A different style of birding
With our friend Jo Thomas, of Wild About India, staying with us here in North Wales we had to adapt our birding a little. With Jo came her twin nine year old daughters, Becky and Emily. The girls are full of beans and very lively always looking for the next thing to do. It was obvious from the start these two nine year olds were going to test our ability to keep them entertained. We took on the challenge and put together a varied few days in the hope Becky and Emily would really enjoy their first visit to North Wales.
Day one dawn with heavy rain and a strong wind, great start! Luckily the girls were happy to do some drawing and with help from mum Jo produced some great art work including full colour male Lion and Rufous-crowned Ground-roller, cool.
Luckily the rain stopped and we headed out. First stop was the RSPB Reserve at Conwy. Site Manager, Julian Hughes, is also a good friend of Jo’s and they stayed with Julian and Sandra the night before. The girls were happy to see where Julian worked. At the visitor centre we picked up Bird Bingo cards, a wonderfully simple game which children can play as they walk around the reserve. If you see something pictured on the card you place a sticker on it until you have filled your card, easy. It was farmer’s market day so we looked around and drooled over home-made cakes promising to return on our way back. Reed and Sedge Warbler sang and Lapwings tumbled over the lagoons. We visited the first two hides adding Red-breasted Mergansers and Great Crested Grebes. By the second hide the girls had already done the bingo game, good spotters these two! So we headed back to the market and secured a large chocolate cake for later.
Conwy next and we did a tour of the medieval town where the girls particularly liked the smallest house in Britain. This tiny cottage has just two rooms, one up one down. Birding here was limited to the local Herring Gulls on the quayside.
Llandudno was our last destination where the girls were looking forward to the Pier and promised amusements. Slides and Merry-go-rounds were all tried and enjoyed; table football was a surprising hit and of course slot machines. But we still managed some birding. Three Turnstones were showing very well on rocks below the pier, Fulmars were flying to-and-fro at the cliffs of the Great Orme. Best of all Gannets were diving in the bay just offshore making a huge splash on hitting the water.