Conwy Marine Walk

15 Tuesday Feb 2022

Posted by theresagreen in Birdwatching on North Wales coast, Conwy, Nature, North Wales, The Wales Coast Path, Walking

Tags

Bodlondeb woods, Conwy estuary, Conwy Marina, Conwy quay, little egret, local history, meadow pipit, memorial, Mulberry Harbour, Oystercatcher, redshank, river conwy, wigeon

It was a view from Conwy’s town walls while on my earlier jackdaw trail that prompted this walk, reminding me that though I’ve often walked the Coast Path in both directions almost to and from the town and beyond, there were parts in the middle I had missed, including this stretch from the end of the quay around to the marina. It’s not a long walk and I imagine that at times it could get busy, but on this out-of-season winter weekday I met very few people and those I did all exchanged ‘hellos’ or at least a smile.

To my surprise the town was quiet when I arrived here today, with less traffic and people than I think I’ve ever seen; at not far off noon on a sunny winter’s day I’d thought it would be busier.

The quayside was almost deserted, emphasised by the scarcity of herring gulls calling or hanging about on the alert for an opportunistic snack.

Conwy Quay looking towards the castle and bridge

The tide was out, which always changes the dynamic of a place too; many birds rest, conserving their energy for when the tide turns, hopefully bringing fresh food in with it. Numbers of herring gulls were gathered together sitting peacefully on distant sandbanks in the shallow water, while two nearby were alternately preening with just standing in the sunshine.

View from the quayside across to the hillside of Marl Woods

Other birds, like this oystercatcher and a redshank, continue to forage, stalking the exposed mud and sand on the hunt for buried shellfish.

The quayside is itself on the route of the Coast Path and accessible to walkers. Cyclists have either to dismount or take a detour around the town, but they do have the option to rejoin it at the point I was heading for a short way beyond the harbour wall.

Menai Strait & Conwy Bay special Area of Conservation

On the far side of the wall, a board informs that “The water you see in front of you is a Marine Protected Area. It is special because of the way the sea is channelled down the narrow strait, creating whirlpools and areas of fast currents, and then opens out into Traeth Lafan and Conwy Bay, where slow currents lead to sediments being deposited in large sand and mud flats. It is a wonderfully diverse area which supports a rich array of marine wildlife such as corals, sponges and brittlestars, and birdlife like common scoter, wigeon and oystercatcher.”

Beginning at the top of a gentle downhill slope, the first view from the path takes your eye across to the far side of the estuary to the distinctive hill known as the Vardre, rising behind the small town of Deganwy. The path looks intriguing. Curving around between the shoreline and woodland, I imagine each bend will reveal a different perspective on the panoramic views. I can’t decide whether the palm tree adds or detracts from the view, but it looked quite at home against the blue sky on this sunny day.

The path levels out and the wall lowers, opening up the view onto the exposed shore and the hills across the river.

Rounding the bend you get a great view of Deganwy fronted by its promenade with the centrally-placed shelter and backed by the iconic double-summited Vardre.

View to Deganwy and the two summits of the Vardre

Bodlondeb Woods

The woodland which shades the path and is contained behind the stone wall is Bodlondeb Woods. Located in what were once the grounds of a Victorian mansion, they are now managed as a Local Nature Reserve. Presently the woods are home to a variety of trees, including a number of non-native species such as this enormous holm, or holly oak which leans dramatically over the wall, extending almost all of its branches and heavy evergreen canopy of leaves across the path. It seems plans for future management of the woods include the removal of some of the introduced trees to encourage native species and improve conditions for wildflowers. I’d like to think this one will be safe for as long as it stays healthy.

Holm oak – *Quercus ilex* – also known as holly oak or evergreen oak

Rounding another curve the view opens up to the headland of the Great Orme and the point at which the river meets the Irish Sea and the end of the Menai Strait.

