Day Four Best Of North Wales Five Day Tour 1 March 2022
Day Four Best Of North Wales Five Day Tour 1 March 2022
Displaying Black Grouse were the first of an amazing array of birds enjoyed today!
One of the great advantages of coming on our residential tours is that we have two, sometimes three, guides with a maximum of six guests this gives us great flexibility and provides the best customer care. On this day we offered an early start, 5am departure, to look for Black Grouse some of the group were keen others preferred a later start – no problem at all. Alan took three of our guests out at 5am, Ruth stayed at the hotel for a 7.30am breakfast with the remaining three folks.
The Black Grouse put on a fine display at close range and Red Grouse also showed off too so well worth the early start. While watching a second Black Grouse lek –displaying males – enjoying fantastic views in the morning sunshine a huge female Goshawk flew along the hillside scattering the grouse in all directions! What a fantastic moment to witness!
Further down we enjoyed super views of Dipper and a poor view of a distant Mandarin before tucking into a great breakfast. As we ate we were able to watch beautiful Yellowhammers coming to a bird feeder – we know all the best places!
The whole group then met at Llyn Brenig where we continued around the area in the minibus all together. In this upland area we enjoyed watching the wintering Great Grey Shrike, beautiful Bramblings, a very scarce Willow Tit and Common Crossbills. But the highlight here was displaying Goshawks we enjoyed fantastic views of these usually hard to see raptors. The conditions were perfect for these huge hawks to get up and display and we watched three pairs over the forest some coming close allowing frame filling views through the telescopes just wow! After a lovely lunch we headed north to the coast.
At Llanddulas the conditions were ideal with calm seas and sunshine and lots of Common Scoter offshore. We scanned the sea-duck and saw a drake Velvet Scoter flying east the white wing markings glowing in the sun. The Velvet Scoter kept flying and luckily Keith kept watching when the rest of us gave up as the bird turned and came back west. We all looked again and a second scoter joined the Velvet – a drake Surf Scoter! Even in flight the white patches on the head of this rare bird were visible in the scopes, amazing. Luckily both birds pitched into the sea straight out from our position and they were quickly in the scopes just fantastic. The birds had joined six other Velvet Scoters and spent ages watching these wonderful birds and were able to share them with several other birders that arrived one of the many joys of bird watching – sharing birds.
We then drove a little way west and enjoyed lovely views of the long-staying Iceland Gull on the Little Orme before ending the day with a scan over RSPB Conwy from a viewpoint at the south end of the reserve. What a fantastic day!
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info@birdwatchingtrips.co.ukWe look forward to enjoying great birds and wildlife with you soon.