Day Trip to North Wales

 

Western Reef Heron

News of a Western Reef Heron on  Saturday 6th June 2026 at Foryd Bay in North Wales got the birding community in a state of panic as this would be a first record for the UK & Ireland !!!

Unfortunately for me i had no way of getting there until the following Wednesday, then this trip was cancelled and i thought my chance had gone.

The WRH was showing well for pretty much the whole time every day, then i got a 2nd chance of a lift for Sunday the 14th , will it stay , i had everything crossed.

Saturday the 13th came around and negative news on the WRH, then a brief sighting in the morning & no more news until another brief sighting later in the day, both sightings were brief & in flight.

We decided it was to much of a risk to travel that far on that news , it turned out to be a very good call as the WRH was not seen all day on the Sunday.

I thought my chance had finally gone , but then the game was back on , the WRH had been re found in a new location in Conwy on the 17th, plans were put into place to go Saturday 20th if the bird was still showing on the Friday.

News was positive on the Friday although the last report of the day was a bit concerning when it said it was present then just flew off !

However we stuck to the plan, leaving Kent at 3.25am on Saturday morning, we were greeted with  negative news on route , damn was a milder thought then i actually had , and then 10 mins out from Conwy and positive news came out.

 

Western Reef Heron  still on the Estuary near Conwy Rspb reserve, everything fell into place , we nabbed a close parking space and there it was , the holy grail

Western Reef Heron !!!

Here are a selection of the many photos i took :

Feeding well

Digi scoped

Seen in flight several times

WRH, Little Egret, Grey Heron & Little Egret

Resting on Rspb Conwy

Western Reef Heron

We spent all morning at Conwy enjoying this superb bird,  then we headed of to check a couple of different woodlands, we added Pied & Spotted Flycatcher plus SC managed to see a brief Wood Warbler.

We ended the day at Aber Falls and had more views of a Spotted Flycatcher plus a superb pair of Common Redstarts.

Common Redstart

We also saw several Dark Green Fritillary's .

Dark Green Fritillary

A really great trip , many thanks to Steve .C. who did all the driving & organised the trip, the man is a machine.