As I stopped to photograph this view, a little party of wigeon swam into view , they were travelling slowly along the water’s edge, their eyes on the water, foraging for food. There’s a lot of seaweed along this part which in places covers piled rocks that slope from the path boundary down into the water. Exposed now by the receding tide, partly coated with mud and drying out in the sun, it wasn’t smelling particularly pleasant.

A little further along, some distance away I could make out a group of birds on the edge of a stream of water coursing along between high banks of mud. They were difficult to see in the bright sunlight, but having seen the three wigeon a short while before, and from their ‘gis’, I’m sure these were more of the same.

Half-hidden beneath the rise of a mudbank a little egret was focussing on something in the shallow water, intently following its movements, turning its head and shifting position, ready to strike. No luck this time though. The redshank behind the egret demonstrated a different hunting technique – it had its head almost completely immersed in the water.

Rounding another bend, the path passes by a school and ends quite abruptly, emerging out onto a path running alongside the A547. The view in front of you now is filled by the rugged bulk of the headland of Penmaenbach, a part of the Carneddau Mountain range which marks the northern end of the Snowdonia National Park.

If you were trekking the length of the Coast Path, you’d now have a decision to make. You can continue to follow the Coast Path towards Llanfairfechan, which after a bit of detour through a housing development you can rejoin, or you can take the considerably longer, but spectacularly scenic route up and over Conwy Mountain and across the hills. A map here shows your options, although it’s a bit high up on the fence and the ‘you are here’ right at the top of it, which is not too helpful to less-tall people like me.

As I’m not trekking the whole length of the Coast Path, I had already planned to make the Marina today’s destination as it’s still more or less on the Path and is the site of some interesting local history and humanly-altered geography. To reach it I turned right here to follow the road, which soon crosses over the A55 Expressway, then cut through the housing development to reach the walkway that runs the length of the frontage of the Marina.

Conwy Marina

Despite how it now blends into the river scenery, the Marina is not a natural harbour, but came about as a result of the construction of the Conwy Tunnel, which takes the A55 Expressway beneath the estuary and was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II on the 25th October 1991. The site the marina now occupies was once a part of Morfa Conwy, but one of the first processes undertaken when the tunnel work began was to excavate a huge basin, within which six sections of the tunnel tube were cast. When they were completed, an opening to the estuary was created, filling the basin with water. The tunnel sections were kept afloat with buoyancy devices, towed to their final positions in the estuary and lowered into a trench dug across the bed. The water-filled casting basin was developed to provide 500 pontoon berths, making it the largest marina in Wales, and opened in 1992.

Mulberry Harbour

The plaque on the seating shelter overlooking the harbour commemorates both the 50th anniversary of the Normandy D-day landings of WWII, and also the construction here at Conwy Morfa of the Mulberry Harbour which was used in the landings.

‘Mulberry’ was the codename for a World War II project to build parts for two harbours which would be floated to northern France to aid the re-occupation in 1944. The original prototypes for them were designed by Hugh Iorys Hughes, a civil engineer originally from Bangor who foresaw that the Allied troops would need to build harbours on distant beaches because the main French ports were too heavily guarded. From 1942 to 1944, almost 1,000 men worked here to construct three giant caissons, known as Hippos. A major training exercise in July 1943 demonstrated the difficulties of landing troops and supplies on beaches, and in its wake thousands more men around Britain were diverted to the project, constructing more than 200 caissons in various parts of the country. The structures were towed to France and linked to form two harbour walls, enabling large numbers of vehicles, personnel, communications equipment and other supplies vital to sustaining the frontline forces as they pushed deeper into enemy territory, to be taken ashore.

A further memorial can be found beyond the marina on Conwy Morfa, reached either from here by following the path around the left of the marina, or if the memorial is your destination, from the nearby car park.

Marina to Conwy Quay

A547 to Conwy town-Cast Path entrance is opposite the pine tree.

Leaving the memorial I retraced my steps, followed the walkway that runs the length of the marina, turned right past the The Mulberry restaurant and bar and cut across its carpark to get back to the A547 and the path back to the quay.

