Conwy

Come and join us!

julian hughes — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 07:54:00 GMT

You may not have realised, because there's barely been a mention of it in the media, but there's going to be a Westminster general election sometime between now and June. The party leaders are already trying to make political battlegrounds of their favourite issues, which is why the RSPB is delighted that so many people have already signed its Letter to the Future (150,000 people so far and counting - have you?). While Governments have been pouring billions digging the world out of a financial mess, it's important that we stand up and remind them that we want the next generation (and the one after that, and the one after that) to grow up in a healthy world, full of natural beauty. Signing the Letter is a first step that we can all take - and where better to do it than while enjoying a latte in our coffee shop; you can pick up a Letter, read it, sign it and leave it in our 'postbox' between sips!

But as politicians have to think hard about the promises they're going to make, there's a second step that we can take - ask the candidates what they think. And RSPB Cymru is giving us all the chance to do that. On Thursday 15 April (7 pm), we're staging an "Ask the Climate Question" event at Venue Cymru, Llandudno. It will take a Question Time format, and aims to provide local people with the opportunity to raise environmental issues that are important to them. The panel, made up of parliamentary candidates from all parties for the Aberconwy and Clwyd West constituencies, will include the people that we elect as our next MPs. So we need a strong showing and some interesting and challenging questions from you to ensure an entertaining evening of lively and insightful discussion... and to make our candidates think! If you would like more information about this event, or would like to put a question to the panel, please contact Viola Ross-Smith on 029 2035 3002, or campaigns.wales@rspb.org.uk. We hope to see you there!

Finally for this week, a quick mention of an opportunity to join the team at RSPB Conwy. We have a vacancy for a catering assistant in the coffee shop, arguably the RSPB cafe with the best view in the country. If you'd like to join us for the summer, click here to read all about it. The closing date is Friday 5 March.

Coming soon: new trails, digiscoping demo and slush (probably)

julian hughes — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 11:48:00 GMT

Down the white carpet
We woke up to a carpet of white this morning; the reserve looks stunning , or at least it did once the snow clouds moved and we'd finished shovelling snow so that visitors could get round. It hasn't deterred the small birds from singing, but the snipe once again look a bit annoyed that they're struggling for food (sadly, Sarah and I found a dead woodcock this week which must have succumbed in last month's icy weather). But today's snow is melting fast and the snipe will doubtless soon be back feeding in front of the coffee shop, where they and the curlews have been probing for food close to the windows since Jon and Sarah cut and cleared the grass last week.

Blazing the trails
As you may have spotted on the front page of the Conwy website, some of the trails will be closed next week as we're undertaking work to make them more easily accessible (or at least we will do as long as we don't get much more of the white stuff). Millions of footsteps have walked on them since the reserve opened in the mid 1990s, and in some places they have simply worn away. We'll be raising the levels in some places so that the water drains more easily, and the trail as far as the bridge pond will be topped with rolled stone, making it easier for wheelchair visitors and those in mobility scooters and pushchairs to get round. Please bear with us while we complete this work; all should be back open again for next weekend.

Get snapping
Our photography event next Saturday is fully booked, but we hope to run more in the future as they're evidently very popular.

However, if you're thinking of getting into digiscoping (where you use a digital camera and a telescope to create a super-size lens) and would like to try before you buy, we're running a special Digiscoping Demo next month. Digiscoping is not the dark art made out by some people, it just needs a little practice and understanding of how a digiscoping set up works and how to get the best from it. It can be a great way to get good photos of wildlife without spending a fortune on huge camera lenses.

On 6 and 7 March, Viking Optical will be here to advise customers who would like to try digiscoping and local professional wildlife photographer Keith Webster will help you through the process of capturing your image to seeing your finished image on a computer screen. We will have a range of scopes, adaptors and complete digiscoping kits for demonstration and sale. These demonstrations are not a training course for existing digiscopers, but are specifically designed for people who are interested in buying digiscoping equipment.

We know that demand for this demo weekend will be high, so you can book your own one hour demo slot (between 10 am and 3 pm) by ringing the reserve on 01492 584091. Or, of course, you can turn up on the day. You can bring your own DSLR or digital compact to try with one of our 'scopes, or try one of our complete kits.

Three blogs in two days - have I had a bump on the head?

julian hughes — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 19:19:00 GMT

Regular readers will know that my blog entries can be, er, well let's say sporadic. But there's lots happening on the reserve at the moment, so here's some more bits of news.

