News from North Wales

Hi all
As not much seems to be happening around Calderdale at the moment, I thought I would post an update on the bird life we have around my new home on the Llyn Peninsular in N Wales since we moved in July.To someone like myself who is only a novice bird watcher its been a real eye opener moving here due to the sheer numbers and variety of birds seen. Most days we get Ravens and Choughs passing over the van on their journeys to and from the mountains to the coast and back. Often we will not see the birds but note their calls as they pass. Although its usual to see Merlin, Kestrel, Sparrowhawk, Buzzard, and Peregrines on most walks along the coast its very rare we see any raptors near the caravan site. We do have a rather spectacular Jackdaw roost at the bottom of the site in some large conifers. Its an amazing sight to watch the birds displaying in their hundreds as they come in to roost at dusk. they spend a long time settling down for the night and its not unusual for them to be flying around displaying long after the sun has set.

Cycling round the peninsular at the moment really brings it home to you just how rich the bird life is around the area. Many of the local farmers (its all small scale mixed family farms here) have grown maize this year, not as I thought as bio-fuel but as a food crop for sheep and cattle as bought in food is very expensive. This maize crop has just been harvested and the stubble fields are full of finches. Its not unusual to see seperate flocks of over a couple of hundred Chaffinches, Greenfinches and Goldfinches and often there are many flocks together numbering hundreds of birds. Its hardly surprising that raptors are common around here ! Any cycle ride on a sunny day will have anything up to 20 Buzzards spotted as we cycle round the coast. We have large colonies of Sand Martins all along the coast and the Merlins hang around outside the nest sites trying to catch them. Swallows and House Martins seem to breed on most farms and other out buildings, The last flock I saw was last week as they headed off back SE behind the van. I have not seen any Tree Sparrows yet but House Sparrows are around in massive numbers on all the farms.

I have a feeding station set up at the back of the van around 6 feet from my office window. Its the same station I had in Calderdale but the difference in birds is remarkable. As my back garden in Calderdale backed onto Park Wood most visitors were of the Tit family and Blackbirds. Here the bulk of the visitors are finches. Chaffinches predominate along with Greenfinch and Goldfinch. I have a pair of Greater Spotted Woodpeckers down every day on the nut feeders. There is also a pair of Nuthatch with an occasional foray by other Nuthatches until the resident pair spot them and drive them off. As I sit typing this I have a flock of Chaffinches feeding on the floor under the feeder, 2 Nuthatches feeding on the peanuts, a Goldfinch hanging on a nut feeder (weird this as Goldfinches seem to prefer the nut feeders to the seed feeders ?) and two Coal tits searching for Sunflower seeds the Nuthatches keep hiding in the ivy on a tree trunk just behind the feeder. Thrush and Blackbird are noticeable by their absence at the station even though they are around in huge numbers all along any lane you walk. One thing I have also noticed is that the birds are far less likely to fly off if they spot movement through the window. I could almost reach out and touch the birds on the feeders but as long as I don't move around too much they ignore me and carry on feeding. Just behind the feeding station is a low banking/hedge, called a Clouth around here, just over that is a small field in which one of the local farmers keeps small flock of sheep (they seem to lamb the whole year round here). Its very entertaining every morning when the sheep and lambs are let back into the field as a small number of Jackdaws, Magpies and Ravens suddenly appear and start to move amongst the sheep flock looking for disturbed insects. Quite often most of the adult sheep have at least one passenger corvid keeping an eye out for insects from its woolly vantage point.

I have not really had the time to do much sea watching as yet due to settling into the van and my book business is still busy despite the downturn. We enjoyed watching Gannets plunge feeding only a few yards offshore as we walked along Nefyn beach in the summer. Most days the Gannets were feeding we also saw Common Tern feeding as well. At least one pair of Ringed Plover bred on Nefyn beach and we think they got at least one youngster safely reared. hopefully in winter we will get some time to go bird watching along the shore (its around 20mins walking from the van).

We have so much wildlife here its almost like a David Attenborough film compared to Calderdale ! Sue and I do not regret for one minute leaving Calderdale, although we do miss the many friends we made in the area. Judging by the amount of tweeters I have spotted, I dread to think just what a proper bird watcher would have seen that we have missed ! Our star spot so far was the Osprey perched on a fench post at the edge of a road some weeks back. My fav birds are Ravens (we save chicken carcases and take them up Garn Fadryn to feed the resident Ravens), but I spend far more time than I ought to simply gazing out of the office window watching the bird behaviour on the feeding station.

If any of you are ever in the area please feel free to drop in for a cuppa and some grub and you can point out all the things Sue and I have missed :-))

PS I mentioned the lack of Raptors earlier, just had a male Sparrowhawk take a chaffy from the shed roof 12 feet away from my window, amazing !