Bird Notes.

Byline: WITH ALAN DAVIES, CONWY RSPB 

B IRDWATCHING can be very frustrating at times; this week was one of those times!

A birdwatcher arrived at the visitor centre looking rather agitated and headed straight for the field guides.

After rather hurried flicking of pages, he announced that he was pretty sure there was an American wigeon out on the estuary. Drop everything and out to the estuary.

The sun was strong but unluckily we were looking straight into it, leaving the birds in silhouette.

We moved further along to change the angle but now the wigeon flock was hidden below the bank. Further along again and we could see the birds but still in poor light.

Given we had top of the range telescopes we were still surprised not to be able to see anything different amongst the wigeon.

A flock of redshank dropped in close; amongst them, two fine juvenile black-tailed godwit.

Scanning the estuary for more wildfowl I picked up a small gull like bird flying head on in the distance.

As the bird came closer, we could see it was a juvenile arctic tern, a very unusual bird here at Conwy RSPB. Back to the wigeon but still nothing different.

We headed back stopping to scan regularly, just as we neared the entrance gate, I noticed a different bird amongst the flock. Sadly not an American wigeon but a rather similar Chiloe wigeon an escapee from a wildfowl collection! Chiloe wigeon are residents of South America and are widely kept in collections. Rather deflated we headed back to the centre.

Later that day a phone call told of an unidentified wader on the pools at Morfa Madryn Nature Reserve, Llanfairfechan. The bird was showing in front of the second hide and by using my mobile phone, I was able to summon help for the birdwatcher in the hide.

A rather tense wait back at the reserve, with so many rare waders in the UK we hoped that this was another.

Mobile rang and the thoughts of both observers on site was that the bird was either white-rumped or Baird's sandpiper, both very rare American waders.

Into the car and tear down the A55 to Llanfairfechan, screech to a halt in the small car park and run the half a mile down to the hide.

Arriving out of breath and very hot I stumbled into the hide. Luckily, the bird was still present and I quickly looked through one of the scopes. My heart sank - the bird was a juvenile little stint, nice but not anywhere near as rare.

That deflated feeling was back. Trudged back to the car not happy

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