19:15, 11 Oct 2016
Bird Notes columnist Julian
Hughes of RSPB Conwy reveals what birds have been spotted in the past week and
where to go birding in the coming days
When I was a young birder, a few
birds shone colourfully from my first European bird book.
One didn’t just look amazing, it
had a descriptive name that spoke of the Russian taiga: Red-flanked Bluetail.
But this piece of exotica was way
out of my league: its nesting grounds lay behind the Iron Curtain and the
handful ever to be seen in Britain were on remote Scottish islands.
But through the 1980s, their
breeding range extended west into Finland, and then a friend found one in
Dorset, and thousands of birdwatchers went to see this semi-mythical bird.
Bluetails have become more
frequent visitors to Britain’s shores since that 1993 mega-star, with typically
five each autumn.
Wales is not well-placed to find
birds from the east, with just three previous Bluetail records, two of which
were on Bardsey Island.
So, one found in a garden above Llandudno’s West
Shore late on Monday afternoon drew an appreciative crowd, as it fed busily in
the branches of a Sycamore.
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