First, we welcome our new Warden, Sarah Money. By this evening, Sarah's head is probably a whirl, and she's doubtless gone for a lie down. You know what it's like on your first day in a new job: new habitat, new people, new systems, new work. You have to get yourself registered and logged on to this and to that, there's bits of paper to sign, masses of stuff to read and take in, new things to learn, a thousand things to remember, and with luck on Tuesday morning, you might recall half of it.

Sarah's a keen birdwatcher, an experienced conservationist, has worked for three different BirdLife partners: the RSPB, Birdwatch Ireland and Falklands Conservation, and has spent most of the last few summers working on seabird research (she confessed that she's particularly looking forward to spring at Conwy because she's forgotten what trees look like when they've got leaves). If you meet Sarah, I'm sure you'll make her very welcome.

Second, we've been nominated for a couple of awards - and we're looking for your help with one of them.

I opened a letter this morning to read that we have been nominated for an Accessible Britain award. We were delighted to be included in last year's Rough Guide to Accessible Britain (click here for a Daily Post news story about it) and so are especially pleased that we've been nominated in awards that "recognise best practice in providing accessible, inspirational and inclusive visitor attractions across the UK". We'll hear towards the end of the month whether we've been shortlisted for an award.

We want to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to discover nature at RSPB reserves, and so work with visitors who have a range of abilities to ensure that we make a visit straightforward and enjoyable. And we're always keen to listen to ideas and comments. If you've been to the reserve at a weekend, you may have met one of our brilliant volunteer Wildlife Guides in the hides, two of whom are disabled, and who give us lots of really helpful feedback based on their own experiences and those of the thousands of visitors they meet each year. If you've got something to say, please contact us at conwy@rspb.org.uk.

Finally, we've also been nominated for another Award, and this one is a public vote - but neither Simon Cowell nor Craig Revell-Hallwood get to comment. The Wales Co-operative Centre is looking for Wales' favourite Fair Trade drinks outlet and RSPB Cymru Conwy nature reserve's coffee shop has been nominated, but there's stiff competition from other cafes. It's a great way to promote the benefits of Fair Trade to people and the planet, so if you've enjoyed the ambience, the service, the coffee, the tea and the view at RSPB Conwy, vote here before 25 February.

Kermit's footprint

julian hughes — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 12:04:00 GMT

"It's not easy being green...

...It's beautiful and that's what I think I want to be"

If you have a good memory and a 1970s childhood, you might remember that these are the first and last lines of a song by top fuzzy-felt crooner, Kermit the Frog. Inspired partly by Kermit (but to be honest, driven more by a need to reduce the impact of RSPB Conwy on the planet that we're trying to look after), the Conwy team has been working hard at reducing our 'footprint'.

A small team of volunteers and staff guide this work, with two volunteers - Rosie and John Solbe - having done a huge amount of work to audit what we do and to research better ways of doing them. But it's down to the actions of hundreds of people that we can make a difference. At the start of 2009, we set ourselves targets to reduce water use, greenhouse gas emissions, chemical use and the waste sent to landfill. Rosie and John have just finished crunching the numbers, and we're fairly pleased with the results.

Water
We wanted to reduce our use of tap-water by 15%. We actually managed to reduce it by 23%, which is a saving of 80,000 litres. That's a lot of water that isn't sucked from wetlands, so it's better for wildlife. We've done it by, for example, putting one-litre milk cartons in each toilet so that each flush uses less water; we installed push-taps on six-second timers in the toilets so that they don't get left on; when the dishwasher in the coffee shop broke, we ensured that the new one uses less water, and recycles more; and we've installed a couple of water butts so that we use rainwater on the plants, not drinking water. These are all things that we can do at home, too. At Conwy, the average use for each visitor has fallen from 6.5 litres in 2008 to 5 litres per visitor in 2009.

Electricity
There's no gas, solar or wind power on site, so all our power comes from electricity. We wanted to reduce our electricity consumption by 5%. In fact, we reduced in by more than 8%, which is 1.65 tonnes less carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere. There were fewer technical fixes to help here, so this has almost all been done by us being more careful with switching heaters and lights off when we don't need them. It'll be harder to continue to reduce this year-on-year by good practice alone, but it shows what we all can do with a tiny bit of effort. As well as reducing our carbon emissions, it saved the reserve £500, which is £500 more that can be spent on wildlife conservation.

