Quay West

With the wind blowing from the east and some light rain to boot, the hide at Inner Marsh Farm was out, so Connah’s Quay was the destination for my penultimate birding trip of the year.

Unusually the wet meadow hosted the most birds today, with the number of Lapwing particularly high, reflecting the general consensus – in North Wales at least – that there has been a large influx of these plovers recently.

A sprinkling of Blackwits and Curlew were also probing around the flooded meadow, but the pick of the day was an unusual bird for Connah’s Quay – a Ruff feeding along the margins of one of the pools.

With the tide receded the rather modest number of waders present were spread thinly across the mudflats with another fairly uncommon wader for this part of the estuary – a Grey Plover, the highlight along with yet another sighting of the lone Pale-bellied Brent Goose flying down the River Dee.

In other news, another birder – Mark Murphy – mentioned to me at lunchtime that he had seen around twenty or so Twite a week or so ago - perched in a bush near the helipad amongst a mixed flock of other finches.

I think this may be the first report of a good sized group of the bhuna-bibbed seed-munchers from the Connah’s Quay/Flint area this winter – let’s hope they stick around into the new year…

On another thread, I was on the Hilbre Bird Observatory blog this afternoon and read that not only were passerines currently being trapped, but that one bird - a Robin (resident on the island?) had actually been re-trapped.

I must confess that I am not wholly familiar with the processes and protocols of ringing birds, but surely given the freezing temperatures and short days there should be a moratorium on trapping birds lest it cause them any distress - especially when you risk catching the same bird more than once?

Until later.