A wet and windy few days conditions could be described as being lively. The remnants of Hurricane Nigel brought strong winds and lots of rain with thunder and lightning. Nigel somehow must have picked up a range of migrating American birds from the east coast of the US and carried them across the Atlantic, dropping them as the remaining depression worked its way up the West coast of the UK into the Irish Sea.
Late on Tuesday a Magnolia Warbler had been found on the southern Welsh peninsula at St Govan Head. Within a couple of hours Gary Howard had arranged to pick me up at 4am for the drive to Wales. Apart from a few deep puddles and some heavy squalls we arrived promptly at 8.30am and walked from the upper car park for 20 minutes to where c300 birders had been watching the bird in some thick gorse and blackthorn scrub. We didn't have to wait long for our first glimpse of the bird, although that's all it was but our views improved over the next 2.5 hours, although the bird was spending most of the time invisible in the impenetrable scrub, until eventually it showed itself well for a minute or so giving us very satisfactory views. All the American wood warblers tend to be very colourful in comparison to their European counterparts and the Magnolia Warbler is one of the smartest so this was a joy to behold.
Any other birds had limited attention. A Sedge Warbler was seen in the same scrub and 2 Red-billed Choughs flew over a few Shags on the sea and plenty of Barn Swallows and Meadow Pipits a couple of Pied and Grey Wagtails a flew over.
As we were watching the Magnolia Warbler news was coming in thick and fast of other American vagrants between the Western Isles of Scotland, Ireland and the Welsh coast, but most were on offshore islands of Bardsey in the North, and Ramsey and Skokholm nearby. The list was staggering ..Bay-breasted Warbler, Black-and White Warbler, Alder Flycatcher, Bobolink, Baltimore Oriole, Tennessee Warbler and American Cliff Swallow. Despite the anxiety this brought on with those present, none of these birds could be described as accessible as no boats were running to the islands for 2 days due to weather conditions.
One of the commoner American vagrants is Red-eyed Vireo, a bird I have a habit of missing. One of these turned up further East in Wales but had not been seen since 10.30am, we were 2 hours away although ultimately would be heading in that direction if we were to leave Wales today. We weren't entirely sure what our plan should be as the news was still coming thick and fast.
We left St Govan Head around midday and drove to the WWT wetlands reserve in Llanelli about 50 minutes East. Once we had rather comically negotiated the wildfowl pens after a couple of circuits we eventually found a route to the hide overlooking the estuarial marsh, approaching high tide a few commoner waders were roosting Knot, Bar-tailed Godwit, Dunlin, Redshank, 12 Greenshank, 3 Ruff, Black-tailed Godwit and a bit distantly a Grey Phalarope. A Kingfisher and Sparrowhawk also made the list.
The next stop around 3.30pm was Sker point near Porthcawl, where the Red-eyed Vireo had been reported in the morning but not seen since 10.30am. We struggled a little to work out exactly where to go, but eventually parked up and walked about 2kms towards the coast along a good wide footpath with lots of attractive scrub in the hedge-line. A couple of Chiffchaffs, Blackcap and Whitethroat were seen and a few Stonechats were in the field edges.
We found the area the bird had been seen near to Sker House as 3 other birders were still looking around the bramble scrub. We waited around for over an hour without any sign and the light started to get lower, the scrub and trees around Sker House looked interesting but the signs were all screaming 'Private no-entry'. We wandered back to the car and headed home, later to hear that the Red-Eyed Vireo had been seen around 6.30pm in Sker House gardens !. It remains a bogey bird !
A great day and the Magnolia Warbler was a great bird to see.
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| Magnolia Warbler |
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| Magnolia Warbler |
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| Magnolia Warbler |
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| Magnolia Wabler |
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| St Govan Head |
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| Its been done before but.... A Shag on the rocks |
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| Some of the birders looking for the Warbler |
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| Warbler was at the end of the Rainbow |
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| If he hadn't seen the bird he would have kept on going |
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| Rather distant Grey Phalarope |
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| WWT Lanelli |
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