Keep your eyes peeled for one of Britain's most beautiful and charismatic species, the Waxwing.  Good numbers have made their way across the North Sea from Scandinavia and are munching their way through Britain's berry crop.  Small numbers have already reached North Wales with a flock of 13 this morning in Connor's Quay, Flintshire and we're sure there will be more to follow.  Hope you like the photo taken by our good friend and fantastic photographer Matt Latham, check out his website for more brilliant images: http://www.mattlathamphotography.com To find out where the nearest Waxwings to you are, call Birdline Wales on 09068 700248, or Birdline Northwest on 09068 700249.This afternoon we recorded a lengthy live interview on BBC Radio Wales on the Roy Noble Show.  Just before 2.30pm we duly turned up at the BBC offices in Bangor and were taken inside, first of all into the Post Room.  This had us rather confused, mailbags and stamps all over the place, but luckily from here we were taken into the recording studio which looked rather more familiar.  Two pairs of headsets and two large microphones were set up on a table and we settled ourselves down to await our slot.  In front of us was a large bank of flashing lights, switches, dials and knobs.  It was very tempting to have a play, but as we were recording in a remote studio, Roy and the producer working down at Cardiff, we were given strict instructions not to meddle!  Roy had obviously been briefed extremely well on The Biggest Twitch and asked us some interesting questions.  In fact, we had a slot of some 15 minutes and covered everything from the best birds to our plans for the future.  If you want to take a listen, go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/radiowales/sites/roynoble/ and click on ‘Listen again’ and select ‘Tuesday’.  We were on from about 2.30pm onwards, sandwiched between the Isley Brothers and Fleetwood Mac, so if you want to go straight to our slot, you can slide the bar forward.Of course, heading out to Bangor meant we’d slipped the leash and escaped from the keyboard for the afternoon, so what did we do?   We went birding, of course!  First stop was Bangor harbour.  Here was a nice selection of common wildfowl and waders on the incoming tide including a bunch of Goldeneye diving close inshore, and a colourful flock of Eurasian Wigeon floating in on the rising water.  Then we drove on to Aber Ogwen North Wales Wildlife Trust Reserve just east of Bangor.  From the hide overlooking the pool, we watched a Common Kingfisher surveying the scene from a sheltered bush, a Greenshank pottering along the edge of the reed bed while a pair of Little Egrets waded through the shallows, flushing fish with their bright yellow feet.  On to the end of the lane where we parked to scan the estuary where the river Ogwen meets the Menai Straits.  Along the strandline we could see hundreds of waders shuffling in front of the fast approaching water, though the tide was still distant here.  Pity we didn’t have a scope with us, but we could still pick out larger Knot amongst the myriad of Dunlin.  Shelduck  paddled in the shallows and there was a seething mass of black-and-white on the exposed mud flats as Oystercatchers probed for shellfish.
Posted 20th January, Llandudno