Black Grouse #38

The 4am alarm call this morning was 100% worth it, to see these magnificent birds in beautiful golden sunshine. 
An excellent birder from my photography club had offered to take me to World's End in Wales and we have been looking for a weather window at the weekend for a few weeks now. This morning was just perfect - cold clear and sunny. 
I've never been before and was thrilled to see around a dozen Black Grouse calling, posturing and strutting around on the side of the mountain in their Lek. It's a battle for supremacy where the males all congregate at a certain spot, to show off and display in the hope of attracting a mate. 
There wasn't much actual fighting going on, but plenty of squaring up and calling which was just fabulous. 

After a walker flushed the birds at 7.30am, they didn't come back which was a shame, but we'd had a good hour of watching them in some lovely light - it couldn't really have been better. We even saw some red grouse on the way down the mountain. 

We headed over to Llandulas, The Great Orme and Rhos-on-Sea on a search for more birds - Scoter, divers, peregrines, choughs, purple sandpipers and rock pipits were all new additions to my year list. The only thing that we missed were Surf Scoters, but I can handle that :)

I had the most magical day but now have a ton of images to go through and I'm feeling shattered. This cough that my husband has passed on to me is really taking hold now so I'm off to bed. I'll catch up with journals tomorrow hopefully.