With Ruth working on another edition of her walking books, Birds, Boots and Butties, this time for the Llyn peninsula, we headed out for a birding walk. This walk was at Dinas Dinlle west of Caernarfon, a low lying headland on the west side of the vast shallow Foryd Bay. We parked at Caernarfon Airport, managing to resist the café, and a little perturbed by the noise of helicopter, micro lights and light aircraft! But we guessed a warm day in July was likely to be busy here. Heading east towards Foryd Bay, thankfully the noise soon fell away; three Common Whitethroats were in the scrub as we neared the estuary. Stepping out on to the seawall we were confronted with the vast green carpet of salt marsh with the shimmering mudflats beyond. Little Egrets and Curlew were dotted about on the huge flat marshes and some wobbly Oystercatchers were on the distant mud.
We walked north along the seawall as gangs of Linnets danced ahead of us and Meadow Pipits leapt from the grass. A family party of Kestrels bickered and swooped over fields to our left. Ahead lay sand-dunes and we skirted around these following the tide line to the mouth of the bay where a vista opened up and we stood and took in the scene. The Menai Straits lay before us and beyond was the island of Anglesey, away to the east we could just see the towers of historic Caernarfon castle, behind us the mountains of Snowdonia were cloaked in cloud.
We took a break and sat on the beach just east of Fort Belan; the squat stone building is positioned at the western end of the Menai Straits at their narrowest point. Waders were feeding on the shore here, Oystercatchers probed the sands, a Whimbrel was hunched up just above the tide line, a flock of Dunlin flew in and amongst them a single breeding plumaged Sanderling. A Common Sandpiper called as it skimmed over the sea, then three Ringed Plover landed on the beach. Two migrant Wheatears popped up behind us as gangs of Pied Wagtails scurried about on the short turf behind the beach.
Time to move on and we had a look around the fort, inside the walls were several patches of small trees, looked good for migrants later in the year? The peninsula here is sand-dunes with sea to the west and the mudflats of the bay to the east so these patches of isolated cover could well pull in migrants.
Turning south we followed the road back towards the airfield, the open fields here are the winter home to large flocks of Golden Plover, none today of course. Reed Bunting, Wheatear, Rock Pipit and Kestrel all seen as we strolled back to car park.
This time we reckoned that we had earned a visit to the café and tucked in to bacon and sausage butties washed down with mugs of tea.
As we headed home we checked the south end of Foryd Bay where a stream runs out across the mudflats and often holds good numbers of birds. Curlews, Oystercatchers and a few Redshank were loafing around with a scatter of gulls. A scan of the gulls produced a fine adult Mediterranean Gull stood on the sand amongst Black-headed Gulls. A nice end to our birding walk.If you would like to join us for great birding drop us an email info@thebiggesttwitch.comOur book of “The Biggest Twitch” is due for publication on 10 August 2010 to reserve your signed copy just drop us a line.