Iolo Williams Best Of North Wales Tour Birds And Wildlife February 2023
Iolo Williams Best Of North Wales Tour Birds And Wildlife February 2023
We love working with our great friend Iolo Williams - come & join us October 2023.
We all met at the lovely Princes Arms Hotel in the Conwy Valley on the 19th March at mid-day. Peter and Marged, Konrad, Helen, Rachel, and Suz were all looking forward to their five day tour with Iolo and the birds came right on cue! Amazingly a pair of Goshawks displayed over the valley within minutes of the tour officially starting – talk about perfect timing. These muscular hawks stayed in view allowing everyone good looks at these fantastic birds. How do you follow that? Well, with a lovely lunch of course.
Hawfinch are wonderful birds and always a thrill to see - photo by Matt Latham.
After lunch we drove a short distance to an area of open woodland to look for a very special bird indeed, the Hawfinch. These big finches are always tricky to see but we were fairly optimistic as we had seen them here in the morning before the tour. We waited, and scanned, lots of Chaffinches, a few Greenfinches, Goldfinches and even two Siskins – all very nice. Then, boom, a beautiful male Hawfinch landed on the ground amongst the other birds, wow! Luckily this oh so special bird stayed in view long enough for everyone to get a look. A another wait, broken up by watching a beautiful pair of Goosanders on the adjacent river and then boom again, three Hawfinches! These bull-necked finches were spotted up in a bare oak tree and posed for us for ages. Everyone had time for multiple looks through the telescopes to really soak up the detail of the colourful rare finches, we were on a roll!
We then headed north to the coast at Llanddulas where we hoped we might see some rare ducks, two drake Surf Scoters all the way from North America. Sadly the wind had picked up and the sea was choppy making it hard to see the birds offshore. We did see lots of Common Scoter, literally thousands of them, but no rare ones amongst them that we could see.
On the way back to the hotel we stopped at a lovely view point over looking the Conwy Valley and enjoyed superb views of Red Kites. We also had a real surprise here with a big flock of Pink-footed Geese flying east over the valley – rare birds in North Wales. It was great to see Lesser black back Gulls on the river here – first ones we have seen this year, migration under way already!
Back at the hotel we enjoyed a superb meal and lots of laughs, perfect start to the trip.
We run our Birdwatching Trips throughout the year a mix of set departure tours and custom-made trips perfect for you! To book your custom tour or any of our set departure trips please email us here….
info@birdwatchingtrips.co.uk[/email]
We can then make all the arrangements for your perfect Birdwatching Trips tour.