Wales Break Day 5 : RSPB Conwy : 15th May 2011

RSPB Conwy

We left Bodnant and decided to go back up to RSPB Conwy for a bite to eat and a last chance to view the lagoon from the panoramic cafe window. As we arrived it was pointed out to us that someone had just seen a Citrine Wagtail which is a reasonably rare bird to see in Britain. We spoke to the chap who had spotted it and he was as pleased as could be. He said it was the rarest bird he had ever spotted first (he said around 3 a year are spotted in the UK) and it set off a proper “twitch” with calls going out and carloads of twitchers and birders arriving non-stop so that the cafe was full of people trying to get a glimpse of the bird.

When we arrived it wasn’t to be seen – though there was a nice Little Egret showing – so we ordered sandwiches and teas but before we could get to our table it had returned. We got good views with scope and bins but by the time I returned to the car to get my camera it had gone again. Would it return ? – everyone hoped so but in the meantime I left Anne in the cafe while I went to the first hide to see what I could see whilst she was going to phone me if it returned. At the hide there were good views of Swifts and Swallows swooping over the water while Lapwing and Coots mooched around. There were a few Selduck and there were other birds in the bushes around the open hide. I saw a wader that I wasn’t familiar with so I took a fair number of quite good photos from reasonable close range. As I was doing so a couple came up behind me and congratulated me on getting pictures of the Wood Sandpiper ! – so that answered my query and if it hadn’t have been for the Citrine Wagtail this would have been the bird of the afternoon.

My phone rang and it was Anne saying that the Citrine Wagtail had returned into view so I hotfooted it back to the cafe where there were now even more people with bins, scopes and cameras. I managed to get near the window and fired off a few shots which turned out to be very blurry and the bird was tiny in the frame but they were, in fact, good enough to properly id the bird. We watched for a bit and then it disappeared again. We waited a while longer but we had had good views already and they would have appreciated the room we vacated in the cafe. As we left there were still people arriving. Who knows if the bird returned again or they were disappointed. We returned to the car and I looked up Citrine Wagtail on my mobile phone. The search engine linked me to the BirdGuide site and showed me the Citrine Wagtail page where the latest sighting of the bird in the uk was at RSPB Conwy on 15th May 2011, complete with a picture – what took them so long !

Bird List RSPB Conwy