Holyhead

Shag diving for dinner

I had an embarrassment of complimentary travel vouchers burning a hole in my pocket so I used half of them for a day out to Anglesey. It's a lot late for the nesting seabirds at South Stack so I decided I'd have a proper explore of Holyhead Harbour and the breakwater.

Newton-le-Willows was a new addition to my list of railway stations what have a buzzard sitting in a tree, a chunky, earth-brown bird that glared at the train as it left the station. It was a day for seeing buzzards, there were a few more in the Cheshire countryside and yet more flying low over the fields of Anglesey.

It was a lovely day for a train ride along the North Wales coastline. The tide was high, there was just enough mud left for a few shelducks and a big flock of black-headed gulls on the coast just North of Mostyn, beyond that the waves lapped seawalls. Little egrets and herons haunted salt marshes, carrion crows, jackdaws and rooks rummaged in fields, herring gulls and woodpigeons sat on chimney pots and starlings on wireless antennae. Mute swans and little egrets peppered the big island on the marine lake at Rhyl, a crowd of little egrets clustered by the viaduct over the Clwyd.

Crossing over onto Anglesey the flocks of rooks became more frequent as the train passed through sheep farming country. A big flock of greylags grazed near Llyn Coron just after Bodorgan Station, there was a bigger one near Rhosneigr Station.

The Old Harbour 

I got off the train and wandered over the Old Harbour into Holyhead. I stopped for a look round, as well as the inevitable herring gulls and pigeons there were a couple of shags and a sleeping guillemot. Black guillemots frequent the harbour and I got my hopes up but this bird had all dark upperparts so was definitely a common guillemot. (In Summer, black guillemots are black top and bottom with big white patches on their wings, in Winter they're nearly all white with flecks of black on their backs and a broken black margin to those white wing patches.)

Instead of my usual walk across the town centre and out for South Stack I walked beside the harbour along Victoria Road. At the top of the road there's a gap by the houses looking over an inlet of the New Harbour. Herring gulls and oystercatchers dozed on rocks, a heron was asleep on an island and a couple more shags were out fishing in the water.

Rock pipit

I carried on round the road and dropped down to the promenade next to the Maritime Museum. The sea was lapping at the seawall and a rock pipit was skittering over the rocks by the seawall. One of the shags was fishing close enough to try and get its photo. Unlike the only black guillemot of the day which was out in midwater by the boats. It was in Winter whites, the first time I've seen this plumage, and at first I took it for one of the little buoys marking the harbour pathways. Then I realised what it was then convinced myself I was right first time and was only sure about it when it dived underwater and bobbed back up again fifty yards further out.

Shag 

Holyhead Mountain from the marina 

A nosy round the marina found a lot more herring gulls and a few black-headed gulls and carrion crows, and redshanks and oystercatchers dozed in pairs on the rocks. A way over I could see people walking the length of the breakwater (it's about a mile and a half long). I reckoned I could try a bit of seawatching on there so I took the path to Breakwater Road.

Along the way I took a detour. A rough path led into some woodland so I followed it, adding chiffchaffs and titmice to the day's tally. Then I got to a bit where the path had collapsed down a bank. I'd have crossed the gap in younger, dafter days but I decided not to risk it on untrustworthy knees and turned back. Along the way I spent a while trying to get a photo of an ichneumon wasp that was hunting on a bit of stone wall.

Ichneumon wasp 

The path had evidently been a private road to the castellated Victorian ruin on Breakwater Road. Parts ran along high banks thick with ivy, hart's tongue ferns and polypody. Elsewhere there were high walls thick with ivy and fizzing with insects. Commas, red admirals and speckled woods feasted on the ivy flowers, bees and hoverflies buzzed, Southern hawkers snatched small flies out of the air in passing. It felt very much like Summer.

Red admiral 

Comma

Goldfinches, great tits and robins flitted to and fro between the trees on either side of the road.

Goldfinches
When they sit still it isn't easy to pick out goldfinches from dead leaves but as they never sit still the problem doesn't arise.

