Thanks to an early afternoon message from John Woodruff, Chris, John a neighbour of his and I went to the beach car park at Llanrhystud and immediately saw 2 Grey Phalaropes on the adjacent flooded field.
These digi-scoped photos were taken in poor light, in the rain and from some distance:
After some while a Merlin appeared and all the Black-headed Gulls and the Phalaropes and a nearby Dunlin flew up and disappeared but not before the Merlin went for the Phalaropes. Fifteen minutes later, at 4pm, the Phalaropes had returned.
Back in Aberystwyth the sea was flat calm, flatter than flat and I decided to walk to Tanybwlch to see if any of the meadows there were flooded. Halfway there I get a call from Chris: Grey Phalarope just off South Beach. I dashed back, Basil and Rhiannon joined us and these are some better photos of that bird:
