The Pensarn Hoopoe : 22nd December 2013
Hoopoe Pensarn December 2013
I had been looking at the presence of this bird at Pensarn for quite some time on the bird alert services, Rare Bird Alert and Rare Bird Network, the latter of which I now access via Twitter. Both had been showing the bird for weeks after it had presumably been blown off its migratory journey to Africa due to very bad weather – it had landed at Castle Cove Caravan Park in Pensarn near Abergele where it seems to have been roosting under a caravan. The caravan is almost entirely unoccupied in winter so there isn’t much disturbance and the bird has been feeding quite well during its unscheduled stay.The worry is, of course, that it will not be able to get back on course and when the winter sets in and the ground freezes it is going to find it hard to feed. It may need to be rescued before it dies. With very high winds the day we went, and more to come, it is remotely possible that it could get back on track – but hard to imagine. In any case, for the moment it is doing well.