ringed Little Owls

Managed to site a couple of boxes in known Little Owl habitat and they've taken to them nicely; one with 3 chicks.  Need to check the others yet and checking a new site at the weekend but let me know if you know of anyothers or access to any locally and I can sort a box out.
                                      
The female on eggs a few days ago- a couple of field mice in the box too in a larder.  The female is quite docile at the nest and again whilst ringing today although not going by those eyes!  They'd burn a hole through you.

Back in the nestbox straight away and hope to visit again to ring the chicks a week or so.  Thanks to the landowners and BTO Cymru.
Rob

Up close and personal with Dotterel

I was up with the sunrise this morning on the Great Orme - stunning! Almost immediately after arriving I stumbled upon a point blank range Dotterel on the limestones. It was still there at 9.45am at least and looked settled.

A fine female type Common Redpoll flew into the hawthorns, part of a movement of 70+ Lesser Redpoll (of which a few others could have been Common too). Three Stock Dove were a patch year tick for me, which Great Spotted Woodpecker, Tree Pipit, a few Siskins and 10 Wheatears were also migrants.

 This fine male Dotterel was quite a late migrant for the Orme with most passing through in April and early May. I almost stood on it before I spotted it and then enjoyed lying in the grass while it ran around me.

 Redpolls on the move today, mostly nice Lessers like this one. However, one fine Common Redpoll alighted briefly in the Hawthorns revelaing all the features needed to clinch it.

 The Orme Berry (Cotoneaster Cambricus)- the only place in the world to find this rare plant. I found a few this morning whilst mooching around.

Male Indigo Bunting on Anglesey

Once more a mega-bird has been recorded by some back-yard birdwatchers.
This bird was photographed in a back garden near Llansadwrn on monday evening. It was present from 7 - 8pm when this photo was taken. This is a cropped record shot, taken through a window of the bird on a bird-table which is a few feet away (taken by the observers). The bird was looked for and not seen on Tuesday and Wednesday.Although it looks quite greeny in this photograph, the observers described it as a bright-blue finch! It appears to be in good condition in this photo and didn't have any rings on it's legs. Indigo Buntings are found in captivity in the UK and Western Europe, but the last time I checked they were retailing at around £400 a pair, so I presume from this that they are far from common in aviculture.
They are long distant migrants migrating from North America to Central America/The Carribean and Northern South America for the Winter. So this bird has good credentials for a trans-Atlantic vagrant, presumably in the Autumn, which is now moving north from wherever it had spent the winter. It's a massive find for the couple who spotted it,  well done! It's just a shame it didn't hang around long enough for any birders to see it!

North Wales Bird Race, May 19th 2013 - 139 species

Chris Jones, Henry Cook a.k.a. Henerz and I delayed our annual birdrace by 24 hours for two reasons; the weather forecast was much better for Sunday and the fact that a Dusky Thrush turned up in Kent and the aforementioned two needed to tick it!

As official total and list keeper, I know Henerz is writing a detailed report on the day, however in the meantime I thought I'd post a quick overview of the highlights of the day. 

Highlights - For pure birding spectacle, the Black Grouse event at World's End was stunning with at least 8 male Black Grouse seen with several lecking on the side of the road and watched from the car was a very close second place in the day's highlight league table. First place for me was my first roding Woodcock for over 25 years, in exactly the same place as my first. In the fading light at the end of a long hard day's birding, the grunts and clicks of a Woodock overhead will remain with me for a very long time - what a way to finish.
Find highlights included a fine drake Garganey on the flooded field just north of Shotwick Boating Lake was an unexpected bonus while equally surprising was a stunning full summer plumaged Black Tern feeding off AberOgwen with Common and Arctic Terns.

