Songs of the Spinnies - Part 2: The Main Hide

Often referred to as the Sea Hide, the Main Hide offers two stunning views ... one of which lets you see the entirety of the River Ogwen and the other a view of the lagoons. In Part 2 of this series 'Song of the Spinnies' we explore the songs and calls of songbirds and birds of the lagoons. This blog is one of series enabled by funding from Welsh Government’s Landfill Disposals Tax Communities Scheme, administered by WCVA

Welcome back to our blog series 'Songs of the Spinnies', all about the birdsongs and calls you can hear at the Spinnies Aberogwen Nature Reserve. We invite you back into the Main Hide (Prif guddfan), also known as the Sea Hide, to look out into the lagoon and listen to all the songbirds you may hear during your stay. Some of the shorebirds we told you all about in the last blog can also be spotted over the lagoons, enjoying some respite from hunting for food across from the shore.

The Main Hide – The Lagoon View

Just by the feeders, you often see many of the small birds such as tits, such as the blue tits, great tits, siskins, goldfinches, bullfinches, and chaffinches.

The blue tit song sounds like a “sispi si-hi-hi-hi-hi”, while the great tit song has notes kind of see-sawed with each other, which others have dubbed it sounding like “teacher, teacher, teacher”.

Photo of a bluetit perched on a branch. Behind the bluetit are more branches. — Bluetit/Titw Tomos las @ NWWT Daniel Vickers

Photo of a Great Tit perched on a wooden beam. — Great tit/Titw mawr @ NWWT Daniel Vickers

The siskin song is a mixture of trills and twittering sounds, mixed with whistled “tsy-zee” and hoarse “putt” sounds.

Photo of a siskin perched on a thin tree branch. — Siskin/Pila gwyrdd @ NWWT Daniel Vickers

The goldfinch song is mixed with call noted and trills, with chattering sounds and sounds that go “skip-i-lip” and “tschair”. The bullfinch makes a low “Pew” or “Phiu” sound, sometimes as a singular note and sometimes in sucession, like a “pew-pew-pew”. The chaffinch song is a “chip-chip, chirichiri, cheep-tcheweeoo” which is intercepted by tweets and “chup” sounds.

It seems that often, the goldfinches will squabble with the other birds over their preferred feeder, so you will definitely hear them the most when sitting close to the feeders.

A photo of two goldfinches, on each side of a bird feeder — Two goldfinches/Dau nico @ NWWT Daniel Vickers

Photo of a bullfinch standing on a prickly tree branch. — Bullfinch/Coch y berllan @ Amy Lewis

Photo of a chaffinch, perched on the ground amongst leaves and twigs. — Chaffinch/Ji-binc @ NWWT Daniel Vickers

Photo of the four bird feeders found at the main hide at the Spinnies Aberogwen reserve. Three of the feeders have an assortment of songbirds on them, such as siskins, goldfinches and tits — The Main Hide's Bird Feeders/Teclynnau Bwydo Adar y Brif Guddfan @ NWWT Daniel Vickers

Over the lagoon, you can sometimes spot the great spotted woodpecker in the trees. The great spotted woodpecker makes a rather loud high “Tic!” sound and may also make a rattling noise when alarmed. They will also make the quick pecking on wood sound, called drumming, that most people will associate with woodpeckers, which they do for numerous behaviours, such as feeding, communication and for creating nests in the spring.

Photo of a great spotted woodpecker climbing a tree trunk. The woodpecker is facing towards the right and the photo was taken from slightly below. — Great Spotted Woodpecker/Llun o gnocell fraith fwyaf @ NWWT Daniel Vickers

The shorebirds, such as the little egrets and grey heron can also be seen across the lagoon, often during high tide, and rest on the small islands and land around the lagoon.