Birdwatching near Caernarfon

I haven't managed to keep up the list of what I have seen on this blog. but am, however keeping a list, and trying to take photographs too, when I can.  I finally got a better photograph of the female kestrel on the common.  She is nearly always around, but it's not always possible to get close enough for a picture.

I quite like this one though, where she is in the hawthorn tree - a favourite perch.  But this last weekend I was able to see what birds were around in quite a different habitat.  As I had booked to go to the St David's festival in Caernarfon, I thought I would also try to do some birdwatching there and contacted Gareth Jones who runs Birds of Snowdonia and booked a 'tour'.  Brought up in the area, Gareth's first language is Welsh - so that meant we could do the birdwatching in Welsh, an added bonus!.

So on Friday we arranged to meet in Caernarfon and he took me to various locations not too far from the town itself.  As I recall, this is the list of the birds we saw:

Green winged teal
Teal
Oyster catchers
Buzzard
Raven
Jackdaw
Crow
Dipper
Dunlin
Redshank
Greenshank
Goldcrest
Jay
Magpie
Curlew
Golden plover
Lapwing
Chaffinch
Great northern diver
Goosander
Rock pippit
Ringed plover
Stonechat
Merlin
Tree creeper
Wren
House sparrow
Coal tit
Blue tit
Great tit
Long tailed tit
Thrush
Mistlethrush
Dunnock
Robin
Blackbird
Starling
Nuthatch
Black headed gull
Herring gull
Greater black backed gull
Lesser black backed gull
Brent geese
Shelduck
Moorhen
Mute Swan
Mallard
Goldeneye
Great crested grebe
Little grebe
Shag
Cornorant
Pintail

If I haven't put duplicates in this looks like 53 species to me, which is amazing.  I didn't just want to see as many different birds as possible though, and you'll see that many of these are quite common birds.  I wanted to go to locations where I had been as a child, and where I still go when in Caernarfon, such as the Foryd, with someone who is an expert in birding. And I certainly wasn't disappointed.  We saw birds that I have seen before around the town and coastline, but never get to see locally, such as curlew and redshank and turnstone (though that was a bit elusive) and geese we never get here as they are

coastal (the brent geese).  But we also saw a green winged teal, which are American birds and are different from our own native teal in having the white stripe on their flank running upright as in the photo rather than along the wing as in the 'ordinary' teal below:

Not very good photos - they weren't terribly obliging, but they are certainly very pretty birds - both kinds!  Other 'firsts' for me were the divers on the straits, but they weren't terribly close to the shore and of course they are in their winter rather than their breeding plumage.  Another duck I had never seen before was the pintail - very handsome - dabbling around in some pools on the shore, but not near enough to take a photo.  We also visited a field with a very large flock of golden plover, with some lapwing among them.  I have only seen golden plover in their breeding plumage before: these looked very different, but sparkled when they took off in flight - which they did from time to time.

I was also very pleased to see so many curlews, but was told that these are not (mainly) our curlews but Scandinavian or other European visitors.

Another bird that I was excited about seeing was the merlin: I love birds of prey and had never seen one of these before, but I have to say that it was a long way away, perched on a post.  

So I think I learnt a lot about which birds might be seen where.  I didn't try to take photos on the whole, as many were far away.  I would certainly like to go back and try to photograph the dipper.  I love dippers and of course we definitely don't get them around here as they like fast streams.  But we saw two more or less within the town itself, but of course, as is always the way, by the time I'd got the camera out and zoomed the lens, they had moved away!  So one last photo of a bird that is often seen in an aggressive pose, the herring gull, but this pair seem to be peacefully dozing.