The little egret had worked its way further upstream along the muddy channel and was much closer to the path now, almost at the point where the stream runs beneath the road. They are such a joy to watch, stirring up the surface of the sand or mud they are standing on then watching intently for a movement, keeping focussed, waiting for the right time to strike with its long dagger of a bill.

A blue-painted footbridge crosses the stream; it’s closed off at the moment, otherwise I’d have been tempted to walk over it to see where it goes.

On the muddy but grassy bank below the wall I spotted a bird moving around, surprisingly well camouflaged it took a minute of trying to focus in to realise it was lovely plump meadow pipit.

The mud is so soft and oozy that even this lightweight redshank (they weigh only about 120g) was leaving quite deep footprints behind it.

The resting flock of ducks was still there in the sheltered valley between the sloping mud banks. With a better view of them from this angle I was happy they were indeed wigeon, with one or two redshanks in amongst them too.

Another huge tree leaning over the wall may be a sessile oak (or may not); I’ll have to come back and check in a few weeks time when it has leaves.

The woodland is on a hill and as the sun lowers behind them, the trees cast a wide shadow over the shore.

Another tall tree with a interestingly contorted branches frames a view of the castle and bridges half-concealed in a shadowy haze.

There were foraging birds on the shore now, jackdaws were probing the pebbles, and a redshank and an oystercatcher were inspecting the muddy sand. A herring gull was watching the oystercatcher intently, whilst stalking towards it.

The oystercatcher stopped, probed its bill deeply into the mud and pulled out a large shellfish, a mussel I think.

An oystercatcher put in his bill and pulled out a mussel

I must have looked away for a split second and missed the action, but next thing, the herring gull has the prize! It either snatched the mussel directly from the bill of the oystercatcher, or the oystercatcher dropped it momentarily and the gull grabbed it. The poor oystercatcher left the scene, probably in a huff, while the herring gull carried its ill-gotten gains away; now it just had to work out how to open it.

At the end of the path the robin was singing as it had been when I began my walk, but this time I could see him perfectly and allowed me to take his photograph. I thanked him of course.

The Place for Wheatears,Pipits & Chough

08 Tuesday May 2018

Posted by theresagreen in Birds, Birdwatching on North Wales coast, Great Orme, Nature of Wales, The Wales Coast Path, Wildlife of the Wales Coast Path

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

birds on migration, chough, Greenland race of wheatear, meadow pipit, Northern Wheatear, Oryctolagus cuniculus, Pyrrhocorax, rabbit, Red-billed chough

April 25th – Great Orme

A bright sunny morning prompted me to leave early for the Great Orme today, giving myself time to walk at least part of the way up to the summit and arrive on time to do my shift in the Wildlife Trust shop. Bearing in mind that wherever I walked up from I would have to walk back down to later on, regardless of what the weather may be doing by then, I decided to park in the layby just beyond St. Tudno’s Church. It was much fresher up here, still sunny and clear but a strong breeze made it feel cool.

view from half-way up looking down onto St Tudno’s church

13:05 From here at the bottom of the steep slope, there are obvious short-cropped grass trails that lead off in various directions including up to the cable car station and the Summit Complex, where I was heading. Walking at a good speed it may take 10 minutes to get up to the top if you’re reasonably fit, or a bit longer if you stop to admire the views behind you or need to stop for breath on the steepest part nearer the top. Of course you all expect by now that I would take longer, as I would inevitably find things of interest that I would need to stop and photograph.

Either side of the tracks the hillside is lumpy and bumpy, with hillocks and hollows clothed with long tussocky grass and bushes of dwarf gorse; perfect terrain for the Meadow pipit that I was hoping to see. Birds foraging here are often well concealed, suddenly appearing and disappearing like this Magpie, one of a pair out hunting.

Sometimes they leave flying off until you’re almost on top of them, as this Jackdaw did.

Fond as I am of the Corvids, the unexpected sight of this elegant male Northern Wheatear was a lot more exciting.

Northern Wheatear-Oenanthe oenanthe- Welsh: Tinwen y Garn

and the excitement was doubled when a more softly plumaged female popped up onto the top of a hillock.

