Leaving Eastwood at 10am on Wednesday, we drive west to arrive in Clwyd in time for a picnic lunch in Loggerheads Country Park, a beauty spot on the edge of the Clwydian Range Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, where the riverside woodland offers the chance of Dipper, Grey Wagtail, Nuthatch, Treecreeper, Redstart, woodpeckers and both Pied and Spotted Flycatchers. From here it is a very short drive to our accommodation at Plas Hafod Hotel, near Mold.

This magnificent eighteenth century country house, set in nine acres of landscaped gardens, is an ideal retreat, where the dawn chorus will be wonderful at this lively time of year. Meals are served in the conservatory, which looks out onto the gardens, where we may spot one of the resident Peacocks, and the individually styled luxurious en-suite rooms have TV and tea/coffee making facilities.

On Thursday, we must rise with the dawn to join a guided walk (an RSPB Aren’t Birds Brilliant! programme) through the forest to a comfortable purpose built hide, where we can witness the fascinating, elaborate and somewhat comical spectacle of a Black Grouse lek, against a stunning moorland backdrop. The action can be as little as 350 yards from the hide and as the strange bubbling and screeching sounds carry for up to 2 miles, it should be quite a spectacle. On the way back through the forest we may be lucky enough to see Tree Pipit and even Crossbill. After breakfast back at the hotel, we shall return to the moors on the look out for Hen Harrier, Red Grouse, and Whinchat, before walking a stretch of Offa’s Dyke Path below the spectacular limestone cliffs of Eglwyseg Mountain, where we may see Peregrine, Wheatear and Raven.

On Friday we head for the coast and the site of the only Little Tern nesting colony in Wales, where we should also see other shorebirds like Sandwich Tern and Ringed Plover. Returning eastward, we shall stop off at the Connah’s Quay reserve, where access is by permit only from Deeside Naturalist’s Trust. The reserve consists of scrubland, pools, saltmarsh and mud flats with hides overlooking the pools and the Dee estuary. Here we can hope for water birds like Little Egret, Little Ringed Plover, Greenshank, Spotted Redshank, Green Sandpiper and Black-tailed Godwits in rusty red breeding plumage.

We shall leave Wales around 5pm, and should be home by 7.30pm.

Cost £210

What the price includes:

Your share of return transport costs from the Nottingham area, two nights half board en-suite accommodation and the services of your guide.

Deposit £35
Single supplement: £40