The Juvenile Birder

Welsh Mountaineering! We arrived at the Great Orme at around 7:30am with Zak Spaull in hopes of seeing some rare butterflies. Firstly, we walked along Marine Drive, being guided by Zak, to try and find a rare orchid. As soon as we reached the spot, we noticed many of them marked by red flags. They were Dark Red Helleborines . Since it was a bit early for them, none of them were fully flowering, except for this one plant. We then walked further up Marine Drive to see a plant endemic to the Orme. It was the  Wild Cotoneaster . There were six individual plants located on the Orme, and this was one of them. They were special, but not beautiful. Zak then pointed out another plant next to the Wild Cotoneaster. We both took a photo of it and Zak later told us it was a Welsh Hawkweed , one of the many rare hawkweeds found on the Orme. Whilst looking at the plants, we noticed many Choughs , including four that landed right next to us! We also found our target butterfly, the Silver-stud...

 Padley Gorge Disappointment and Encounter With Cows! We arrived at 8:00am in hopes of seeing Wood Warbler ad Redstart. We were told by Scott to go upriver to the left of the river which meant we had to cross it after a very treacherous walk alongside it. We crossed at a point with millions of Grey Wagtails flying upriver and downriver. We then saw a bridge and then a black, small thing was moving up a trail. At first I thought it was a very big froglet or toadlet, but upon closer inspection, was some sort of rodent. I thought it was a mouse, but then I saw the same thing in the water. They were Water Voles! We continued out trek and ended up finding a path. We then asked some people where to go and the all didn't have a clue what those two birds were. Finally, we met a man who was a birder and he told us is was unlikely we were going to see one this late. While we could hear both birds, we couldn't see either one of  them. This was when I really needed a thermal imaging ...

Nocturnal Scarcities and Dipper! We arrived at a spot on the River Kent just off of Nannypie Lane at about 7:00pm. We had a pin by Rob and first took a footpath towards the river bank where we saw all the typical river birds: Goosanders,  Grey Wagtail, Common Sandpipers and Grey Herons. This made me feel more confident that Dippers were around. We continued along the road which then came to an end and there was a gate leading to a footbridge which was shaky and high above the river. Although it was quite nerve-racking, we braved it out. We got superb views of the river birds with a Kingfisher even flying down river as it shot into a tree. Just then, a small songbird landed on a rock and started to preen. I looked through my binoculars to ID it but to my frustration, some people were walking on the bridge, causing it to rock and therefore not have a steady look. Luckily, as they walked off, the bird was still there and, to my delight, it was what I thought it was... A DIPPER! While ...