Absorbed with the female wheatear a distance away, a Meadow pipit popping up onto a hummock close by me took me by surprise, but a sighting at last and some photographs! It was hunting and I was pleased to get a pic of it with an insect in its beak.

Meadow pipits, in common with the majority of basically brown birds don’t get much of a write-up in the bird books. They’re mostly described as something like ” a small, brown, streaky bird, the most common songbird in upland areas, where it’s high piping call is a familiar sound’. Perhaps because of their lack of glamour we take them too much for granted, as according to the RSPB, ‘Meadow pipit numbers in the UK have been declining since the mid-1970s, resulting in this species being included on the amber list of conservation concern.’

Meadow Pipit- Anthus pratensis- Welsh-Corhedydd y Waun

Meadow pipit with insect

It’s strange that we give such high praise to the similar-looking Skylark and the not-dissimilar Song Thrush and are so dismissive of the pipits. Is the bias based on the fact that the latter sing delightfully and pipits not so much? For sure our hills and uplands would be lonely without them, so perhaps we could appreciate them more and enjoy them at every opportunity.

There are little wildflower treats hidden down in the grass like this pretty violet.

13:25 As usual I’d been led astray by the birds and had to put a spurt on and get to the top in time to start my ‘shift’. As I said earlier it was breezy on this side of the Orme, but crossing the top and starting down the other side I was suddenly fighting to make progress against a continuous very strong head wind! Checking the wind gauge inside the visitor centre it indicated it was blowing in from a North-north westerly direction, so it felt cold too despite the sunshine. I anticipated selling more hats and gloves!

4:50 Finished for the day I retraced my steps along the trail back down towards where I left my car. On my own time now I was free to take my time and paused to admire the view over towards the Little Orme and beyond. The post tells you that this is the way to The Town (Llandudno).

A closer view of the Little Orme shows its intact, non-quarried side which was deliberately preserved to present a much prettier view to visitors and residents of Llandudno.

A little further on there is an interpretation panel that reminds you that this is the ‘Historic Trail’ and informs that 800 years ago you would have been looking down onto one of perhaps three villages established on the Orme, whose inhabitants would have grown crops and raised animals to eat or trade. I was hoping the wheatears may still be around and I was in luck – I soon spotted a female.

The sun was lower now, creating shadows and highlights and the wind, stronger now, rippled across the long silvered grass, creating a magical almost alien landscape. In amongst it I realised there were more Wheatears, another three birds.

All Wheatears spend winter in tropical Africa, heading northwards via Spain in the spring. Those that breed in the British Isles sometimes arrive on our coast as early as late February, but mainly during March, with males arriving ahead of females. They move inland to breed.

GREENLAND WHEATEAR

It is possible that the birds I saw here today belong to another race, known as the Greenland wheatear, which arrives a little later in April. Many wheatears make a refuelling stopover in North Africa, but as the Greenland wheatears fly furthest, they need to put on more fat before leaving and spend longer at stopovers. They have a long journey ahead to their breeding sites on the other side of the Atlantic. From Britain they fly northwest across the sea, via Iceland, until they reach the Arctic tundra of Greenland and northern Canada. By June they will have started to breed there.

Wheatear & Meadow pipit

Whichever they were I was appreciating some lovely views of the two males and two females foraging together in the long grass, using the little hillocks as look-out platforms to survey the ground around them for likely prey.

Female wheatear

Then a distraction; a black bird flew in that I may have dismissed as a Jackdaw had it not called out. This was a Chough. It had landed somewhere behind a particularly hillocky part of the hillside, which is also pitted with well-disguised sunken craters. You have to watch your footing if you risk going off the proper trails.

Landscape pitted with sunken craters

I walked carefully until I spotted the bird, almost up to its beak in the long grass.

It had its back to me, eventually turning enough to show its diagnostic curved bill and legs, these are bright red in an adult bird, but this was a juvenile so it hasn’t quite got that far yet and its are more of a dull orange colour.