A picturesque ruin

The breakwater, the New Harbour on the right, the Irish Sea on the left 

I had hoped that when I got onto the breakwater I'd get a closer look at the black guillemot and perhaps find some more but no luck in either case. In fact nearly all the birds were more distant than they had been from the marina. The seawatching was the typical combination of optimism, patience and frustration tempered by a couple of moments of triumph. Nearly all the birds I could see were gulls, mostly herring gulls with a few black-headed gulls and a couple of passing great black-backs. Just as my spirits were flagging a juvenile gannet flew by one of the great black-backs. Crows had been flying across the harbour. One flying over the sea took my eye as it looked a lot broad-winged, even more so than a rook, but I concluded it was just a trick of the angle I was seeing it by. Then it called a few times and headed off up and over to Holyhead Mountain and I added chough to the year list. How I missed a dirty long red bill I do not know.

Snowdonia from the end of thf breakwater

The New Harbour

Wheatear 

A rock pipit jumped over the seawall on my approach. A wheatear kept its nerve but also kept its distance. It was a young bird in fresh plumage and the white tips of the tail puzzled me until I worked that out.

Wheatear

I walked the length of the breakwater and walked back. An adult gannet passed by on the open sea about a quarter of a mile out. Glancing down at the path I realised that despite the island being made up of Pre-Cambrian gneisses that had been folded and compressed and partially melted under high pressure the breakwater has been dressed in fossiliferous Carboniferous limestone.

Rugose corals, possibly Lithiostrotion

The walk back to the station was uneventful except the bit where I was forcibly reminded that the roads on this end of town have some steep stretches both up and back down into the town centre. I was glad of a sit down when I got to the station.

There were yet more corvids, greylags, buzzards and woodpigeons as the stopping train to Shrewsbury made its way across Anglesey. Mute swans cruised on the Cefni at Malltraeth while a kestrel hunted along the bank. The tide had ebbed and beyond Llanfairfechan the gulls on the beach were joined by little egrets and pied wagtails.

Great Orme from the train

I changed at Llandudno Junction where a couple of dozen house sparrows settling to roost in a bush by the pedestrian bridge contrived to sound like a couple of hundred. As the train back to Manchester trundled through the twilight I was the old man with his nose pressed against the window looking for owls.

North Wales

Herring gull, Rhyl Harbour

Woolston Eyes is having a purple patch with the penduline tit still playing hide and seek, the arrival of bittern and black-necked grebes and first thing a report of a ferruginous duck. I decided to head the other way so's not to spoil anyone's birdwatching. I've been having dreams about seawatching and felt the need for an excursion after a week's feeling ropey so I headed out to Colwyn Bay.

Colwyn Bay Pier 

It was a splendid, sunny Spring day. The wind had an edge but not unpleasantly so. Arriving at Colwyn Bay I ducked through the underpass and straight onto the pier. I have to say, whoever chose the colour scheme for the pier is a genius, the contrast between the ice cream buff and pink against the blues and greys of the Irish Sea is spot on. It was high tide, just right for seawatching.

Cormorant

Herring gulls and handfuls of black-headed gulls wheeled about. Cormorants sat on buoys. I quickly got my eye in on the seawatching. The high tide had done its work, hundreds of common scoters were small black shapes on the water instead of tiny black shapes on the water. There was a lot of preening and bathing going on out there and every so often a bird would rise on the water and flap its wings. It was too much to hope that one would conveniently have the white wing patch of a velvet scorer but it didn't stop me looking. A few groups drifted slightly closer, just close enough to be able to pick out the pale cheeks and brown plumage of the ducks, always outnumbered by black drakes. Every so often there'd be the white of a black-headed gull or a great crested grebe, one of which was in full breeding regalia.

The common scoters were small black shapes on the water instead of tiny black shapes on the water.

There was a huge congregation of rafts of scoters, a thousand or more birds, out opposite Old Colwyn so I walked along the beachfront thataway, scanning the rafts as I went. Most were very distant but I was getting good views of the birds about a quarter mile out. The distances involved in seawatching always amazes me. There was a bit of a kerfuffle with birds scuttling off the water and flying in slightly inshore as a couple of great black-backs passed by half a mile out. 

