Tuesday 5 April 2011

End of my personal drought - Dwyran, Anglesey - 5th April 2011

News came in early afternoon about a Purple Heron on Anglesey yesterday which appeared not too far from Bangor or nearby stations. As a result, Chris and I were more than up for it when Alan Davies rang Chris to say it was seen again today and was 'showing well'. We got the train to Bodorgan at the reasonable price of £2.70 return and started walking in the direction of Drwyrn. Little did we know, it was miles and miles before we got on site (with a little help from Alex Jones whom gave up a lift for the last mile (and back to Bangor)) It wasn't too long before we were fuly caked in mud and then got a flight view of a very purple colour Heron sp. It was the Purple Heron! A lifer for the 3 of us. We gained several more views of the bird mainly in flight until we Alex saw it land. We aged the bird as sub-adult based on the wings being more tan-coloured compared to purple as well slight pale fringing to the primary coverts. The head also appeared not as fully streaked which again saw us come to this conclusion. 3 minutes later, we saw a bird fly up from another part of the pool and this time I concentrated on getting binocular views. This bird somehow appeared much more adult with really strong chest streaking, really striped head, a double crest, dark purple in the wings and a complete lack of pale fringing to the primary coverts. We were positive that this was/is another bird as we got very very good views and they looked completely different to one another. Are there two birds currently on a pool in Anglesey? I vote yes! (bird photographed above is the 'sub-adult' only) This is a well-overdue lifer for me in Britain and the others, so for others accounts visit Chris Bridge's and Alex Jones' blogs.

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