Chough, Red-billed chough – Pyrrhocorax

It didn’t stay for long before taking off, but it’s always a treat to see them at all, especially this closely.

Making my way back to the main track I noticed this rock, a little island rising out of a sea of grass and heather, it was almost totally encrusted with white lichen and embellished with mosses.

There was a lovely patch of violets growing in a grass-lined crater too.

I spotted two Wheatears perched on the top of a gorse bush; a male and a female. The birds spend most of their time on the ground, travelling in hops or runs on the ground, so it’s quite unusual to see them perched up higher.

I couldn’t have asked for a prettier picture than a handsome male Wheatear perched amongst golden-flowered gorse.

I liked the two images below too; perfect records of the birds’ exact location!

180425-GO-1709-Male wheatear next to post

Two males together on the short turf of the trail

And one last image of a nicely posed one on his own.

17:16 Walking on down I spotted three bunnies on high alert, in poses that could have come straight out of Watership Down.

Rabbit-Oryctolagus cuniculus

But then I saw the new Peter Rabbit film during the Easter holiday too and thought this one, which I think may be the ‘big bunny’ of a previous post, may have seen it too – he’s got Peter’s pose to a ‘T’.

And wouldn’t you know? After all my efforts to find a Meadow pipit, there was one posing on a rock almost in front of my parked car!

It flew down to the ground and looked back over its shoulder at me as if to say

“what kept you? I’ve been here for hours waiting for you!”

It allowed me a couple of photographs, then took off, leaving a lone Jackdaw to patrol the layby edge for his supper.

On the way down I had to stop just past the church as these little Goldfinches fluttered down onto the bare ground of a bank where they must have spotted food potential.

180425-GO-1730-Goldfinches on bank past church 1

180425-GO-1730-Goldfinches on bank past church

The views were stunning as always; good today as the mountains were more clearly visible than usual and the clouds above added to their drama.

17:45 The view of the Conwy Estuary was stunning too, the sun was hitting the castle perfectly so it stood out from the trees, you can clearly see the road bridge that takes you across the river to the town and there were boats on the water….. the perfect scene for a painting.

The view of the sea meeting West Shore wasn’t bad either.

Secret passage behind the sea wall 2

17 Saturday Oct 2015

Posted by theresagreen in Birds, birds of the seashore, birds of Wales, coastal walks, Nature, Nature of Wales, nature photography, Rhos Point, Rhos-on-Sea, Wales Coast Path

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Crows on seashore, curlew flying, herring gull, meadow pipit, mussel bed, Rhos Point

An hour or so later the walk back to Rhos Point was quite different. The going was easier too as the strong wind was behind me now and not taking my breath away. Almost immediately I caught sight of a bird hopping around on the rocks. I waited hoping it would come into view, which it did, just as a woman with a dog approached and chose that moment to break into a run. The bird flew away. Again it was a pipit, possibly the same one I’d seen back on the beach. The legs are pinkish and plumage brown so maybe a Meadow Pipit?

A small sedum plants looks at home in a pocket eroded in a limestone rock.

Small pools of rainwater are held briefly, lasting longer in the hard granite rocks.

The garden snail must have found it hard going sliding over the rough surface of the sea wall.

There is a wide concrete ramp reaching from the road down to the shore which probably gave access to heavy construction vehicles when the huge boulders of the sea defences originally were put in place. The lower section is being absorbed back into the shore, it is strewn with pebbles and small rocks and slippery with seaweed. Limpets are embedded into the wall itself as well as in large rocks on the shore at the bottom of the ramp.

I love the textured ‘lacy’ look of this rock almost covered with barnacles.

The sea is often at its most beautiful on these sunny windy days, its surface whipped up roughened and flecked with foam-edged ripples and the colour of the water ranging from deepest inky dark blue to pale turquoise-green. Large areas are stained brown by dredged up sand.

Sun, shade and curves make this man-made construction interesting.

The white marks highlighting the curved sea wall are mineral, maybe lime leached from the concrete?