The further I walked the more I came to realise there were thousands of scoters out there.  I was very puzzled by a white and grey shape amongst the closest group of scoters until I'd taken a few steps further along and changed the angle of view and the bird became very obviously a black-headed gull. The occasional white flash was the wing panel on a great crested grebe as it flew low over the waves. A red-throated diver stood out as it flew by because of its pale underparts and plain wings.

I was about halfway between piers when a touch of white in a raft of scoters caught my eye. I expected it would turn out to be another grebe or gull, or the splash of a scoter coming in to land. The raft was pretty far out and was riding a swell in the wave so I wasn't getting a steady clear view of the birds. The white caught the corner of my eye again, it wasn't a whole bird it was part of a bird and I knew whereabouts to look now. The raft dipped out of view then rose again and I spotted the coot-like white splash on the forehead and the impression of something reddish orange about the beak of a surf scooter. At that distance with binoculars that's as much detail I was getting but it was enough to identify it.

Common scoters

I'd walked perhaps a hundred yards when most of the scoters took flight, heading East and leaving hundreds of birds behind in relatively small rafts of a score or so birds each.

I'd already seen a couple of pied wagtails along the promenade and assumed there was another with the pair of rock pipits flying by the Arches Viaduct until it flew back and I saw it was a grey wagtail. Robins sang under the viaduct as I had one last scan of the sea then headed inland for the bus to Rhyl.

Horton's Nose 

I caught the 12 to Rhyl, got off in Kimmel Bay and walked along the harbour onto Horton's Nose. The tide was still high but was showing hints of the ebb and the turnstones on the jetties were starting to fidget. I was hoping for a sighting of the black redstart that's been here for a while so I had a slow meander about. The only small birds I could find were three stonechats, a pair and a male that wasn't for being chased off far. Every so often they'd fly up onto a fence post, the males would tussle then they'd disappear into the grass. By my second circuit round the interloper had finally taken the hint and was feeding in the open ground away from the fence.

The tide began to ebb, I had to duck as a flock of turnstones flew out to shore and redshanks and curlews started feeding on the exposed mud on the river. I took this as a hint to head for my train home past the marine lake with the black swan amongst the herd of mute swans and the noisy flock of oystercatchers on the island.

Rhyl Harbour 

I didn't have long to wait for the train and struck lucky with the bus home. The cat assumed I'd been to Pennington Flash.

Rhyl Marine Lake

North Wales bumper bundle

Llanddulas 

I still had an itch to do a bit of seawatching so I decided on a trip out to Llanddulas to see if the scoters were still being obliging on the North Wales coast. I got the train to Prestatyn then bought a Wales day saver ticket on the 13 bus  to Llandudno, getting off in Llanddulas. (It's slightly cheaper but slower than getting the train to Rhyl, catching the 12 at the station and getting off at the same stop. Come the longer daylight hours there's a good explore to be had with one of those saver tickets.) It's all of five minutes' walk from the bus stop under the overpasses and onto the beach. I was dead lucky, it was a nice April's day with daisies and speedwells in bloom and a mild wind coming in from the sea.

Having a sit down

It was high tide so I had a sit down at the top of the steps to the beach and settled down for a bit of seawatching. There were plenty of herring gulls flying about but most of the rafts of gulls out on the water were common gulls. It didn't take long to find some red-breasted mergansers, the drakes chasing each other away from the ducks. 

Llanddulas 

The first scoters I found — all common scoters — were far out, flying past the wind farm. It took a while to find some more, and some more mergansers, a little closer in. [At this point, where I was about to take some pretty poor photos of distant black blobs, I found I'd forgotten to put the camera card back in last night (again!). On the plus side it spared this blog a lot of pretty poor photos of distant black blobs, there wasn't much closer in for anything better.]

All told there were a couple of dozen common scoters floating or flying about in twos or threes. It took half an hour to find one of the velvet scoters that were around today, and then only because it had a stretch of its wings on the water and I noticed the white secondary feathers. I put another half hour in before giving up on trying to identify the birds in the mid distance, they were definitely scoters of some sort but I couldn't get further than that.

