1st February 2026 - North Wales Coast
A great day out with the Hollingworth Lake Birders to North Wales. We started off at Morfa Madryn NR near Llanfairfechan, where there had been a Yellow-browed Warbler and Green-winged Teal. It didn't take us long to find the warbler, which was doing something of a circuit of the bushes in the gardens nearby. It was quite showy, though slightly distant although the photos didn't turn out too bad. A good selection of waders here including Black-tailed and Bar-tailed Godwit, Greenshank and Grey Plover, and ducks included 3 Red-breasted Mergansers, Pintail and Wigeon. The Green-winged Teal was found on the nearby pool but somehow I managed to only focus on the grass in front of it!
We then moved onto Old Colwyn Viewpoint where numerous Common Scoter were evident on a relatively calm sea. After a bit of searching we managed to find the drake Surf Scoter, and though good (ish) views through the scope, it was really too far for photos, at least with my 500mm lens.
We then went onto the River Clwyd Estuary searching for the reported Lesser Yellowlegs. We'd been heading west so far just ahead of some looming rain clouds, managing to keep dry, but as we reached the river, the rain caught up with us and we spent the next hour and a half or so getting soaked, with no luck finding the Yellowlegs. We did have a good number of Snipe in the stubble fields, and a Raven, and a couple of Rock Pipits that we thought at first could be Water Pipits but weren't.
By the time we got back to the car it had stopped raining, predictably, but we carried on to Horton's Nose looking for Black Redstart. It was a little elusive (as we had found previously) but Simon eventually got onto it and it showed reasonably well, though rather a dull bird. Also here we had both Godwits and a Greenshank as well as 2 Goosander.
