There's been a drake bufflehead frequenting the North Wales coast since the
beginning of December and finally today I managed to catch up with it.
Bufflehead is a North American species and this is, I think, the first record
for Wales.
It was originally found at Point of Ayr near Rhyl while we were in Cyprus but
only stayed a day before disappearing for a week and finally being relocated
at Foryd Bay just before Christmas. It's a new UK species for me but I've been
putting off going until now because I knew that I had a job coming up on
Anglesey yesterday so I gambled and decided to stay over in Caernarfon last
night in the hope of seeing the bird.
At first I thought that my cunning plan was going to fail because it hadn't
been reported since Saturday and the places it was frequenting at the end of
last week required a high tide in order for it to be there and unfortunately
both high tides during my visit were in the hours of darkness (18:06 last
night and 06:48 today - you couldn't make it up!).
However, after a couple of hours searching and with the tide receding before
my eyes, moving the available open water further and further away, I was at
the point where I'd all but given up, when suddenly and with much relief, I
spotted the bufflehead on the river on the east side of the bay north of
the hide, at a distance of about 800m (half a mile).
Here's the first photo I took from the hide with the bird 800m away and with the receding tide revealing more mud by the minute. Cleary it's the bufflehead, but not a very satisfactory view, so after watching it for a few minutes I began to wonder what my options were for
getting closer. I'd not been to Foryd Bay for years and didn't really know the
area, but I looked at a map and noticed that the river came closer to the shore a little further north. It was just possible that the bird might move that way as the tide retreated so I decided to give it a go. I jumped in the car and headed north for about 1.5km.
Parking is a problem here but eventually I found somewhere and a quick scan of
the river revealed the bird almost immediately with a few goldeneye and a drake scaup about 250m
away to the south. Jackpot! A short walk from here would get me even closer. Yet even now there was another twist as within a couple of minutes of
parking here, an abnormal load escort vehicle pulled up and asked me if I
could move another 400m away in order to make room for an approaching
articulated lorry transporting a static caravan which was due past in 15
minutes. Doh! You really couldn't make it up!
I had no option but to oblige, but once the lorry had gone past I drove back
to my parking spot, checked that the bufflehead was still there and then
walked around a rocky bay to an even closer vantage point, where I was now
about 150m from the bird .
What a tremendous experience to watch this wonderful duck swimming in amongst
displaying goldeneye in the company of a drake scaup. Not as close as I
believe it was earlier in its stay when it frequented a saltmarsh pool close
to the track at the south west corner of the bay, but this was a very
evocative and a thrilling sight and exactly the way I wanted to see the bird.
Edit 23/01/2026: When I saw the bufflehead on 14/01/2026 it hadn't been seen for 4 days previously. At the time of writing it's not been reported again since my sighting. So in the past 13 days mine is the only sighting of the bird! Amazing.
A really smart looking bird, I was delighted to see it today, my only other bufflehead in the UK was an extremely dodgy bird with a green leg ring which I didn't count. I have seen them in New York previously.
Bufflehead preparing to dive. Notice the change in head shape.
The bird has a disproportionatly large head and I believe that the name is a
shortened version of "buffalo-head", due to its apparant similarity in shape
to the North American buffalo. "Buffle" is an old name for buffalo.
Male and female goldeneye.
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