Sunshine birding is great
Sunshine birding is great in North Wales
We picked up Gary and Clare in Colwyn Bay very early, and headed for the moors. It was still dark when we arrived, we open the windows expecting to hear the amazing sound of Black Grouse lekking, but silence. A worrying silence, where were the grouse? We had never been here before without hearing them straight away on our arrival. Time passed and we were getting really worried, then a bubbling sound drifted through the dark, a Black Grouse, whew!
More grouse joined the pre-dawn soundscape and a Skylark provided the backing track, what a magical sound. As the first fingers of dawn crept across the eastern sky we could just about make out black and white shapes, the Black Grouse were on the lek doing their stuff, fantastic.
More Black Grouse flew in and the noise level rose, wonderful. The still dawn air throbbed with bubbling and "cerrwicking" and the Skylark sang on. Slowly the light came up and we marvelled at the gorgeous male grouse fighting and posturing just yards away!
These are just a few of the pictures we took this morning, Gary took a whole lot more! Black Grouse are just amazing birds and we soaked up the views and again got carried away with the photos,they are that sort of bird!
Now the sun was well and truly up and we headed off for a hot drink and a snack to keep us going until breakfast. Good birds kept coming including a Great Grey Shrike, two Goshawks and wonderful views of Stonechats. A walk up onto a high ridge gave us stunning views.
Dropping down off the moors we enjoy watching Dippers and an unsung hero of the bird world - Grey Wagtail, little stunner!
A huge brunch went down very well indeed, much later than usual as we had seen so many great birds. Heading north we enjoyed Red Kites, a pair of Scaup and then two fine drake Surf Scoters showing off in the sunshine. Masses of Common Scoter made an amazing sight on the calm sea. How many birds were there? Hard to say but many, many, many thousands! We also added Red-throated Divers, Common Guillemot, Razorbill and Shag off Rhos Point before we dropped Gary and Clare back at their hotel, tired but very happy after a day in the sunshine seeing a lot of great birds.
Do come and join one of our tours soon. We have one place on our Portugal tour 22nd - 29th March and one place on our Finland and Norway tour 24th May - 6th June. We know you would love these tours, huge numbers of birds and great fun. Drop us a line for details...
info@thebiggesttwitch.com
We look forward to enjoying great birds with you soon.