Black Grouse and a few new bird sightings for me!

Yesterday was a rather early start (3am!) with a trip to North Wales. I spent a full day with Alan & Ruth from the Biggest Twitch and John. We arrived at a particular location around 7am for Black Grouse, as soon as we arrived the birds were out lekking. We spent over half an hour - possibly longer as time fly's when your enjoying yourself, watching these guys was amazing! Certainly a highlight of the day.

Afterwards and throughout the day we stopped off at a few different locations seeing what was around and we had a lot of spectacular sightings & some of them being a few new ones for me!

Sightings...

Dipper 3
Ravens 5+ pairs easily
Black grouse 40-ish males and a few females
Red grouse 1
Kestrel 3
Crossbills 4
Grey shrike 1
GSW 1
Pheasant 9
Grey wagtail 1
Bullfinch 2
Stock doves 4
Buzzard 24
Squirrel 3
Red Kite 6
Lapwing
Fieldfare 2
Rooks 30+
Mistle thrush 1
Greenfinch male 1
Siskin female 1
Shelduck 3
Sparrowhawk 1
Hawfinch 1
Farmland goose 1
Curlew 2
Greylag & Canadian geese 50+
Mute swans 2
Pied wagtail 1
Goldeneye 2
Redshank 2
Snipe 1
Tufted duck 2
Pochard 4
Crested grebe 3
Heron 8
Shag 7
Wigeon 10+
Teal 10+
Red breasted mergansers 4
Shoveler 1
Scaups
Jay 3
Little egret 1
Oystercatcher 4
Little grebe 1

I probably have missed a few more off the list as well.

It was a fantastic day, lots of Buzzard sightings and a few unexpected Red Kites which I didn't expect so see at all! As I usually only see these when I'm up in Highland near The Black Isle.

New sightings for me were the Grey Shrike and Hawfinch (stunning little birds).

You can read more here from The Biggest Twitch diary... www.thebiggesttwitch.com/diary/once-more-to-the-moors

Highlights for me - The Black Grouse, Red Kites and Hawfinch.

Many thanks to Alan & Ruth for a great days birding!

Eve :)

Twitter: @Wildwatcher_Eve

Facebook: Eve Russell Photography