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| On the Promenade |
Group trip to Llanfairfechan, Sunday February 10th
Despite the
most unpromising of weather forecasts, a dozen group members met up on the
promenade at Llanfairfechan, overlooking the tip of Anglesey and Puffin Island.
And the day started extremely well, with a dipper seen bobbing in the fast-flowing
stream beside the car park, even before
we’d all finished assembling !
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| Red Breasted Merganser |
From the
promenade we could see several red-throated divers in the middle distance, with
great crested grebes nearer in, as well a red-breasted merganser sitting on the
lake right behind the visitor shelter. There were also considerable numbers of
oyster catchers flying west in front of us, so in due course we headed into the
wind and rain and followed them along the shoreline towards Morfa Madryn
reserve. This combines freshwater pools and wet grassland, favoured by lapwings
in particular, with saltmarsh and shallow estuarial waters. Having arrived at
high tide, we were rewarded by the sight of a great mass of oystercatchers
huddled along the shingle spit curving across the bay in front of the (very
welcome) hide, together with smaller numbers of bar-tailed godwits, dunlin and
redshank. As the waters began to recede the dunlins in particular became very
busy, dashing around to find the best feeding, and were joined by a few ringed
plovers, as well as the larger waders.
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| Plovers & Dunlin (N Prendergast) |
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| Oystercatchers away |
It was time to
move on, so we headed back to the promenade, via a short detour to the sewage
works, situated in a small wood nearby. Several pied wagtails and one grey were
seen, as well as a meadow pipit, making the most of the insect life around the
settling tanks. Then we drove a short
distance further west to visit The Spinnies at Aberogwen, described as a
coastal lagoon, with reedbeds and woodland surrounds, and another view on to
the great bay of Traeth Lafan.
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| Little Egrets (N Prendergast) |
The
lagoon hosted mallard, wigeon, teal and a little grebe, as well as two
little egrets, hunched up on the shoreline, though we were not fortunate enough
to catch sight of the local kingfishers.
The second hide on the reserve gives
views on to the shore as well as inland, and from there we spotted a
greenshank, showing well in contrast to the smaller darker redshank, as well as
one egret busy hunting in a muddy creek.
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| Greenfinch (N Prendergast) |
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| Incoming Robin ( N Prendergast) |
Then it was back
along the beach, passing a rock pipit along the way, and on to Conwy for a
quick check on the RSPB reserve and a welcome cup of tea. A small flock of pochard looked very striking
in the fading light, and we almost spotted the firecrest, known to flit among
the trees ..... But there were siskin and redpoll, and we certainly did find
our final target for the day, which was the scoter, a seaduck which winters in
the area. Chris confidently led us to the shore at Llanddulas, and sure enough
there in front of us was a huge flock of scoters, looking almost like a
floating mass of seaweed until they briefly lifted off the water.
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| Along the Beach |
All in all,
everyone agreed it had been an excellent winter outing, with a final total of
57 species seen.
Anne Pope
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damp
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