I visited the gentlemen's conveniences and set off for a walk along the shingle. A hundred yards down I found some seats and settled down for another seawatch, enjoying the luxury of not sitting cross-legged on a stone step (I'm getting too old for that). More common scoters and common gulls, some cormorants, a red-throated diver… then I had another look at a raft of half a dozen scoters that had been baffling me earlier. The change of angle worked a treat, even though they were further away. The moment my binoculars were on them I saw two birds I almost thought were coots, a pair of drake surf scoters with their foreheads blazing white in the sunlight. At half a mile's distance I couldn't tell if the birds they were with were common or velvet scoters.

Llanddulas 

Kimmel Bay 

The afternoon was young so I walked down to Beach House Road and got the number 12 bus to Rhyl, getting off at Kimmel Bay for a bit of an explore. The beach was fairly busy with people and dogs but that didn't stop a few redshanks and curlews from feeding in the pools or a flock of a dozen light-bellied brent geese loafing at the tideline. Herring gulls and black-headed gulls were out on the water, a great crested grebe bobbed about offshore and a few cormorants flew by.

River Clwyd, Rhyl

I crossed the Clwyd into Rhyl and had a nosy at the marine lake which was busy with lapwings, dunlins and black-tailed godwits taking refuge from the crowds on the beach.

The salt marshes by the railway line were littered with little egrets on the way in. On the way home they were nowhere to be seen, evidently following the tide out. Just after we passed Ffynnongroew a dozen shelducks were dabbling on the seashore. As the sun set over the Cheshire plain I kept my nose pressed against the train window in the hopes of seeing an owl over one of the fields. To no avail, which serves me right for being greedy after a very good day's birdwatching.

Anglesey

Choughs, South Stack

I've been putting off a trip out to Anglesey for three weeks, the weather looked okay for it today so off I went. I'm a couple of months late for the nesting seabirds but my intention was to get choughs onto the year list, do a little seawatching, have a walk and do a bit of birdwatching from the train along the beaches and salt marshes of North Wales.

I got the Holyhead train from Oxford Road and settled in for a two and a half hour journey, making sure I was on the North side of the train so I'd be facing the coast. The wind had blown some of the leaves away from the trackside trees, making it easier to see some of the woodpigeons and corvids that had been playing peek-a-boo all Summer. A flock of stock doves in a field near Godscroft reminded me that for some unaccountable reason I've been neglecting Frodsham this year, something I must amend.

As we moved up the Flintshire coast the salt marshes were peppered with starlings, carrion crows and black-headed gulls. Little egrets started appearing on the approach to Mostyn, ones or twos at first then groups of a dozen. Shelducks dabbled in the mud and a flock of a hundred or more dunlins (and who knows what else) rose from the beach as the train passed. The train also flushed a snipe from the trackside embankment as we passed through Ffrith, not something I was expecting on today's list. Kimmel Bay was heaving with black-headed gulls, little egrets, tufted ducks and a pile of other stuff we zoomed by too fast for me to identify. It was black-headed gulls, herring gulls and carrion crows all the way to Bangor with cameo appearances by oystercatchers, cormorants and woodpigeons. On Anglesey the gulls and crows were mostly accompanied by jackdaws.

By South Stack Road

I walked out of Holyhead town centre and down South Stack Road. Halfway down the road, in the field by the small reservoirs, a few dozen greylags grazed and honked in the company of a flock of jackdaws. A dozen herring gulls and a mallard dozed in the next field but the only bird actually on the reservoirs was a sleeping heron.

By South Stack Road 

I reminded myself that the first stretch of the minor road up to South Stack would be steeper than I'd expect but it still came as a shock. I was whispering soothing words to my knees when I realised that not all the flock of jackdaws were jackdaws, there were a couple of choughs in there, too. They were quite close and didn't mind me taking photographs of them so long as they were pictures of their rear ends or their suddenly lunging into a tussock of grass chasing some tidbit or other. 

