Craig Cerrig Gleisad

On Sat 30.April myself and fellow enthusiastic bird photographer Peter "Pedro" Morgan decided to hook up with the GBC field trip to CCG and arranged with John Wilson to meet up with the rest of the paricipants at 09.45 at the reserve.

Firstly though we agreed to meet to meet each other on the road below Cefn Cadlan and walk up to the limestone pavement in search of Dotterel hoping that perhaps last year's two passage birds would make a timely return.

It was cold and cloudy at 07.00 but Peter was in buoyant mood after "ticking" the White Stork at Aberdullais en-route,by the time we had reached the ridge though we could feel the keenness of a stiff easterly breeze.

We searched for about an hour but to no avail,little did we know that Martin Bevan and Phil Hill would find a pair the next morning !! (Guess that makes us crap birders ???-were the birds there and we missed them or did they arrive later,who knows !)

We soon arrived at CCG and despite a good scan of the crag failed to connect with a Ring Ouzel although a dapper male Redstart had us stalking it along the edge of the fenced wood.

We met up with John and his fellow field trippers and after a short while John picked out two Ring Ouzels about 3/4 of the way up the left hand side of the crag which had been spooked by a passing Raven.

We enjoyed some brief 'scope views courtesy of John and Alan Rosney and Peter decided he would like to get some pics of what was a "lifer" for him,I didn't argue and so the two of us made the lung bursting trudge up the crag.

We connected with a single RO but the bird was quite wary of our presence and we ended up shooting into and across the sunlight which was far from ideal,the bird was feeding on the close cropped sheep pasture beyond the reserve and for the record we didn't pursue it onto the crag and attempt to find it's nesting location,we both got some record shots and moved on.

Whilst the others connected with Whinchat in our absence we "dipped" although we had good views of one of the resident Peregrines and a passing Red Kite.

After a well earned picnic lunch we visited the small wood across the A470 from the reserve where we soon came across the first of 5 male Pied Flycatchers which we found along the footpath,although they were all quite flighty I did manage a few reasonable record shots.

Whilst lagging behind taking photographs we missed a couple of female Redstarts that the rest picked up,such is life.

The remainder of the trip decided to call into Llwyn-on Reservoir/Garwnant on the way home so after saying our goodbyes I headed back to Llangors and Peter for home both well pleased with our excellent if "knackering" day out.