Transport
We were already pretty savvy about using public transport (or even bicycle) rather than cars, so even our target of reducing CO2 emissions by 3% from transport was going to be tough. But, we did it. Our CO2 emissions fell by 4.3% compared to 2008, a reduction of 0.126 tonne of carbon dioxide.
Although staff and (most) volunteer 'commuting' to the reserve isn't included in this total, it's worth noting that Adam, Lauren and Jayne in the coffee shop all use bus and/or walking to get here, Shirley tries to get the train at least once a week, Robbie frequently walks here, and hats off to Clare in the shop who cycled more than 4000 miles from her home in the Conwy Valley last year.

Chemicals
We don't use any pesticides or herbicides on the reserve, but if you look in your tool shed, it's still amazing what impact some paints and wood preservatives can have on the environment. We aimed to halve the number of products containing solvents that are high in VOCs (volatile organic compounds) or which could be toxic to aquatic life if they have contact with the water. We reduced what we use by 25%, but still have some way to go to find alternative products that still do the job.

Waste
We wanted to reduce the amount of waste that we send to landfill, by reducing what we use, re-using what we can and recycling as much of the rest as possible. We achieved our goal here, too, and recycled 83% of the waste we generated. All our uncooked food waste and paper napkins are composted and used on the reserve, while all the glass, metal, paper, cardboard and most plastic is recycled. That's thanks to our hard-working volunteers and staff correctly sorting items that can't be re-used into the correct bins for recycling. We can all do this at home too; most local authorities have kerbside recycling services, and the range of things we can recycle is increasing all the time.

We know that we've still got a long way to go, but feel we've made a good start. By monitoring carefully what we're using, we're all much more conscious. And we can feel good that it's all helping the wildlife and countryside we care about, by keeping water in our wetlands and helping to slow the rate of climatic change. Did you know that there are lots of great ideas in the Green Living section of our website - take a look, there's bound to be one thing that you could do that would make an even bigger difference.

So, although it's been a challenge, I'm not sure that Kermit's completely right. It's not too difficult to be green, but it is what we want to be.

Fireworks over the reedbed

julian hughes — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 10:17:00 GMT

I've heard some strange noises coming from our viewing hides, but those this evening were the best I've heard yet...

"Ooooh.... aahh...

"...Wow, it's massive and getting bigger all the time..."

It was the end of a beautiful, still day. The sky was cloudless, the sun had already set beyond the summit of Carnedd Llewellyn and the first chills of the evening made me consider getting my hat from my pocket. The reserve looks fantastic, not least because of the source of the admiration in the Tal-y-fan Hide.

Carol, Brian and two grandchildren were watching a spellbinding performance. Shooting across the sky, shape-shifting from oval to eel, then turning, dropping, rising. It's mesmerising, and I could watch it all evening. Starlings. A visitor posted this photo on the web the other day to illustrate the view.

During last month's freeze, some 15000 roosted each night in our reedbeds. But struggling for food in the daytime and needing to conserve energy, they would fly in low, like arrow-headed guided missiles, and drop straight into the reeds, where their chatter was an audio backdrop to the late afternoon.

Now, with longer days and better feeding condiitions, the starlings have time and energy to link up, follow the crowd, to duck and to dive in readiness for the night ahead. I read last year that scientists had found that to achieve the spectacle, each starling must track its seven neighbours and move in tandem to avoid crashing into each other. As Brian said, we couldn't do that in a football crowd.

But the grandkids' comment were even more worthwhile. "It's like fireworks..." said one. "No, it's more like smoke" countered her sister. Either way, the fact that an eight year old and a five year old had their attention captivated for half an hour is testament to the display. The final act, as the starlings headed into their roost, was rapid and dynamic, as though a massive vacuum cleaner was sucking them into the earth. The starlings were still arriving as the sky darkened and we went our separate ways, our five spirits lifted by a moment with wildlife.

I floated home on the experience... until a white-shirted James Haskell ran down the right wing at Twickenham and really ruined my evening.

OK, I am a media tart...

julian hughes — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 13:25:00 GMT

We've been closed a couple of times by the icy weather since the New Year, so if visitors can't come to us, we go to them - and to the front rooms/PCs of everyone else in Wales.

First off last Saturday was a whole programme on BBC Radio Cymru from the reserve. Iolo Williams, Kelvin Jones and our own Sian Jones and Richard Farmer joined Gerallt Pennant for last Saturday's edition of Galwad Cynnar. It featured the range of wildlife on the reserve during the winter, as part of a series focusing on International Year of Biodiversity. The producers took lots of photos as they were recording, so you can at least see the reserve even if you're not a Welsh speaker. And if you are, the programme is on BBC i-player for another few days.

