Colwyn Bay

Cormorants
There wasn't any shortage of perches, the original sitter was evicted just out of spite.

The train services are going to be bedlam next week, Manchester Piccadilly is closed for something or other again. I thought I'd best get one or two of the long-distance jaunts done and dusted this week, trains and weather permitting.

February's a good time for checking out the rafts of common scoters in Colwyn Bay. There are reports of a surf scoter this week (is it the same one every year?), it would be good to get them both on the year list and it's a very nice walk from the station to Old Colwyn.

Colwyn Bay Pier

Arriving at Colwyn Bay it's literally just a matter of walking out of the station, taking the footpath under the line and hey presto! there's the pier. The tide was lowish but on the turn. It doesn't go out very far here compared Liverpool Bay so seawatching was a practicable option.

Looking over towards Old Colwyn 

Seawatching's an odd business. You arrive, you look at the sea through your binoculars, not a sausage save a few waves. Then half a minute in you start seeing objects on the waves and half a minute after that you start recognising them. The weather was on my side today, dull but with good visibility up to about five miles, though the wind farm on the horizon was misty. Bright, sunny weather can bring out so much glare and contrast on the water you can't see anything properly. I had a fighting chance today and was soon seeing distant black blobs which eventually resolved themselves into scores of drake common scoters. I couldn't work out if I couldn't see any female scoters because they were too far away for me to pick up or if they just weren't there.

Herring gulls

I walked along a bit. Robins and a coal tit sang from the railway embankment. Herring gulls and black-headed gulls flew about making a racket, perched on lampposts and made a racket or bathed in the sea and made a racket. Cormorants perched on marker cones. Great crested grebes dived in the surf after dabs. I'm always surprised there aren't more waders here, I suppose it's because it's such a short beach and the promenade is always busy with people. Turnstones never seem unduly fussed by people, a dozen of them were busy throwing seaweed about by the car park.

Turnstones

The further I walked the more scoters I was seeing, there were hundreds of them out there with hints of plenty more beyond as every so often a stocky black speck would fly across the waves. Some of the rafts drifted closer inland but still well beyond my camera's capabilities (don't think I didn't try and don't think I didn't bin the results). I started to be able to pick out a few female scoters but they were still very heavily outnumbered by the drakes. A couple of paler objects had me baffled. Luckily they were drifting forward slower than I was walking and after a good five minutes' worth of head-scratching and bad language I finally recognised them as a pair of red-breasted mergansers. It was worth the effort, though, as the raft of scoters they were shadowing included a drake velvet scoter. I very much doubt if I could have picked it out with binoculars had it not raised itself up and given its wings a good stretch, letting me see the big which patch on each of them.

The sea was drifting in as I walked into Old Colwyn

A lady stopped me and asked me what was out there. She'd seen a group of people with telescopes on the fisherman's pier in Old Colwyn and here was me with a pair of bins. She was surprised to hear there were thousands of ducks out there every Winter and even more so when I lent her the bins and she could see a lot of them.

Looking back to Colwyn Bay

I walked down into Old Colwyn and stared out to sea from the fisherman's pier. If the surf scoter was about I wasn't seeing it, or was seeing it but not being able to identify it at that distance. I wasn't terribly disappointed, I'd got two out of the three species of scoter on offer onto my year list and had an exceedingly pleasant walk.

Old Colwyn 

I checked the train times and found that if I put a shift on I could get the next train back. I got it with four minutes to spare. I was ever so glad there was a trolley service and I could have a cup of tea.