After the long journey up we decided to stay fairly local for our first full day, starting half an hour up the road at Trawsfynydd Reservoir, yeah I can't pronounce it either!! Was a beautiful calm morning, a Willow Warbler calling from every bush, we heard our first Cuckoos of the trip, with 3 different birds calling in the surrounding hills, Curlews were calling and one flew over, Pied Wagtails, Meadow Pipits and a Wheatear were along the bank. Not much activity on the water with a few Tufted Ducks, a couple of Great Crested Grebes and a single Red-breasted Merganser, which did have the decency to come in close! There were a lot of Gulls over on the far bank, but I couldn't be bothered to get the scope out of the car to check em for rarities, this is why I will never be a great Birder😢!!! We didn't stay long mainly because of the huge amount of midges along the bank!!
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| Lyn Trawsfynydd |
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| Wheatear enjoying Midgemegeddon! |
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| Great Crested Grebe |
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| Red-breasted Merganser |
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| Bit arty for my liking! |
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| Meadow Pipit |
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| Willow Warbler, the sound of our trip! |
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| Meadow Pipit |
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| Wheatear |
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| Willow Warbler |
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| Pied Wagtail |
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| Common Sandpiper |
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| Power Station |
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| The surrounding hills, can you hear the Cuckoos |
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| Margie likes gnarly old things! Luckily!! |
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| Her sheep obsession continues |
Our next stop was the village of Ganllwyd, yes the Welsh do like to get full use out of their consonants😀. We had found this set of Waterfalls on our last visit to the area, which was in the Autumn and I had made a mental note, that it should be good for Warblers, Pied Flys and Redstarts in the Spring!! Amazingly I was right, with Merlin picking up both Common Redstart and Pied Flycatcher from the car park!! Took us a while to find them, but eventually after a couple of hours of climbing and doing damage to my neck decent views were obtained!! Must of been at least 4 singing Redstarts and the same Pied flycatchers on our circular route up to the waterfalls. River levels seemed low and the Falls weren't as spectacular as on our previous visit but still impressive! We also had great views of a Treecreeper, a pair of loved up Ravens and several Blackcaps singing, along with the usual woodland birds, there are an awful lot of Wrens in Wales!!
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| Margie getting arty |
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| One for the Ladies! Does my Bum look big in this! |
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| Bluebells everywhere in Wales ATM |
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| Margie said this looked like a Snake!😏 |
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| New life, in 500 years I will be able to sit under this tree! |
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| Margie in action! |
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| Treecreeper showed well |
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| Male Pied Flycatcher! |
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| Ravens, flew around the wood several times calling, before settling in this tree. |
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| Nice to watch this bonding behaviour, showing their gentler side |
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| Female Pied Flycatcher |
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| Chaffinch, nice to see several! |
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| Female Chaffinch |
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| Common Redstart, though we heard several singing and had a few glimpses, this was the only one that posed and then only for a few seconds! |
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| The Ravens were still flying about as we left the woodland |
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| Joined by a couple more! |
A couple of short videos of the Waterfalls below!
A lovely walk, the only disappointment a lack of Dippers on the river! In order to find one we headed to Tyn Y Groes a place where I have had Dippers before! Sadly no Dippers, quite a few people so we headed off, the woodland in this area is good for Wood Warblers so we decided to drive around with the windows open in the hope of hearing one, no success, probably to late in the day😢The side effect of this was getting totally lost, ending up by a small river, where we found a Dipper, hurrah!! We also had fabulous views of battling Grey Wagtails, a Redstart was singing from the top of a tall tree but never showed and a Pied Wagtail which could have taught the Redstart how to pose. I almost managed to string a female Chaffinch into a Spotted Flycatcher, in my defence she was flying out from a tree catching flies and was quite far away!! A lovely area very peaceful except for the birdsong!!
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| Dipper, little bugger stayed distant but you can tell what it is! |
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| Willow Warbler |
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| Pied Wagtail |
Warning:Scenes of brutality below!! viewer discretion advised 😲
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| Battling Grey Wagtails! |
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| Could have done with em being a bit closer, but even so spectacular action! |
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| Not sure if this was the winner or loser! |
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| Wren |
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| Dipper, still stubbornly staying upstream despite some awesome habitat right below us! |
We carried on up the road, which opened up into Moorland,the open window trick paid off, with a Grasshopper Warbler reeling away, but there was no safe place to stop close enough for us to walk back and look for it, as we were knackered this would have needed to be within twenty feet!!😀We saw several Meadow Pipits, a couple of Stonechats, we lucked into a party of five Wheatears and an absolutely stunning male Whinchat, which I was two seconds away from getting the camera on when it flipped off the fence backwards never to be seen again and this time we did park up and wait!!😪 Still on the positive side the Wheatears posed ok!! Margie is of the mistaken belief that I have enough decent Wheatear shots, even though it is proven to be an impossible state of Nirvana to reach!😁😁😁
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| Stonechat |
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| Wheatear |
That was about that for the day, highly enjoyable and many of the species wanted, seen!!
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