Then, in the midst of the cold snap last week, ITV Wales wanted to report on what garden owners were doing to help their birds. The response of the Welsh public to the icy weather has been fantastic, with many wanting to help their feathered visitors survive the bad weather. Ian Lang came to the reserve, filmed the birds using the feeders outside the Visitor Centre (which we'd been re-stocking as fast as the goldfinches, house sparrows and chaffinches were emptying them) and asked what people could do, during the snowy weather and beyond. Jon, who works in the coffee shop and who also volunteers on the reserve, got in on the action, refilling the birdseed dispensers in the shop (see if you can spot him go red as he tips part of the sack's contents all over the floor...!). The clip is online for a limited time only... though Jon's red face may be permanent.

Finally, this week, RSPB Cymru petitioned the National Assembly of Wales to hold an independent enquiry into the decline on wildlife in Wales, and why as a nation, we have failed to meet the internationally-agreed target of halting the loss of biodiversity in 2010. It's not just about birds, of course, but all types of wildlife, from yellowhammers to high-brown fritillary butterflies, shrill carder bees to curlews. Wanting to get some film of lapwings, BBC Wales' Roger Pinney popped down to the reserve, where he challenged Graham the cameraman to get pictures of their fantastic black-and-white flashing flight. For the first half hour, our lapwings remained resolutely camera-shy on the ground, but eventually Graham got what he wanted, Roger interviewed me about the story, and then it was back to the editing suite for a piece on Wales Today. This clip is online for a limited time only...

They're just three examples of the way in which RSPB nature reserves can help to enthuse people about nature, encourage action and press home our campaigns to politicians. Talking of action, have you signed the RSPB's Letter to the Future yet? We're more powerful when we speak together. So sign the Letter and shout loudly!

Get closer to us in 2010

julian hughes — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 10:22:00 GMT

Just three sleeps til Santa... Judging by the hub-bub from children visiting the reserve this week, there's plenty of excitement about the big day. Santa made a flying visit here recently to see the big starling roost, and yesterday we received an e-mail from him thanking us for the excellent cake from our coffee shop and for the apples that Rudolf ate (I didn't like to tell him that we'd put them down for the redwings and fieldfares...)

The big man in red has been following us on Twitter over the last few months, as are dozens of other people at www.twitter.com/rspbconwy. It's all part of our effort to connect more people with our work, and the web is an important element of this. The latest step in this is the relaunch of our E-newsletter. Volunteer Paul Martin has taken on the job of producing our E-news, and we think he's made a great job of it. If you'd like to subscribe, please follow the instructions below (sorry, it's over 16s only as we don't hold email addresses of children).

We're open every day through the Christmas break, apart from Christmas Day, although we do have some changes to our opening times. It's our regular Farmers Market here tomorrow (9 am - 1 pm), where Charlie will be offering our younger visitors a chance to toast marshmallows over a campfire.

And we still have a few places left on our Boxing Day and New Year's Day Walks - so give us a ring if you'd like to book a place. I enjoyed being out with visitors on our Winter Solstice Walk yesterday, spotting features around the reserve that were celebrated here in North Wales by Druids in pre-Roman times. Very many of our 'Christmas' traditions (yule logs, mistletoe, holly, the 12 days, even a celebration in late December) result from a merger of Christianity and Pagan traditions. And from the reserve, you can look south to the mountain pass along which the Roman army is believed to have marched on Anglesey to the Druids' last stand.

Thank you to all our visitors, online and in person, who have supported the RSPB's work during 2009 - by being a member of the RSPB or Wildlife Explorers, by volunteering, by buying goodies from the coffee shop or the gift shop (where 100% of the profits go to our conservation work) or by making donations to the Support Group. We thank you hugely, and look forward to bringing you more exciting changes around the reserve next year.

Have an enjoyable Christmas and New Year - and when you're a bit fed up with food, tins of chocolate or the sales, come for a walk with friends of family around the reserve and see some wildlife.
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Digger's out, birds in

julian hughes — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 16:33:00 GMT

Don't you love it when a plan comes together? More than a year ago, Mike and I hatched a plan to make it easier for lapwing chicks to get from the islands where they hatch to the pony-grazed paddocks that are rich in soil invertebrates. When you're one day old and your previous existence was cocooned inside a calcium haven under your mother's (and occasionally your father's) belly, the outside world must come as a shock. Especially when mum persuades you to head into the cold water of the lagoon - it doesn't half make a mess of your carefully groomed fluff.

Watching the lapwing chicks, it's clear that this journey is one that their parents are keen for them to take. Presumably, they feel there isn't sufficient food for them on the little islands, so they head off on an intrepid adventure. However, until last week, that journey was the lapwing equivalent of the Marines assault course: over the water and through metres of dense reeds, or scrambling up a steep bank beneath thick bramble where a stoat might be waiting. We only needed to install a cargo net and we'd be handing out cap badges to the few lapwings that made it.

