Winter birding

A nice day's birding with Eddie today. Began at Cricieth where a late swallow was hawking over the west prom. The sea was flat calm and visibility near perfect. Common scoter, red throats great crests peppered the sea and also a single sleeping goosander. 4 long tailed duck were visible off Black Rocks beach so that's where we headed. Having arrived, a close in scaup got my attention and as I scoped the scaup, a female surf scoter popped up next to it - result : )
I managed some pretty dire record shots.

 
The surfie dived frequently with that characteristic half open-winged hop - reminiscent of razorbill and shag (!)
More scanning produced a Great Northern and an adult Little Gull feeding in the river channel. The beach was plastered with many hundreds of birds - mostly oystercatcher and herring gulls but mixed in were over a hundred sanderling, knot, dunlin, a few barwits, and other commoner gulls.
On to Llyn Bach Porthmadog where we dipped the long tailed duck and phalarope but had a brief kingfisher as well as the usual waders and wildfowl. Back to Cricieth where the swallow had been joined by another one. Hope they head south soon!