I noticed a smaller bird further up the field when it rose and fell then flew off into the hedgerow. It was a big, but not chunky, bunting with a pale chest and belly. Not a yellowhammer or corn bunting, not yet a reed bunting (and definitely not a cirl bunting!). It must be a Lapland bunting but I was only getting underwing views and getting no sense of chestnut wing coverts. Then it called. A strange wader-like cheep. I looked up some flight calls and yes, it was a Lapland bunting. Here's an example. Sadly it was too quick into the cover of brambles for me to get a photo.

South Stack Lighthouse

The wind was fierce so I decided not to do the clifftop walk, choosing the path a hundred yards in instead. Mind you, it felt like anyone throwing themselves off the cliff would safely find themselves in the garden of one of the holiday homes down the hill. The choughs and jackdaws bounced about in the breeze but everything else kept its head down. A flock of sparrows sat at the base of a stone wall and chirruped at passersby.

Gannet, South Stack

I settled down for half an hour or so's seawatching. I tried to find a spot in the lee of the wind but whichever side of Ellis Tower I went the wind was blowing a hooley. In the end I went and sat down on a bench in the open, I could at least use it to steady my binoculars. Seawatching is a very Zen thing, like as not you're looking at nothing but waves. There was a lot of looking at nothing but waves then a passing gannet demonstrated I had the scale of the waves all wrong: they were huge. This seemed to help and soon I'd found a few gannets, a couple of great black-backs and a possible Manx shearwater (couldn't be sure, it was flying the troughs of the waves so I only got tantalising glimpses of a dark bird). It took a while to work out that the dark shape breaking the water was a harbour porpoise, especially as I was having problems with the scale of things at the time.

I made my way back whence I came, stopping to admire a buzzard wind hovering by the cliffs. A kestrel was hunting over the fields by the road and a couple of choughs had joined the greylags in the field.

Chough and greylag, South Stack Road

I considered having a nosy round the harbour but my feet and knees were making representations about the effects of all that road walking along steeply inclined planes so I wandered over to wait for the train back. It was getting on so most of the bird life on the way back was corvids and gulls with a few egrets showing up in the gloom. There were a few pairs of oystercatchers in the fields and beaches round Llanfairfechan, the egrets on the Conwy Estuary included a great white and there was a large flock of redshanks roosting at Kimmel Bay. The light was too dim to see much by the time we passed Shotton and the only bird I saw in England on my way home was a pigeon waiting for a tram at Manchester Victoria.

It had been a long day but a very productive one. And I do need to go and visit Frodsham.

South Stack

Chough, South Stack

I've had my Senior Railcard a couple of days so I decided it was time it got christened. The other week's timetable changes have brought back the Manchester to Holyhead train so I thought I'd have a trip out and walk down to South Stack.

I was reminded how long it is since I last did this trip: I was baffled by a "new" bridge from the station into the town centre that turned out to have been built in 2008. What surprised me greatly was that once I'd got my bearings in the town centre I could walk up to South Stack from memory (though I'd forgotten how steep that last stretch of South Stack Road is!)

A hopeful scan round of the harbour before setting out netted the inevitable herring gulls and pigeons and a great crested grebe.

Starlings, Llaingoch

Once I'd passed through Llaingoch the country started to look wild, with rolling farmlands on my left and the heather-thick base of Holyhead Mountain on my right. Dozens of herring gulls passed overhead and the hedgerows were busy with goldfinches and linnets. I could hear buzzards calling but it took ages to find them: they were soaring and dipping over the brow of the hills on the other side of the valley.

View from South Stack Road

About half a mile beyond Llaingoch there's a small reservoir or four large square ponds, I'm not sure of its function. A flock of a dozen each of herring gulls, lesser black-backs and greylag geese loafed on the field by the ponds while a couple of dozen herring gulls bathed in the water.

Buzzard, South Stack Road

I'd almost reached the point where you turn right for South Stack when I saw my first two choughs of the day as they tried, and failed, to mingle with a large flock of jackdaws. A buzzard made an even worse fist of it.

South Stack Lighthouse

South Stack was busy. Very, very busy. It's too late in the season to hope for auks nesting on the cliffs, though there were still a few kittiwakes and plenty of herring gulls. There were a few too many loud voices around to hope for many small passerines but a large flock of spadgers took advantage of the dust raised by all those feet.