So, as part of targeted lapwing recovery action, we decided it was time for the reed fringe to go and the bank to be lowered. This job was beyond even our most enthusiastic volunteers. It involves hundreds of tonnes of earth and a lagoon edge of uncertain strength.

Enter Eifion, stage left, pursued by a coot. In just eight days, Eifion's big yellow toy has transformed the east end of the reserve. The before and after photos do the talking. He removed all those vast metres of reeds, and the associated litter. He said they stank - but that's what 15 years of starling poo does. There are plenty of other reeds around the reserve, so the water rails, reed buntings and water shrews still have plenty of places to live.

Then he started on the bank, which is now a couple of metres lower along one half of the east end, and bare of brambles. It's now a walk in the park (or across the paddocks, at least) for next year's lapwing chicks. The birds moved in while Eifion was still at work. The black-headed gulls and coots were first, picking over the last of the rhizomes and in the upturned soil for insects and seeds.

Eifion finished off by opening up the view from the Carneddau Hide so that everyone can see his handiwork. This weekend's visitors who braved the cold were rewarded with jack snipe, ringed plovers and - bizarrely - a kingfisher feeding on the mud.

All this is thanks to Environment Agency Wales, who have helped to fund this as part of their biodiversity programme, and donations from visitors to the Conwy Support Group. And to Eifion, of course, for his sensitive use of a large bit of kit. Just before he left, a lapwing landed on his bucket to say thanks.

(OK, perhaps you have to squeeze it to hear its call, but we're sure many of the real thing will be here to say thanks next spring)

Half an hour in the life of a warden

julian hughes — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 18:51:00 GMT

I gently swung open the barrier gate, adorned with its flying lapwing motifs, at the reserve entrance. It was barely light but already Conwy was stirring.

From the reedbed, last night's starling roost did what it does best: murmuring. A murmuration, the collective noun for starlings, is a great description. It's exactly what they do - 10,000 whispered conversations were a precursor to the moment when they rose, almost as one, as a wispy cloud of smoke. On a clear morning like today, they move in a thin line, quickly to a thousand feet heading across the estuary. But on a wet and windy morning, they scatter in different directions, skimming the reed heads. A few mornings ago, as the rain hammered on the Tal-y-fan hide, wave after wave of starlings flew straight towards my head, each group of 50 or 60 birds having just enough lift to clear the slate roof. Stunning. Mornings don't get better than this.

But I digress. I was listening to these murmurs as I yanked the barrier gate to its open position. The gate, much admired by visitors, has slots that allow water to drain. And this morning, out of the slot dropped a robin. It looked a bit surprised. So did I, though my bed hadn't just been shoved through ninety degrees.

Often I have early mornings to myself at Conwy, though now I've told you how impressive the starlings are, I might see you there tomorrow? But this morning I wasn't alone. Kris Webster was there too, taking 360 degree photographs of the reserve that will be on display and for sale in the Visitor Centre early next year. I wonder if he captured the starlings too? He will certainly have recorded some work in progress, as a digger and a dumper truck got stuck into reprofiling the banks of the lagoon near Carneddau Hide. It's designed to give our nesting lapwings a helping hand, or more particularly their tiny chicks. We want to connect the lagoon and the insect-rich grazed paddocks so that day-old fluffy chicks can swim from one to the other, without having to navigate a steep bank, brambles or a wall of reeds. Eifion, the digger driver, has made great headway since Wednesday, removing most of the rhizomes (the bulbous stem of the reeds). The Carneddau ponies finished off the job - they were knee deep in the water, enjoying the bounty, behaving like Konik ponies in the marshes of eastern Poland. Big thanks to Environment Agency Wales and donors to the RSPB Conwy Support Group for enabling it to happen.

But I've digressed again. Back to my walk, the best of which have a surprise around every corner, and mine was coming face to beak with a buzzard. It was feasting on a dead rabbit on the Ganol Trail, though quickly lifted on large wings as I surprised it. There are lots of dead rabbits at the moment; we had a huge number here this summer, which inevitably lead to a return of the introduced disease myxomatosis. In the short-term, it's a bonanza for predators such as buzzards (though the original introduction of myxi slowed the buzzard's recovery after World War II). Many of the dead or dying rabbits have become dinner for mink, an introduction to the reserve last year we could well do without. And they're quite brazen too; last week, a mink walked right up to me, sniffed by boots, and wandered off into the undergrowth... It may not live long.

