Bird Race 21/05/11

Despite still having over 2 and a half hours of 'daylight' left we decided to give up the chase on Brayton's record total of 111 some years ago. It was all going so well at the start of the day when one of the first birds seen was a cracking male Nightjar (another one was heard 'wing-clapping') in a small patch of clearfell near Staylittle. From there we headed to Glaslyn where we were hoping to pick up a Red Grouse calling, we we amazed when we heard a handful of them calling! We also heard Cuckoo there. Next Stop Was Cors/Morfa Dyfi where we were hoping to pick up a few species of wader. Sadly we only added Redshank and Oystercatcher, but we did have the added bonus of the Osprey pair, and several very vocal warbler species. Just as we were leaving there, 3 geese flew along the river and appeared to land. We quickly turned back to have a look what they were, just as well as it was a pair of Greylags and a lone Pink-foot!! En route to our next stop (Lake Vyrnwy) we managed to add a few good birds including Spotted Flycatcher and a cracking male Whinchat. Lake Vyrnwy wasn't as productive as hoped due to the foul weather! We were hoping to pick up a few raptor species and Ring Ouzel, but only managed a single Peregrine! We did however manage to clear up on most of the woodland species so it wasn't all a loss! It was now time to try and pick up some 'wetland birds' so LCyD was our next location, a couple more species were added but by now the weather had really turned on us and picking up new species was getting harder and harder! In the space of the next 3 and a half hours we only managed to add 4 species - Goshawk, Pied Flycatcher, Kingfisher and Crossbill! So come 7 O'clock I suggested we call it a day!!

All in all a cracking days birding with a total of 98 species being seen/heard! Thanks to dad and Marc for keeping me sane. Well done to Phil too, it's not easy to keep going all day on your own.