En route up North to participate in the annual Black Grouse Count up at Lladegla, Jon C, Heather, Rhys and Carly and I stopped en route to see the long staying shropshire night heron. It had recently relocated itself from Venus Pool into Shrewsbury itself, at Dingle Gardens, an ornamental garden near the river.
Shortly after arrival it was soon obvious that the garden itself was locked up, and we did a lap of it staring in at the pond, and the island in the middle. We heard a strange call that could have only been the heron so we were reasonably confident it was still there. Half tempted to jump over the fence, but deterred by the signs about CCTV, we resigned ourselves to dipping it, before I noticed the bird had come into view at the bottom of the island. "Guys," I said. "I'm looking at it right now."
The heron perched in view with a feather hanging from it's beak and I managed a few camera shots through the locked gate. After about ten minutes it took off into the corner, and so we did another lap to try and find another angle to see it.
After a celebratory Burger King, we retired to bed early, dreading that 3.30 wake up for the survey. In the morning we stumbled into reception, bleary eyed, and awaiting Heather. After knocking on her door we got going, and met at the designated layby. I was paired with a chap called Angus and we made our way up to our lekk site in light drizzle, fog and the cover of darkness. After a few ill decisions we found ourselves up on the moor, and could hear the lekk. Red grouse, curlew and singing groppers were soon apparent, although I had no time to stop and see the latter unfortunately.
We found a lekk, and at least 5 males, but it was too foggy to see what was going on, and we must have accidentally flushed them. I was soaked through by the time we got down to the car, and my boots were basically as if I had waded through a river after crossing the moor. Wellies next time would be a must!! I heard a cuckoo on the way back near the farm, my first for the year.
When we got down to One Planet we found out that the prearranged early opening for brekkie had been evidently forgotten about, but I smashed down a full cooked when they got going, before changing in the car and waiting for the others to get back.
Rhys had been unlucky enough to not see any on his patch, so we went up to World's End (love that name!) and saw at least 17+ from the road, and much better views all round than on the survey.
On the way back we stopped at Dolgellau after dropping Rhys off at his home farm, and trying for hawfinch for Jon. We weren't successful but that's a nice little spot. There were lots of things on offer, including redpoll, so definitely worth a stop in future. As one last little stop on the way home we stopped at Llyn Clywedog for the Ospreys, and had decent views of the pair, including one which chased a marauding crow away from the nest out over the water.