So enough digressions. The point of this was to ask whether this sounded like your way of spending the first half hour of your day? Our warden, Mike Duckham, is leaving us in the new year, which means we're looking for someone who is equally inspired by nature, knows how to look after a wetland for lapwings, could manage contractors such as Eifion, and liaise with everyone from photographers like Kris to the grazier who owns the Carneddau mountain ponies. Oh yes, and you'll love enthusing people about wildlife, know your birds and be equally capable of leading a guided walk as fixing a wonky brushcutter. If Conwy sounds like your kind of place, download the vacancy pack and start refreshing your CV.

And if you're a regular visitor, do come and say goodbye to Mike in the next few weeks; he's been here for more than eight years, knows more about the place than probably anyone else, and we'll miss him loads.

The Numbers Game

julian hughes — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:07:00 GMT

"That's a very anoraky thing to do," I was told by a visitor as I walked down to look across the lagoon last week. I had to confess that it was. I was counting the number of planks in our new boardwalk. And my boss thinks I don't have enough to do... There was a reason for it (honest) that I won't bore you with right now, but it made me realise how much a warden's job involves counting.

I do it automatically. When I walked round the reserve at first light today, I didn't just notice black-tailed godwits, I noted that there were eight, busy feeding in the shallows. When I stood by the estuary last night, impressed by the swirling mass of shape-shifting starlings preparing to dive into the reedbeds, I estimated how many thousands there were. Not just because it's useful to record, but also because I know that "How many starlings are coming into roost?" is a question that I'll be asked many times through the autumn (28 times so far, to be precise).

We judge our conservation success by the number of pairs of lapwings that breed here, our success in our education work by the number of children who come and have a quality hands-on experience of nature, the contribution that our visitors make to the RSPB's work by the number of pounds that they spend in the shop, with every penny going to our conservation work. So, I felt the need to share some numbers with you. Can you work out what the numbers relate to?

> Visitors to Conwy in the last 12 months
> Children who've experience nature hands-on in the last 12 months
> Bird species recorded at Conwy since we opened the gates in 1995
> Planks in the boardwalk
> % reduction in use of tap water in the last year
> Welsh mountain ponies grazing on the reserve
> Water rails calling in our reedbed this spring

The answers are 5, 8, 10, 230, 655, 2,602 95,460 - but which is which?

The lady who called me "a bit anoraky" already knows the answer to the boardwalk question - and I bet she'll remember it everytime she treads the boards.

It started as a dribble...

julian hughes — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 07:59:00 GMT

...but in the last few days it's as though someone's opened a great big door in the Arctic and our winter visitors have started to arrive in a flood. First came the teal, though probably from closer than the far north, dabbling carefully in the margins of the lagoons now that the water levels have dropped. Then came the wigeons, from 10 on Monday to 110 on Tuesday, most of the males still in their brick-red eclipse plumage, not yet with the broad yellow head stripe.

I especially love walking along the estuary at high tide at the moment; with no wind, the tide ripples in to the shore, lifting seeds from the saltmarsh plants to the surface of the slowly-moving river. This is teal heaven, and as you walk slowly along the track, careful not to disturb the birds, the only sound is the gentle splashing of their bills on the water. It's not even really a splash, more of a constant patter as they take the seeds.

They were all much noisier last night. We'd stayed late for a staff meeting and were closing up the reserve buildings after dark. The night was clear but moonless, and from the lagoon came a magical mix of sound. We picked out the short calls of teal, the long whistles of wigeons, plus the occasional intervention from mallard, shelduck, oystercatcher and redshank. But this wasn't about night-time identification, this was about savouring a special moment and making you realise how important safe wetland roosts such as Conwy are.

As the winter birds arrive, so the summering birds leave, and that can be equally spectacular. This morning, 60 house martins and a single swallow were in a feeding frenzy, circling tightly over the reedbeds of the Ganol Trail. At this time of year, it's all about stuffing themselves full of protein-rich insects, building themselves up for the long journey south. Chattering busily, then they were off, moving south as one up the valley, another kilometre closer to their African destination - they presumably know where that is, but us mere humans still have no idea where British breeding house martins winter.

You too can say hello to the arriving migrants, and wave goodbye to the departing ones, this Saturday at 1.30 pm, when you can join me on a family walk around RSPB Conwy. I hope to see you - and them - here.

PS. A quick update from my last blog
No news yet from the BTO on the colour-ringed bird or from Defra's Wildlife Incident Investigation Scheme on the dead peregrine, but I'm pleased to report that the buzzard made a full recovery and has been released locally.

