Another rare at Cemlyn - Mandarin Duck ;-)

Ken Croft found this female Mandarin at Cemlyn yesterday at the far end of Tyn Llan Pool. It was an Anglesey tick for him as it's a rare bird on the island. I had one about 10 years ago on Cors Erddreiniog around this time of year as I was twitching a Hobby and it was a very flighty individual indeed. Where it came from nobody knows. They breed nearby on the Glaslyn and also at Llandulas I think but they can occasionally suffer from wanderlust! I remember hearing about a bird that was ringed somewhere in the Northeast that turned up a few months later in Eastern Europe! So they're not all cage-hopers even though they are common in wildfowl collections. There are more birds in the wild in Western Europe now than in their original haunts in the far east.