Conwy RSPB 3.30am - Water Rail, Reed and Sedge Warbler
World's End - Amazing views of lecking Black Grouse by the road, Red Grouse, Whinchat and Cuckoos
Shotwick Boating Lake - drake Garganey, Avocet, Black tailed godwit, Teal, Arctic Tern and 2 Yellow Wagtails
Gronant - 20+ Little Terns, Common Scoter
River Clwyd - Common Gull and Whimbrel
Bodeelwyddan - Lesser Whitethroat
Llanddulas - Dipper and Mandarin Duck
Conwy RSPB - Little Ringed Plover and Red Kite
Llanbedr y Cennin - 4 Hawfinch and Yellowhammer
Llanfairfechan - 6 Red throated Divers, Common Terns and Peregrine 
Cemlyn - Knot, Mediterranean Gull and Turnstone
Holyhead and South Stack - Black Guillemot, Puffin, Chough, Manx Shearwater and Rock Pipit
Valley Lakes - Pochard and Cetti's Warbler
AberOgwen - summer plumaged Black Tern, 15+ Eider, 10+ Goosander and 4 Bar tailed Godwits
Nant Ffrancon - Twite and Ring Ouzel
Gwydir Forest 10pm - Tawny Owl and roding Woodcock.

Missed nightmares - Nuthatch and Sparrowhawk!

Great fun and some amazing birds. For anyone not tried bird racing - give it a go. It seems to be a bit of a dying past time with less people doing it. What a great way to spend 24 hours in beautiful (and on occasions not so beautiful) places, seeing and finding some great birds, great banter and laughs, highs and lows and a chance to boost the year list.

Oh.. and we managed 139 species, still six short of beating our record. Anyone out there up for the challenge?

 Absolutely stunning - give me moments like this over travelling 10 hours in a car to see a far flung lost migrant anyday!

 Below - Chris and Henerz in the beautiful Nant Ffrancon Valley grinning after just nailing singing Twite and a nice male Ring Ouzel in Snowdonia's spectacular countryside.

Great Orme Harrier

A ringtail Hen Harrier was the highlight this morning on the Orme. The bird appeared over the reservoir area from the SW and continued on gaining height to the NE, disappearing to view over the wind turbines. The first I've seen here for over two years. A Spotted Flycatcher was at the back of the cemetery and Pete Alderson had a male Whinchat below the summit.
Migrants this week have included Yellow Wagtails, up to four different Whinchats, max counts of 7 Tree Sparrow and a few Sedge Warblers amongst the usual migrants.
The feathers below were found and look like the sad end to a poor migrating Wheatear.

Cattle Egret

Cattle Egret doing what they do best, hanging around Cattle.

I was very lucky to see this bird a few days ago at Llanfachraeth, Anglesey.

More at http://austinmorley.blogspot.co.uk/

Northern-type Eider, North Uist

I ventured north recently for our friend's wedding near Inverness.  We decided to make the most of the long Bank Holiday weekend and took a trip west across Skye and onto North Uist.  It was at the back of my mind to keep an eye out for 'Northern' (borealis) Eiders but I was surprised to find one such candidate in virtually the first group I checked (in a small bay just north of Balranald RSPB).

The features that immediately stood out were the small white 'sails', a sure sign of Northern genes.  These appeared to be darker-tipped on their undersides (presumably indicative of a sub-adult bird) and were more prominently raised when the bird was chasing the nearby females around.  The bill was orangey-green (more orange towards the base), not quite the 'classic' borealis bright orange-yellow (you might recall an Eider with a bright orange bill that appeared at Rhos around this time of year for a couple of years running, but it never showed any sails).  I also noticed that the green patches on the nape were paler than on the other drake Common Eiders (not sure if this is a recorded feature of Borealis or not?).  The lateral crown stripe was brown (not white) and I assume that this also points to the bird being sub-adult.  It was displaying with the other Common Eiders (although they seemed to take quite a bit of offence to it!) and it appeared to be slightly larger/bulkier in comparison to the other drakes.

I hope the photos are of interest - with a resident group of Eiders in our area it's well worth keeping an eye open for these types turning up amongst them in the future.

Cheers and good birding!