Original PaulE
Well-known member
Just got back from a quality trip to mid/north wales with my mate Gary this is the third year we have been and it turned out to be another great trip , amazingly blazing sunshine most of the time an i forgot me hat so now extremely burnt who would have thought it wales in may8-P
anyway arrived on saturday afternoon which was a bit dull stayed local to Dolgellau near where we were staying in the evening went down the mawdach trail highlight was a dipper on the river and calling grasshopper warbler unfortunately not seen
Sunday saw us on the road to Angelsey, Holyhead harbour produced close views of a cracking Black guillemot and after refuelling at macdonalds we arrived at South Stack where we got all the usual stuff Razorbills,guillimots,kittiwake,fulmar,ravens,choughs and best of all 2 puffins sitting on the sea close into the cliffs there were also impressive views of very close gannets and a good few manxies going through some very close in.After that we drove round to Cemlyn bay where the tern colony contained common,sandwich and Arctic tern and 1 i thought looked good for roseate very pale,with black bill but no pink on the breast and no long tail streamers meant i ain't ticked it
we returned via the osprey project at Glason where we had distant views of a brown blob on a nest which the tv feed confirmed was an osprey it's very impressive set up but shame it's not a bit closer or the RSPB could rent some time on the hubble scope to gives some close ups
in the evening we tried for nightjars at the other end of the mawdach trail heard a couple but none seen third year in a row do welsh nightjars ever fly:-O although a tawny owl on a post was some compensation. and my mozzie spray seemed to work so we avoided last years massacre:king:
monday saw us on an early start heading for ynis-hir which once again produced the goods with cracking views of pied and spotted flycatcher,common redstart,wood warbler(got to the point where we wished they would shut up so we could hear the other stuff!) garden warbler, blackcap, siskin, sedge warbler, reed warbler,stonechat and tree pipit after a happy six hours we decided to head up the A44 road in search of red kites,we spotted a couple on the coast road and then headed up the A44 we found a likely looking layby just before the aptly named red kite cafe near a nature reserve whose name i can't remember and started scanning wthin bout half an hour we had seen plenty of kites with the highest count being about 18 in the air at the same time also a few buzzards and ravens when suddenly from behind the ridge in front of us a huge host of kites surged up we counted 80 but there were probably more we can only presume there is some sort of feeding centre there but whatever it was an awesome sight not really shown by my rubbish phone photo, trust me the black dots are kites8-P the pic was taken a few minutes after the birds appeared when i got my wits together and therefore they had spread out a bit by then!
feeling we probably were not going to top that we decided to adjourn to barmouth to eat our weight in fish and chips and ice cream3
all in all another great trip 97 species seen 99 if you include heard only gropper and nightjar which i don't o but gary does|8.| which ain't bad in two an a half days we would probably have seen more if someone hadn't spent hours looking for a bloody candle 8-P
good times:t:
cheers
anyway arrived on saturday afternoon which was a bit dull stayed local to Dolgellau near where we were staying in the evening went down the mawdach trail highlight was a dipper on the river and calling grasshopper warbler unfortunately not seen
Sunday saw us on the road to Angelsey, Holyhead harbour produced close views of a cracking Black guillemot and after refuelling at macdonalds we arrived at South Stack where we got all the usual stuff Razorbills,guillimots,kittiwake,fulmar,ravens,choughs and best of all 2 puffins sitting on the sea close into the cliffs there were also impressive views of very close gannets and a good few manxies going through some very close in.After that we drove round to Cemlyn bay where the tern colony contained common,sandwich and Arctic tern and 1 i thought looked good for roseate very pale,with black bill but no pink on the breast and no long tail streamers meant i ain't ticked it
we returned via the osprey project at Glason where we had distant views of a brown blob on a nest which the tv feed confirmed was an osprey it's very impressive set up but shame it's not a bit closer or the RSPB could rent some time on the hubble scope to gives some close ups
in the evening we tried for nightjars at the other end of the mawdach trail heard a couple but none seen third year in a row do welsh nightjars ever fly:-O although a tawny owl on a post was some compensation. and my mozzie spray seemed to work so we avoided last years massacre:king:
monday saw us on an early start heading for ynis-hir which once again produced the goods with cracking views of pied and spotted flycatcher,common redstart,wood warbler(got to the point where we wished they would shut up so we could hear the other stuff!) garden warbler, blackcap, siskin, sedge warbler, reed warbler,stonechat and tree pipit after a happy six hours we decided to head up the A44 road in search of red kites,we spotted a couple on the coast road and then headed up the A44 we found a likely looking layby just before the aptly named red kite cafe near a nature reserve whose name i can't remember and started scanning wthin bout half an hour we had seen plenty of kites with the highest count being about 18 in the air at the same time also a few buzzards and ravens when suddenly from behind the ridge in front of us a huge host of kites surged up we counted 80 but there were probably more we can only presume there is some sort of feeding centre there but whatever it was an awesome sight not really shown by my rubbish phone photo, trust me the black dots are kites8-P the pic was taken a few minutes after the birds appeared when i got my wits together and therefore they had spread out a bit by then!
feeling we probably were not going to top that we decided to adjourn to barmouth to eat our weight in fish and chips and ice cream3
all in all another great trip 97 species seen 99 if you include heard only gropper and nightjar which i don't o
but gary does|8.| which ain't bad in two an a half days we would probably have seen more if someone hadn't spent hours looking for a bloody candle 8-Pgood times:t:
cheers
