs. This has led us to think these birds are the Scandinavian form P.c. abietinus.

However, this morning one of the birds in Plas Withy was calling somewhat differently, giving a short piping mono-syllabic  'peu', not the di-syllabic 'hu-eet' that the other Chiffchafs were giving.

The bird called just on just four occasions in the 1 1/2 hours I spent trying to record it with my phone! Each time it gave four or five individual calls, with an almost Dunnock-like feeling to the call and nothing like the other Chiffchaffs. It did not give the classic Bullfinch-like call that I have heard on many occasions.

The bird is very striking and is in the same bushes as several colybita Chiffchaffs and an abietinus Chiffchaff.

It was good to be able to see the three types together and hear the calls. Plumage wise, there was little difference between the presumed abietinus-type bird and this presumes tristis-type bird. It should be pointed out that this tristis is and adult in active wing moult. This is,  I assume, why the flight and tail feathers are so brightly fringed giving it an almost Bonelli's feel to it.

The bird also showed the classic tristis wing bar, formed by pale tips to the greater coverts.

There was no hint of yellow in any part of the bird's plumage with the exception of the under-wing coverts. This can just be made out in the father blurry flight shot lower down.

The bird's bill was also much blacker than the other Chiffchaffs. The only pale on the bill was at the very base. The difference can be seen well in the pictures of the abietinus and colybita at the end of the post. The legs and especially the feet were solid black. Much darker than the abietinus and colybita (c.f. photos at the end of this post).

It was quite interesting too that the bird did not really respond to tape of Common Chiffchaff, however, it did respond quite well to the song of Yellow-browed Warbler from the recording by Andreus Schultz on Die Volgelsimmen. What is interesting about this is that there is a quite loud 'tristis' Chiffchaff singing in the background of that particular recording!

I will be very interested to see the comments on this bird.

Note the wing bar

black legs

very grey head

note the darkness of both legs and bill

black feet

yellow under-wing coverts

Collybita Chiffchaff

One of the abietinus Chiffchaffs from a day or so ago.

Same bird as above

Spurn weekend trip

26-27/10/2012 - A busy couple of days with some remnants of the fall earlier on in the week still present and productive seawatching:

8 Little Auks
2 Long-tailed Ducks
7 Scaups
2 Goldeneyes
1 Pintail
23 Eiders
2 Red-breasted Mergansers
25+ Red-throated Divers
1 Canada Goose
28 Pink-footed Geese
7 Dark-bellied Brent Geese
2 Sooty Shearwaters
1 Pomarine Skua
1 Arctic Skua
10+ Bonxies
1 Merlin
2 Woodocks
2 Jack Snipes
2 Ruffs
1 Purple Sandpiper
4 Swallows
3 Waxwings
200+ Redwings
300+ Fieldfares
200+ Blackbirds
1 Ring Ouzel
100+ Robins - also quite a few dead unfortunately
2 Blackcaps
20+ Chiffchaffs
30+ Goldcrests - a few desperately pottering around the beach
3 Tree Sparrows
c100 Bramblings
8 Siskin
15 Twites
7 Snow Buntings

Trip report and images below!
http://birdingnorthwales.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/super-spurn-spectacle.html

Firecrest at Wylfa

Tony White found a Firecrest in the car park for Wylfa head yesterday. I managed to twitch it late morning but couldn't relocate it in the evening.However birds are more active at this site in the early morning, and the rain is pretty grim here today.

Clive Stephenson had a Firecrest there once......

Zac had a Thrush Nightingale in Bangor on Wednesday. I had 30 minutes to kill on Wednesday after work so thought I would go and have a nosey.Then I remembered Clive had a Firecrest up there 10 years or so ago, as that path (behind Lidl) went up to Minffordd where he lived.There is a lot of cover up there and it is quite high so it's not surprising migrants drop in there. It looks a really good spot. Zac was still there with Chris, Rob and Simon when I arrived but unfortunately there was no sign of the Sprosser. There were plenty of birds up there and Rob and Chris thought they heard a YBW. Did anything come of that chaps? I was also wondering on the topic of quality photos of North Wales Birders, does anyone have any photos of Clive in the field, as he was one of the charachters of North Wales birding in the late 20th Century but unfortunately he passed away in Goa in 2004? RIP Clive.