2 March 2025 - North Wales
Lekking Black Grouse and a male Red Grouse at the roadside, Hawfinch at Llanfair Dyffryn and a distant drake Surf Scoter off Old Colwyn
A splendid day out with the boys in North Wales. We began early morning at the known Black Grouse lek. As we arrived we could see and hear a decent number of males bubbling and lekking. We watched them for some time until a cyclist came past and disturbed them, so we moved on. A little further down the road we encountered a few Red Grouse, one of which flew across the road and landed in the heather just by the roadside. It was a bit of a stretch from the car window to get a photo, but I just about managed one of just the head and neck of a male.
We carried on to Llanfair Dyffryn to look for Hawfinch in the churchyard. As we got out of the car and strolled around, Simon and I noticed a bird perched on top of a tree, and there was a Hawfinch in full view. Over the next hour or so we managed views of at least two birds, possibly three.
Next stop was Old Colwyn to look for Surf Scoter. It was a long haul, though we did find the drake Long-tailed Duck fairly easily. There were thousands of Common Scoter, a few Red-throated Divers, but eventually Andrew picked out the Surf Scoter. It was quite distant and difficult to keep tabs on through the scope, but we watched it on and off for a while. Not the best views, but definitely the bird.
We then moved on to Kinmel Bay to look for Black Redstart. At first we couldn't find it, although we did find what appeared to be a Hooded Crow on the beach, which flew inland almost immediately. (It was later suggested that the bird we saw was a hybrid, but it had a good percentage of Hooded Crow genes!). A small group of Common Eider were offshore, and a few waders knocking about, including a group of roosting Turnstone on a floating jetty. On the way back to the car, Simon found the Black Redstart in the compound, where we'd been looking all the time. It was a rather drab looking individual, but a good bird nonetheless.
Our last stop was Burton Mere, where we had a good walk round and saw a nice selection of water birds including loads of Pink-footed Geese, a number of Great White Egrets (on the estuary), Kingfisher and more.
