The Great Orme is my favourite place in the World and Llandudno is the place I would most like to live, more than any other place that I have ever been to. I do recognise that in achieving it's lofty status, the Orme has probably been helped by a big dose of nostalgia, memories of days gone by, right from my earliest childhood.
I've seen lots of great birds here, but in nearly 50 years birding I have
always wanted to see Dotterel on the Great Orme, but they've always eluded me
for various reasons, until today. Two females were on the Orme yesterday but
the weather was shocking, with strong winds and battering hailstone. I decided
to risk it and leave it until today when there was a much better forecast.
After all, when you're hoping to finally find the Holy Grail, it would be better
to find it on a beautiful day.
I got lucky, the birds decided to stay another day and showed really well,
down to 3m at times. In the warm(ish) sunshine I was able to sit and watch
them in comfort for a couple of hours. Not that any of my close up camera
shots were any good, all of the close up photos in this post were taken on my
phone through the scope, only the more distant photos were through the camera.
It so nearly didn't happen for me again though. First I got half way to Llandudno and panicked that I'd forgotten my optics. I was wrong, they were in the car. More seriously, when I arrived at the car park at the north end of the Orme I could see a group of birders clearly watching the Dotterel about quarter of a mile away, but as I watched two of four springer spanial dogs off the lead ran right through them, flushing the birds. Thankfully they landed again nearby.
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