A treemendous weekend

Much like the rest of the country we've been loving the recent spell of fantastic summerlike weather, and have been getting out and about looking at birds whenever not working (which involves getting out and about, erm, looking at birds). Very active down on the river, with the young dippers & wagtails still being tended to by the adults, whilst today we located the spotted flycatcher nest - easily viewed from footpath - and also the nest, containing two eggs of a common sandpiper. Rather worryingly, its location leaves much to be desired, as it sits rather conspicuously in short grass close to a gravel bank much used by local children and where people take their dogs to run riot. We saw it with the naked eye and we weren't even looking for it - I have to say I don't hold out much hope for a successful conclusion, especially as the adult bird was constantly going back and forth calling whenever anyone (us, a dog walker) or anything (sheep) went within 30 feet of the site, drawing attention to itself and the nest location.

Another interesting avian interaction took place yesterday outside the kitchen window, when I noticed a male pied flycatcher perched on the entrance to our birdbox, which is occupied by nesting blue tits. The flycatcher was cautiously poking its head in for a look, then drawing it out very quickly - presumably a sensible precaution when investigating a potential nestsite, as who knows what may lurk within. It did this about 5 times, then dropped onto the washing line and began to sing - maybe trying to find out if another male was using this territory? After going back to the box again and peeking in, it shot off not to be seen again, and some two minutes after out came the adult tits. Normal service has resumed, with the adults busy taking food into the box, making as many as 12 visits in 30 minutes.
On the mammal front, our badgers are still enjoying the fine dining we provide for them, and after finishing yesterdays survey I headed to Aber to pick up Steffi and we had great views of a feeding pod of bottlenose dolphins doing the whole leaping out the water, tail slapping, spray blowing thing that they do so well, close into the shore at Tanyblwch. Speaking of Steffi, she will now finish this off with tales of her weekend tree spotting......no, really.

Yes, a weekend of identifying trees at the field study centre near Betws-y-Coed. I did my best to focus on just trees and therefore kept my bins and my camera in my backpack throughout the day; but when an alarmed meadow pipit drew my attention to a close-in cuckoo, instinct kicked in and getting my camera out was more important than making sense of the willow tree hybrids. The cuckoo continued to stay close whilst I frantically threw my lunch out in order to get to my camera and I managed to get a few nice shots. Not much else to report from the walks I did on the weekend; however, on the field centre grounds I did discover nestboxes occupied by pied flycatcher and redstart, which allowed for some nice photo opportunities.