Wood Warblers - North Wales

While I've yet to see the Grey-Headed Lapwing, I settled for some great birds closer to home today. Me and Carl visited two sites in North Wales in the hopes of finding Wood Warbler, one of the more obvious UK species I'm yet to catch up with.

With some great local information from John Roberts, we arrived at Bod Petrayl in north-east Wales at around 7:30am. Just as John had said, Wood Warbler was the first bird we heard after leaving the car! It took a little while to spot it in the poor light as it darted amongst the conifers adjacent to the car park, but when it came down to the lower branches the views were great!

Poor light, but some great views of Wood Warbler!

We did a bit of exploring in the surrounding woodland - really interesting to see well-developed coniferous woodland with diverse ground flora, alive with birds compared to most desert-like plantations! It wasn't long before we picked up another Wood Warbler, also in conifers on the other side of a small lake. We did a loop of the woodland, which was alive with Coal Tit, Goldcrest, Song and Mistle Thrush, Blackcap, Chiffchaff and Siskin, until Carl spotted a female Redstart in an area of pines with bilberry understory. Unfortunately, I didn't get on it in time, but shortly later I picked up a male Redstart briefly in one of the ancient broadleaved verges bordering the pines. A few more Wood Warblers were noted too, difficult to know exactly how many as they were quite mobile but probably four birds in the area. Back at the car park we also picked up a small group of Crossbills at the tops of the pines.

We then moved on to the woodlands above Trefriw nearby - which I wouldn't recommend if you're not up for a monster hike! Here we noted loads more Wood Warblers, we actually lost count at around 6, they were literally every 50m in the right habitat (coniferous woodland with broadleaved nearby).

A stop-off at Burton Mere RSPB didn't have anything particularly mind-blowing, but it was good to see my second Ruddy Shelduck, as well as a decent selection of warblers and waders including a single Knot (we think!) picked out from Border Hide.

Single Knot amongst Black-Tailed Godwits, Dunlin and Avocet

The Avocets came close at times!

Our final stop was close to home at Little Woolden Moss LWT Reserve. As usual, the place wasn't overflowing with birds, but we did pick out a really nice Greenshank on the peat pools, with a few Oystercatcher, Snipe, lots of Lapwing, Linnet and a reeling Grasshopper Warbler. A nearby lane also held at least 2 Yellow Wagtails, my first local ones!

Distant Greenshank

A really interesting day with 80+ species, my perception of good Wood Warbler habitat has now completely changed!






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