"Anyone know about the corpse in my in-tray?"

julian hughes — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 09:17:00 GMT

It was a fair question, I felt.

I get a bit nervous when I find supermarket bags on my desk. If I'm lucky, someone will have bought me cake, but it's just ask likely to be something that someone's cat dragged in. In this case, it was a the dessicated remains of a small bird. It was so far gone that I'm hard pushed to identify it. It may be a chaffinch, but we'll find out because it was wearing some bling. Four coloured rings, plus an engraved BTO ring, will mean something to the big computer in Thetford which holds the details of hundreds of thousands, probably millions, of birds. I entered the details online on behalf of the lady who found it in a Bethesda garden, and in the next few weeks, she should receive a letter that tells her more about the bird she found. That was Tuesday.

On Wednesday morning, Angela called me from our education room. "Julian, there's a dead raptor on the shop counter". Blimey, I thought, that's not going to help sales of bird food. In the Visitor Centre, a beautiful juvenile peregrine was lying on the desk. It looked in perfect condition, but it was sad to see it motionless when peregrines should be a by-word for vigour, movement and power. I donned some rubber gloves and checked it over. It showed no obvious signs of injury, but it had been found in a garden along the coast the previous evening looking rather sick, and had died overnight. 2009 has been a bad year for peregrines - by the end of June, more than 50 cases of peregrines being shot, poisoned or snared had been reported to the RSPB, and there were some signs about this bird that made me worry. So it's been packed off to the RSPB's Investigations team to get it checked out by the experts. The man who brought it in immediately signed a pledge to end the illegal killing of birds of prey - just one of hundreds who have showed their support to this important RSPB campaign at Conwy this summer.

By mid afternoon, a visitor reported a sick-looking buzzard on the bank of the estuary just off the reserve. "We're turning into an episode of Casualty," I thought, though without the melodrama and love interest. It took me 15 minutes to find where she meant, but the bird was obviously unwell, hunched up on the side of the track. It was a juvenile bird, fully fledged, with a pale head and breast and bright grey eyes. Like the peregrine, it looked in good nick, but at least it was still breathing. It barely reacted when I picked it up, which isn't a good sign, and carefully placed it in a box for the short drive to a local rehabilitation centre. When I met Mark, who runs the place, I recognised him from my local pub, so I'm hoping to find out whether it's recovering next time I pop in for a pint.

So, a week of three stories to which the answers will come later. What was the bird with the bling, and where had it come from? Was the peregrine poisoned? Will the buzzard survive? To be continued (I hope).

Generation X-box, come on down

julian hughes — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 12:13:00 GMT

Do you ever get that feeling? (No, not 'that' feeling!). That buzz when you experience something that makes your day. It can come in many forms, but here's three from the last week.

1. It took only a second to cross the path ahead of me. Russet-brown back, long tail, pointed wings. It took more than the usual millisecond to twig that it was a cuckoo, simply because we seem them here so rarely. It's one of this year's young, and it's been seen almost daily for the last week or so. We've no idea where it hatched, but we'd secretly like to believe that it was from our reedbed. Reed warblers are a favourite host bird, and I remember a visitor saying they'd seen a female cuckoo hanging round the reeds earlier in the summer, so perhaps, well just maybe, that's where it hatched from. An imposter in the nest, its hungry mouth fed by hard-working reed warbler parents. But now a red-list bird, and well worth a little rush of adrenaline.

2. Google Alert's a clever little beastie. It's a gismo that enables me to spot when someone has posted something about RSPB Conwy on the Internet. I can find out the good things and the not-so-good things that people say about us, and it's amazing to see the photos that people have taken of the wildlife and the scenery. Yesterday's email from Google HQ alerted me to our appearance in a new guide produced by Little Chef, where RSPB Conwy had been voted by their customers as one of the Top 51 places for a day out with the family. Not only are we the only place listed in North Wales, but we're the only nature reserve too. That gave me a bit of a buzz. Not just because it's great publicity for the reserve, but because the nominations come from visitors. I'll try to avoid the tearful Oscar-style acceptance speech, but we are up there with Legoland, Brighton Pier and the National Forest Llama Trek...

