Back home to North Wales and great excitement!
After a very long journey home, Quito, Houston, Newark, Manchester, we finally touched down in the UK. A bit of a shock stepping out into the sub-zero temperatures, great though to see the smiling face of John Roberts, our great friend and unofficial Biggest Twitch taxi driver, again getting up early and braving the icy roads to collect us. John soon had us on the road back home and we picked up a few UK year ticks along the way, Grey Heron, Fieldfare, Common Buzzard etc. It was great to see the mountains of North Wales covered in snow and the flat calm sea cobalt blue, not a bad place to come home to, very glad it wasn’t lashing with rain and blowing a gale.
We had not been back home long when a very excited Steve Culley, birding friend and Anglesey County Recorder, was on the phone. Steve had just opened an email, which contained some photos of a mystery duck photographed at the weekend. The photographer had an interest in birds, but very much in passing, as he was playing golf when he noticed the bird! Luckily he was interested enough to go back and take some pictures from the beach at Morfa Nefyn, west of Caernarfon on the North Wales coast. The pictures clearly showed a female Steller’s Eider!! A mega bird for the UK with just a handful of records, and the first ever in Wales!
We had two media interviews lined up so no chance of us getting down there today, so we sweated on news. Luckily our mate Rhys Jones managed to get to the site late afternoon but sadly no sign of the bird in the short winter afternoon day light, what a nightmare, a mega bird and no birders have seen it!Posted Llandudno, North Wales, 6th JanuaryPS check back for photos added to the last few days' blogs!