Today myself and a friend took a day out on Anglesey to see birds that rarely, if ever, visit Shropshire.
We visited two locations
- the Cemlyn Bay Nature Reserve manned by the North Wales Wildlife Trust where there is a large colony of breeding terns.
- the RSPB Reserve at South Stack, home to thousands of auks – Guillemots, Razorbills and Puffins.
Here are some photos from these two locations
Cemlyn Bay is ‘home’ for very many nesting terns. Serious nesting has yet to commence with birds gathering and pairing up. The vast majority (over 1000 birds) are Sandwich Terns with c.50 Arctic Terns and rather fewer Common Terns. Looking to the bund where they spend time loafing was, unfortunately affected by heat-haze, so sharp photos of resting birds was not possible. On the left is a larger Sandwich Tern with the shaggy crest. On the right a smaller Arctic Tern characterised by the very short legs and all blood-red bill.
Here are two Common Terns with orangey bills with dark tips. I think the sleeping bird is an Arctic Terns – we cannot see the bill but the legs look short and the tail-streamers look long.
A Common Tern in flight showing the dark tip to the bill.
Even though we cannot see the bill here the dark wedge on the primaries means it cannot be an Arctic Tern.
One of the very many Sandwich Terns carrying a sand eel – a very important prey item for terns, gulls and auks all around the UK – indeed the Northern Hemisphere.
An all-black bill with a yellow tip characterises this species.
Look no fish!
The yellow tip to the bill shows well here.
And here. Like all terns these birds are very noisy both at the nesting sites and when flying about. Their raucous grating call carries long distances over the water.
And here too.
They are so delightful and elegant (the ‘real’ Elegant Tern is a larger and a quite different New World species).
One more passing shot.
Well ... perhaps another after all. I won’t be going back his year and two years ago the whole colony was deserted after Otters raided it and ate all the eggs. There is an electric fence to dissuade the Otters now, though there are still Carrion Crows to contend with.
The Cemlyn Bay formation team.
Here is one going ‘the other way’ with a sand eel. We were puzzled that birds were taking prey back out to sea – why? The warden explained that as part of the pairing ritual the male brings a sand eel and displays to his intended showing it off. If she spurns him he flies off with it and rather than discard it and catch another he returns with the same prey and tries again (no political jokes ...).
And here is a bird parading with his catch to a potential mate. She does not look too impressed.
Sandwich Terns are very sociable. Here a gang of them goes in for communal bathing. I assume this is to wash the salt water off their feathers.
A few minutes later these would all be gone. A different location would be used for the next bathing session.
Not too much in the way of ‘supporting cast’. A Meadow Pipit sat and posed on a post. Not the correct habitat for either Tree or Rock Pipit so identification relatively easy.
I’ve enlarged this as much as I dare to show the long hind claw hanging over the edge of the post. This is unique to Meadow Pipit and acts rather like a snow-shoe, spreading the bird’s weight (such as it is) and allowing it to walk across the top of long grass without becoming entangled.
We then moved on to South Stack. The most common auk species is the Guillemot and here are hundreds breeding on the ledges. The females lay a single egg which has a pointed end, thought to allow it to spin on the ledges if displaced, rather than to roll off.
Just how many birds are there here? Razorbills, easily identified by their jet-black backs, nest more in crevices at the tops of the cliffs.
A group of off-duty Guillemots amongst the kelp on the rocks.
The bird everyone wants to see is the rather comical Puffin. Smaller than the other two species it nests in burrows and can be hard to find. Indeed there were only thought to be three breeding pairs this year. So this was a lucky find. The bright red legs and feet are obvious even when the bird is in the water along with throng of other birds.
This was a bit of a ‘grab shot’ of a passing Fulmar. Characteristic stiff-winged flight and with the pale inner primaries. A species of ‘tube-nose’ – a nostril along the top of the bill allows salt to be discharged from this bird that almost never comes in to contact with fresh water.
Another ‘grab-shot’ of a passing Kittiwake. The black wing-tip on this bird is just bleeding on to some of the inner primaries suggesting this is a second summer bird. The greyer mantle and inner wing is typical of this species. It is the most pelagic (sea-going) of all our gull species but occurs annually in Shropshire, either blown off course by severe gales; or by birds taking an overland short-cut between the Severn Estuary and The Wash and becoming disorientated in bad weather.
The most common nesting gull here is the ubiquitous Herring Gull. A pair at their nest. Must be good natural feeding because the RSPB grounds are not visited by marauding parties of gulls trying to steal sandwiches as happens in some sea-side towns.
Away from the vertical cliff-edge there are a few other species to be seen. This trip we missed the speciality of Chough. This chirpy male Stonechat carrying food for his brood was welcome.
This species can be found quite readily on the Shropshire Hills.
Probably his mate as I found this bird later in the same place ..... however.
... It seems that it is singing and I just wonder whether this is a first-year male bird – the breast does look rather bright to me”.
(Ed Wilson)
