Sanderlings and Turnstones at Rhyl

I'm up north spending a couple of days with my cousins, who live just a couple of roads away from the Rhyl coast. As on every visit, whatever the weather, a stroll along the prom is always in order.  

 

Todays weather was high winds with a few short sharp showers. The tide was coming in as I made my way from Splash Point towards Prestatyn Dunes, which was pushing the small waders in towards the steps and sea wall.....

 

 

The Sanderling is probably my favourite little winter waders. As they run along the sea edge, it's as if someone has wound up an invisible clockwork key and let them go.  

The wind was strong today and I found my first decent sized flock huddled together, with a few individual birds braving the sea for a wash and preen before re-joining the group.

There were 27 in the first flock I found including three ringed birds, and a smaller group of 14 birds with two ringed birds a bit further towards the golf course.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I only see the Sanderlings when I pay a winter visit to my cousins, but another small wader that I am guaranteed to see on every visit, no matter what the time of year, is the colourful mottled Turnstone.

 I often see small groups of these perched on the break waters all along Rhyl beach, but as the tide was coming and in and the waves were quite choppy, the birds were lingering on the last remaining patches of sand near the sea wall and on the steps themselves.

 

I didn't see great numbers of these today, and several were quite active flying around so getting an accurate count was difficult, but I guesstimate I saw around 30 Turnstones today. The ones below were giving me great views, even if they were from over the sea wall....

 

 

I only walked from Splash Point to the Golf Clubhouse today, not my usual 3km walk from Splash Point to Prestatyn Dunes and back. The weather eventually battered me down and I was forced to retreat back to the comfort of my cousin's cosy warm home for a large alcofrolic drink to warm me up.

Let's hope the weather is kinder tomorrow.

More 'woody' action from Mum's garden

I had my trail cam set up in the back garden again this morning, but although both of the male Great Spotted Woodpeckers came down to the usual trunk, there were no sign of any females.

 

The first to come down was the leg ringed male. He appears to be a bit braver than the other male, and I've noticed he sticks around a bit longer...

 

 

 

The un-ringed male (below) is a little more nervous and often visits for shorter periods of time.

 

 

 

After observing them for some time over the weekend, it's odd to say that at this time of year, when you expect males to be chasing each other off potential territories (as I have already seen happening at the feeding stations at Maple Lodge NR last week), these two are quite content to share the same trunk, although not at the same time.

 

Not only that but they are using the trunk identically. IE: the GSW lands on the trunk, looks around, moves around to take a nut from the nearby hanging feeder, moves back and places the nut in the bark crevice and eats the nut once it is lodged in there.

This behaviour has been going on for the last three years on the same trunk, but normally at this time of year the males are chasing each other off the garden territory.

 

So are these two related ?

 Is one of them the offspring of the other from last year ?

Or are they brothers ?

 

 I know from my previous hours spent in my portable hide in 2014 and 2015 (before I got my trail cam) that the most frequent GSW visitor was a ringed male. But this year there must be a local ringer as in the past few weeks, in the same garden, we've had a ringed Goldcrest, ringed Robin, several ringed Blue Tits, a ringed Dunnock and a ringed Starling. So there's no saying for sure that the ringed GSW I'm seeing now is the same one as last year. There was also a fairly dominant male GSW with a deformed mandible in 2014 but he wasn't seen after that year.

 

As per yesterday I cannot upload the trail cam video clips to my blog post, and have had to resort again to putting them on my Wino Wendy's Wildlife World facebook page. Not ideal, sorry, but it will have to do until I can figure out a way of uploading the clips so no one has to venture off page.

 

A brief blog from Mum's back garden

 

I've been over to Mum's this afternoon and set up the trail cam to hopefully capture some Great Spotted Woodpecker action.

 

The cam went up at 14.19 and the first GSW appeared at 15.07.

 

 

I also caught some video footage of him but, for some frustrating reason, I cannot post the vid clip on here but I have posted two vid clips on to my Wino Wendy's Wildlife World Facebook page (link at the bottom of this blog post)

 

At 15.11 a woodpecker was back, and it wasn't until I was going through the vid clips that I realised we have two separate male Great Spotted Woodpeckers visiting at the moment.

The one below is the second male. He has a leg ring on his right leg, whereas male number one doesn't.

 

 

Link to WWWW facebook page for both video clips

 

The males visited minutes apart (15.07 and 15.11).

 

The trail cam will go back out tomorrow morning, maybe moved a little closer to the trunk, and we'll see what we capture then - maybe a lovely little female ? 

It was snow joke at Cranford Park today

Ever since Lynne, one of the Secret Garden volunteers, suggested I make a Cranford Park calendar, I have been desperate for snow as I have so little wintry Cranford Park photos. So this morning I was up early with hope in my heart....

 

Snow ? It was a smattering. And far from what I had hoped for....

 

 

The wood circle looked a little better....

 

My favourite perch looked ok.....

 

My priority today was to get a photo of a Robin in the snow. The kind of thing you see on the predictable Christmas cards. Did I ? Did I duck !

I had to make do with sharing my breakfast with the usual pair of Magpies....

 

 

There was a Goldcrest near the circle, but as is always my luck with these tiny fast moving birds, it was a case of 'spot the bird'.....

Can you see it ?

 

 

Can you see it now ?........

 

The huge tree that came down last week has now been sawn up...

 

 

The wild Honey Bee hive was dormant.....

 

A Great Tit was sifting through a pile of leaf litter looking for tasty morsels....

 

 

But apart from the reliable Magpie, I could find no birds on snow. No Robins came out to perch on snowy covered branches. No Wrens wanted to stand on a snowy covered post. So I had to make do with some natural things that were in snow and that weren't going to fly away.

 

So we have Turkey Tail fungi in snow.....

 

 

 

Candlesnuff fungi in snow....

 

 

and some picturesque moss......in snow......

 

 

I could only find one spiders web today, and luckily for me it had melted snow on it.....

 

 

What snow there was, was already melting.....I couldn't even get a photo of Holly in the snow...

 

 

I cheered myself up with a fungi finding walk, and found another new Candlesnuff....

 

and a new batch of Jelly Ears....

 

The Velvet Shanks by the river are past its best now, but still quite colourful.....

 

 

My favourite teeny tiny Eyelash fungi on the old fallen log, is definitely spreading....

and even if there was no snow on it, it is still very pretty to look at through a macro lens....

 

So yes, I was a little disappointed today. I had really hoped for some wintry nature shots of birds for the calendar.

 

Fingers crossed today isn't the only day we get snow this winter.

 

Wino Wendy's Wildlife World Facebook page