Out of the Ordinary

At long last a clear, calm and sunny winter’s day! I didn’t need asking twice and just after half past nine I was ‘powering’ down to Lavan Sands in the Morris Traveller, following a brief stop to pick-up Mark Murphy from Rhyl.

I must confess to being guilty of perhaps under-rating this large area of estuary; the nearby Dee may get plenty of plaudits for its excellent range of wildlife and lah-de –dah new RSBP reserves, but Traeth Lavan holds a few cards up its sleeve too.

For starters we headed to the rather bijou Spinnies. Not much doing from the lagoon hide, although I did register my first Water Rail for the year and we enjoyed fleeting views of a male Sparrowhawk in full operations mode.

Another Water Rail was added on the way to the estuary hide scurrying across a ditch so foul smelling it could grace the metropolitan area of Chennai, or ‘Madras’ in old money.

The mouth of the Ogwen played host to an excellent variety of waders and wildfowl, highlights being tens of Goldeneye, a female Goosander and a trio of Greenshank.

Abergwyngregyn was the next port of call where I momentarily dreamt of living under Sharia Law – maybe people wouldn’t vandalise hides if they were going to receive 50 lashes as punishment!

No matter, dozens of Pintail and Wigeon thronged the shoreline, and a minute didn’t pass without a Common Snipe being flushed from the marsh by the encroaching tide.

Our attention was largely focused on the water though. Excellent visibility and a calm surface provided an ideal opportunity to scan the sea for Grebes, Sea Duck and Divers. Finally, after working through many Great Crested Grebes and Red-breasted Mergansers I picked-up a Slavonian Grebe towards the lighthouse at Penmon Point.

It was close enough the exclude Black-necked - but still too far way to enjoy properly - so after I had worked through the large flotilla of loafing gulls (fad of the year for the North Wales birders?), we moved over to Morfa Madryn.

After failing to secure a Firecrest near the car park we moved over towards the three hides. A workman was shifting logs bang in front of the first one, but the hundreds of waders roosting on the shingle spit didn’t seem unduly concerned. Oystercatchers dominated the roost, the remainder comprising a smattering of Sanderling, Ringed Plover, Dunlin, Knot, Curlew and a single Bar-tailed Godwit.

The lagoons were teeming with roosting waders too. Nothing out of the ordinary, but as I worked through the shorebirds it was incredible how many of the birds were ringed – will the clampers/bird strokers/pseudo-scientists/hobbyists ever relent!?

With the light fading it was time to move over to the promenade at Llanfairfechan. Again, many birds on drink - albeit a good way off shore - with a drake Eider the pick.

There was a probable distant ‘Horned’ Grebe too and as I was squinting through my scope a passing happy-snapper asked Mark what we were looking at.

“Slavonian Grebe”, I said.

“…Oh, we’ve seen some Ordinary Grebes today…”

Until later.