Off to Wales with my colouring pencils

You or may not have read that my last twitching attempt was a complete disaster. I did not know it at the time but I also managed to pick up a speeding ticket from the Norfolk and Suffolk Constabulary whilst I was at it, which given how little I drive these days and how much frankly bonkers driving I see (and hear, from the A12-North Circular racetrack late at night) felt highly unfair. There was no arguing with it though, I did the awareness course offered and moved on, and barring a couple of trips to the dump I have done no driving in the UK since. No driving licence points, but a few Schadenfreude points...

The bird, a Black-winged Kite, resurfaced a few weeks later, and has been hanging around at more or less the same place ever since, months at this point. I have not felt motivated to give it another go. Is my twitching career over? Well...

A Western Reef Heron has been in Wales for a couple of weeks. This is an African bird - Egretta gularis gularis - I've seen it in the Gambia, as well as its cousin - Egretta gularis schistacea - in Oman and the United Arab Emirates. Initially I ignored it, I mean I knew it was rare but it was just in the periphery. It came sharply into focus when my son saw it! Like all my kids he likes birds more than he lets on but he isn't a twitcher whatsoever. He just happened to be passing Caernarfon on his way to a music festival, and having seen a segment on BBC Wales about twitchers flocking etc had decided it would be rude not to. Two other guys in the car now have a UK list of one, a Western Reef Heron. Nice. 

The following weekend I did nothing, as usual. Pottered around the greenhouse, did some weeding and watering, cleaned up the front garden so it looks slightly less shit, that sort of thing. Another week at work, woe is me, and with this weekend approaching and the Heron being reported every half and hour I decided something had to be done and put out feelers to the local birders. Busy. Wren Wildlife Weekend. A Wedding.  Eating out in London. In Switzerland. Was one of them washing their hair, I can't remember? So another weekend bumming about Wanstead then, fair enough. It's 525 miles and nearly ten hours in the car, what a thankless day that would be on my own. I mean, I have done that on occasion, most recently in 2023 when for reasons that still escape me I got in the car and drove to St Govan's in Pembrokeshire for a Magnolia Warbler that somehow during the journey subdivided itself into a Canada Warbler as well. That was slightly further in fact, but as each year passes the dread of those types of day seems to increase. 

On Friday evening Rob got in touch? Was I still going? Well, no, I mean maybe, why? Well his plans had changed a bit and now this was his chance. Should we do it? Should we? I looked at Mrs L across the garden table and the glasses of Rosé. We had made plans to sort out the cupboard under the stairs, a job we have been putting off since about 1857. Should I postpone that yet again and go out for the day instead? Wouldn't she miss me I enquired? She virtually thrust the car keys into my hands. Similar conversations were happening in Ilford. Should Rob abandon marital bliss for the day and bugger of twitching? By way of reply Mrs S had dashed into the kitchen and started preparing a packed lunch for both of us! Mrs L and Mrs S would get on well I think, a common understanding. So we were going then. Pick up 5am.

It was a long drive, enlivened by learning that the Heron had flown off somewhere at 8pm the previous evening and not yet been refound. We thought about stopping and waiting but ploughed on when I discovered that we would be driving through Shropshire and Cheshire and that just a single Woodpigeon would allow me to colour in these areas on the eBird map that I am so obsessed with. Fortunately the Heron was refound, and so at not too far beyond 9am we were rolling into the car park at RSPB Conwy. Affirmative nods from returning birders, the target was still just around the corner feeding on the estuary with Little Egrets and Herons. 

Conwy

We missed it by five minutes, it had flown off over the causeway to the beach. Half of the birders there had not noticed and were still scanning... We returned to the car and scooted over to the beach. The massive beach. We followed the shoreline a fair chunk of way around and into the mouth of the estuary from where the Heron was now being reported from in front of the marina mid-channel. No sign. To cut a long story short we walked two and half miles and at the furthest point from where we had left the car found out that the Heron was now back in exactly the same place we had started. Yay! This time it had the decency to stay put and so after a good two hours of runaround we finally set eyes on. Feeding actively with Little Egrets it was a good few inches down in size but despite its smaller stature pushed the larger birds away on occasion. Plenty of food in the Estuary, it fed constantly, getting up and flying to a new spot before flying back and seeing off a Little Egret on the prime spot before  starting again. 

A distant phone scope shot. Despite the Western Reef Heron looking bigger here, I am convinced that it was smaller.

The sense of wonder and relief that accompanies all successful rare bird twitches began to sink in. Tucking into a packed lunch fit for a king we congratulated ourselves on mission accomplished, and that depite a long walk along the estuary for no reason that it had all worked out. We now had the rest of the day to pootle around. I got my colouring pencils out.

The coast of North Wales in interesting in that it is not very far from one end to the other yet east to west takes in Flintshire, Denbighshire, Conwy where we now stood, Gwynedd and Anglesey. I'd been here before as in my youth I'd climbed Snowdon with Mrs L, starting from Warrington the same day, but as far as eBird was concerned the saying "Here be dragons" could not be more appropriate. Rob was game, he is an eBird map afficionado. And anyway I had the car keys. 

We carefully picked an eBird hotspot in each preserved county, or principal area or whatever they are and off we went. First of all a nice little reserve near Aber to sort out Gwynedd, and then to the wonderful Cors Ddyga RSPB in Angelsey where we walked a full circuit and so now this county is my top one is Wales by virtue of a single checklist with 43 birds on it. Having missed out Denbighshire in our single-minded need to get to Conwy as soon as possible we stopped by the river at St Asaph for Grey Wagtail and a much deserved ice-cream, and then as luck would have it our route to home via Venus Pool NR in Shropshire took us through both Flintshire and Wrexham. Some scanning as we traversed the A55 and A483 pulled out the desired Jackdaws and so on, and so by the time I arrived home I had not only increased my UK list by one, I had also birded (of sorts) eight new eBird areas. A bit gutting that I didn't notice we were so close to "Halton" on the west side of the Mersey and which appears on my map as blank, but I am glad that I did not pursue it as it turns out it is some kind of eBird geoboundary gremlin which means it both exists and does not exist simultaneously. I have seen American Wigeon on the Wirral at Heswall Fields, and recorded it there, but all the data has been claimed by Merseyside which seems very shady. Who is the eBird reviewer for "Halton"? Tough gig that one.

Cors Ddyga RSPB. Lovely.

Venus Pool NR was one of those hidden little gems that you would never find by yourself, but is one of Rob's prior stomping grounds. It was an excellent little break about a third of the way home and upped my Shropshire list from five on the Newport bypass earlier that day to a whopping 38... I got home just before 11pm, a long day by my standards and a very long time behind the wheel but this morning, and with the bird not present, I am very glad I went. A grand day out!