House sparrows dustbathing

I found a quietish spot and did a bit of seawatching. Plenty more gulls. An adult gannet passed by in the mid distance and a dozen Manx shearwaters seemed to track the fishing boats' buoys past the cliffs. A scan through a crowd of gulls at the base of one of the cliffs added shag to the year list.

Holyhead Mountain

The walk back to Holyhead was more of the same though I was largely distracted by the air sea rescue helicopter landing in a dip in the side of the hill by the road. I hope it was a training exercise and not some poor devil hurt themselves.

Holyhead Harbour

I walked down to the harbour at Beach Road and had a nosy round. More herring gulls and pigeons, a great black-back with a large youngster and a passing curlew.

Back off home on the stopping train to Chester which doesn't connect to anything anywhere and so was nice and quiet.

Conwy

Conway Castle

After last week's being stuck at home I was wanting a proper day out, December's a time for catching up both with the year list and site visits so I thought I'd visit RSPB Conwy as I'd not got round to it so far this year and firecrests have been reported from there a few time over the past few days.

It was a nice day for a walk and a pleasant stroll down from Lllandudno Junction station. Plenty of redshanks, gulls and teal on the river, together with a handful of curlew. Good numbers of oystercatchers on the estuary but none on the river south of the railway line.

Conwy RSPB was a bit quiet birdwise. The mixed tit flocks were almost entirely blue tits and great tits, a chiffchaff was tagging along with one of them. Lots of robins begging for food along the paths. Ducks on the open water included mallard, teal, gadwall and a few tufted ducks, accompanied by rafts of coot and the occasional moorhen. There was an interesting looking domestic mallard having a kip alongside a little egret, mostly white with black markings and an odd black and washed-out blue speculum.

Domestic mallard and little egret

Sadly, no firecrests. But it was a nice day out all the same.

Llandudno

The Little Orme from the Great Orme

I've been intending to visit Llandudno and the Great Orme all year but just haven't got round to it. I usually aim for early Summer when there's a good chance of choughs on the summit and auks out in the bay. Anyway, I've left it late so there's no trams and the bus from the station only takes you to the bottom of the hill at Tyn-y-Coed. The lure was a Lapland bunting that's been on the summit for the past few days, with a chance of snow bunting as well as a couple have been reported over the past week. [Spoiler: I didn't see either.]

I had to change at Llandudno Junction on the way in. Seeing as there was a thirty minute wait for the Llandudno train I wandered over to the bridge over the river to see what was about. Lowish tide so nothing was very close. A lot of redshanks on the mud, with oystercatchers further out with mallards and shelduck. A pair of red-breasted mergansers worked their way along one of the channels. Conwy RSPB reserve's a short walk upstream but I didn't have time for a look round today.

A bracing walk up the steep first stretch of the road from the bus stop gave me my first couple of pairs of stonechats and a small flock of meadow pipits. There were small numbers of goldfinches, blackbirds and mistle thrushes in the trees. A large flock of jackdaws were making a racket about the escarpment just before the Halfway tram station.

Up top crows, herring gulls and jackdaws were the most obvious birds, with small flocks of meadow pipits, linnets and goldfinches working the scrub. Also a few more stonechats and a couple of robins.

An unfamiliar call attracted my attention, something like a reed bunting but softer, deeper and a little sadder. Whatever was calling worked its way down one of the grassy slopes and then decided to shut up as it approached some gorse bushes. Try as I might I couldn't pick it up. Referring to Xeno-canto I found the call was very likely to be a Lapland bunting. So I've probably heard one but that's not good enough for me to claim it as a lifer. Ah well.

Back down on the promenade I spent a while doing a bit of seawatching. The beach was full of jackdaws rummaging through the seaweed brought in on the tide. Far out I could see herring gulls, cormorants and shags shuttling between the wind farm and the Little Orme. Closer in the only birds on the water were two great black-backs and a great crested grebe.

And a straight trip back home. For the second time this week all the trains ran more or less on time, too!