The Spinnies Aberogwen Nature Reserve, is one of the 35 nature reserves owned or managed by the North Wales Wildlife Trust, and is well known by the local bird watchers as one of the best places to see some amazing birds.

The kingfisher is the most famous bird at the Spinnies, drawing people in from far and wide, and we’ve also had a rare visit from an osprey back in 2022, which caused bird enthusiasts, experienced and novice alike, to flock to the hides in waves. But there are so many birds to see, all year round.

If you are new to birdwatching, and don’t know where to start, one of the best ways to learn, is not by watching with your eyes, but by listening with your ears. A lot of experienced bird watchers will often identify a bird by their song or call, and after that, they will confirm the species with their binoculars or their eyesight alone. Learning the unique songs and calls of each bird is a good way to start out, especially if you aren’t quite as quick at following the birds with the binoculars just yet.

As there are so many different bird species at the Spinnies Aberogwen, there are so many different songs and calls you can listen to, all over the reserve. At the reserve, you can find three different hides. Today, we would like to introduce you to the Main Hide and the different songs and calls you may hear while inside.

The Main Hide

The Main Hide (Prif guddfan), more often called the Sea Hide, is the best well known hide, as it’s the one you will find when you enter through the main green gate and walk up and around the woodland path. At the end of the path, there will be a second white gate to step through, and the path to your left will lead you to the main hide, while the path straight ahead will lead you to the meadow and one of the paths that will take you to the shore.

The hide has windows on each side, allowing you to not only viewed the lagoons of the Spinnies Aberogwen Nature Reserve, but also the shoreline of the River Ogwen, meaning there are so many birds you can see in this hide.

Out on the shore, you can see many shorebirds, especially at low tide when they are out feeding. Some of these shorebirds include little egrets, grey herons, mute swans, curlews, whimbrels, oystercatchers, redshanks and greenshanks.

Little egrets and grey herons can sometimes be spotted at the Spinnies Aberogwen in close range of each other. Little egrets are often silent, except for breeding season when it calls sounds like snarling and croaking. Grey herons make a loud harsh “fraink” sound, as well as squawking and croaking.

While mute swans are called mute, they aren’t actually silent, it’s just the hoarse trumpeting “heeorr” sounds and low hissing noises don’t travel as far as other swans’ calls do.

Curlews and whimbrels are quite similar looking, with whimbrels being more compact and darker in plumage. Whimbrels might be less seen than curlews, as they breed in northern areas, migrating in other places during the spring and autumn. The curlew’s call starts out slow and quickly builds up into a trill of “whaup” “whoy” and “cur-li”. The whimbrel’s call is a loud and rapid “pipipipipipipip”.

Oystercatchers make loud “klip”, “kleep” or “kleep-a-kleep” sounds, which often creates a shrill chorus when it’s amongst a flock.

The redshank’s call is often quite distinctive, sometimes musical, sometimes melancholy “teu!”, “teu-hu”or “te-huhu” while the greenshank’s call isn’t as sharp and is more a loud, even pitched ringing “tew-tew-tew”.

Across the estuary, you may spot other waders, such as dunlins, ringed plover, knots, bar-tailed and black-tailed godwits, and turnstones, and you may also see other birds, such as wigeons, shelducks, goldeneyes, red-breasted mergansers, goosanders, eiders, great crested grebes and greylag geese. With waders, you will often hear just calls, rather than any songs.

In the next part of the series, we will be staying in the Main Hide and looking across over the lagoon view, listening to the songbirds.

NEXT: Songs of the Spinnies Part 2