3. I wasn't here yesterday, so I missed all the fun. Charlie, our lead field teacher, tells me that it was our most successful children's event ever. More than 200 people came to play. Literally. It was Playday 2009, one of 800 events around the UK that invited youngsters to play. We organised activities, such as pond-dipping, face-painting and bug-hunting, but also provided a random set of materials for children to make their own fun. Some had never played with a hula hoop before, others made mini bird hides out of old cardboard boxes. It was simple, outdoor stuff for Generation X-box. Families set out picnic rugs on the grass and enjoyed being together, many having never been to this reserve (perhaps any nature reserve) before. There was, Mike emailed me halfway through the afternoon, a real buzz to the place, and we hope that many will come again and again now they've found us and enjoyed it.

The content of your wetland may go down as well as up

julian hughes — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 09:46:00 GMT

My day was brightened considerably as I looked through 'Bernies View', the viewing screen on our new boardwalk. Flying in the morning sunshine was a flock of 15 black-tailed godwits. One was brick-orange, immaculate in summer plumage. The other 14 were fading fast, returning to their paler winter dress code, but a fantastic sight nonethless. Black-tailed godwits always have a special place in my heart. Perhaps it was the 15 years living and birding in Cambridgeshire, their UK breeding stronghold. I associate their 'whickering' call with long summer evenings walking along the Nene Washes, their incessant chattering interrupted only by a drumming snipe or, thanks to an ongoing reintroduction, the rasping sound of a corncrake. But back to Conwy, where the godwits were feeding among a growing number of redshanks on the lagoon.

The water levels are quite low right now, and it seems to be a regular topic of conversation among regular visitors: "why are the water levels so low?". Avoiding the urge to state the obvious (it's rained here about twice in the last four months), it's because we want it that way. As part of our work to increase the survivability of lapwing chicks, we provided more insect-rich mud in the spring by lowering the water levels to form a 'skirt' around the islands. We have pumped water from the Afon Ganol a couple of times to prevent the lagoon drying out and from making it too easy for a fox to wander across to the islands, but given the choice, I'd rather have rain filling the lagoons than running the electric pump. And by happy coincidence, it means that the shallow mud looks great for southbound waders returning from their Arctic breeding grounds in the next few weeks.

Last year, by contrast, I heard complaints that the water levels were too high (it rained a lot). The RSPB has never had the ability to take water out of the lagoons at Conwy but we are working with Environment Agency Wales on plans to reinstate a sluice that was installed by the A55 tunnel contractors. This would allow us to move water into the river and so create ideal conditions for waders to feed without having to pray to the rain gods to stop thowing water at us.

So, enjoy the sight of birds on the move, a slice of an amazing migration of millions from the northern hemisphere to the south. And be reassured that we do monitor the water levels, and hopefully next year, we'll actually be able to do something about them.

Traffic light birding

julian hughes — Thu, 28 May 2009 08:36:00 GMT

I was woken by a cuckoo calling this morning. I felt blessed. 'See,' you'll think, 'that's why he moved back to North Wales. All that fantastic scenery and being woken by such special birds'. And you'd be right, but sadly cuckoo isn't among the birds in my usual dawn chorus. This one was calling from inside my radio, announcing the new Birds of Conservation Concern list, published this morning by the RSPB, other voluntary organisations and the government's nature conservation agencies.

In fact, I haven't seen or heard a cuckoo on the reserve or near my home on the coast in the two springs that I've been here. When I was a kid (and it wasn't that long ago), I used to hear them regularly, but now in North Wales, you really have to go into the hills.

I was mountain biking above the Conwy Valley on Sunday and I heard one, my first this year. Fantastic, a joy to hear. (Shortly afterwards, I went over the handlebars as part of developing the new Olympic sport of cartwheel cycling). I added the record to BirdTrack, helping to map the abundance and distribution along with records by thousands of other birdwatchers.

So, having heard a digital cuckoo at 6.30 am, what would my morning walk around the reserve bring? It's the best part of the day, and my personal highlight was a pair of reed buntings busy feeding young in a concealed nest deep in the reedbed. They didn't know that they'd been moved from 'Red list' to 'Amber list' overnight, but I did, and it's encouraging news. It shows that bird monitoring news isn't all one-way traffic, not all doom-and-gloom. Conservation effort can work, brings rewards and puts birds back into the countryside. Bullfinch, woodlark and stone-curlew have also moved from red to amber, a significant milestone on their road to recovery.

Conwy's most important red-list bird is the lapwing, and we still have a few pairs on eggs. We're hoping they'll show for the many visitors to our Open Weekend, this Saturday and Sunday - the two days of the year when entry to the whole reserve is completely free. We're gearing up for warm sunshine, lots of fun and plenty of wildlife - perhaps the first dragonflies of the summer will be on the wing. Maybe it'll be the day that a cuckoo makes a special flypast?