The parapet floor has an interesting pattern and texture and is spotted with patches of white lichen.

As I got nearer to the Point I knew the tide was further in by the increased bird activity; the excitement it generates is almost tangible. Gulls take to the air and fly back and forth along the shoreline. Oystercatchers and other waders scuttle about, heads down, beaks probing for anything edible brought in on the waves.

Crows head shorewards too, the one in my picture landed on a lampost towering above me, cawing loudly. They forage amongst the rocks along with the waders and are often seen picking up a shellfish then flying up with and dropping it onto the rocks below to crack it open.

Even the curlews were excited. Most often seen stalking sedately around rocks and pools, now there were several flying along at speed, skimming low over the rocks on the shore below me. A couple of them may have been in pursuit of the one I managed to capture a shot of; it was travelling so fast I didn’t realise it had food in its beak until I saw the photograph.

On the Point the incoming tide approaches from either side of the mussel bed, where I assume different currents merge. The birds have an infallible instinct for the tidal changes and in the hour before and after high tide their numbers increase dramatically. They are brought closer to the shore then too and absorbed with foraging and eating, are easier to see.

It was too cold and windy to hang around and wait today though, so I had a quick peek into the chapel, which I can never resist. There are only 6 seats inside, so I wonder if they’ve lined up these memorial benches on the promenade outside to serve as overflow pews?

Many young Herring gulls wander around the village at this time of year, often screeching for the attention of a parent. They have no road sense and sadly quite a few are killed by cars.

Not a trip to Skomer but a great day out

21 Thursday Jun 2012

Posted by theresagreen in birds singing, coastal habitat, coastal walks, Nature, Pembrokeshire coastal path

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

barn swallow, birds singing, common dolphin, cormorants flying, gannet, grey seal, herring gull, lesser black-backed gull, Linnet, marloes peninsular, martin's haven, meadow pipit, Northern Wheatear, razorbill, stonechat, wooltack point

The Saturday following the Friday of the terrible weather dawned bright and sunny and apart from a few lurking clouds the sky looked innocently down upon us as though nothing had happened. We were still hoping for a trip over to Skomer Island, so set off to drive the hour or so that it takes to reach Martin’s Haven, from where the boats depart. We were not too hopeful of being able to get to Skomer today; Saturday’s are popular anyway and as no boats would have gone out yesterday, we expected it to be busy. A first sight of the car park, already overflowing onto adjacent land brought that sinking feeling, compounded by the attendant informing us that all 150 of the day’s landing ticket allocation had been sold by 9.30am. We were somewhat taken aback to learn that some people had begun queuing for places at 5.30am; the first boat for the island leaves at 10am. So, no Skomer for us today.

We had made some effort to get here though and determined to make the best of our situation decided to explore the area around the headland instead. The headland is known as the Marloes Peninsular; the land is owned by the National Trust and for some reason we have not managed to establish is named “Deer Park”, although there are no deer here. There are however spectacular rocks, sea views that take in most of the Pembrokeshire Islands, wildflowers and, we were fairly confident, there would be birds.

We set off to walk up to the highest point of the peninsular, Wooltack Point, distinguished by the small white building on the top that is now an active coastwatch point operated by the National Coastwatch Institute.

We were soon distracted by the small birds we began to see around us almost immediately: Stonechats, Linnets and Meadow Pipits, all species that can make homes in this rather bleak windswept habitat, carpeted with grass and heather and furnished only with low-growing tangles of gorse bushes, brambles and generally scrubby vegetation.

The first bird we had a good view of was this little Stonechat female (Saxicola torquata), who was very shortly joined by a male.

The Stonechat male perched just a short distance away from his mate

There were several Linnets flying around and one beautiful male landed quite near us on a bramble and began to sing.

This beautiful male Linnet was singing from atop a dead bramble stem

It was sunny here, but windy too, so it was some consolation to think that those on the boats travelling across to Skomer would probably be feeling the combined effects of the cold wind and choppy sea in a not-too-pleasant way. Yes, very immature, especially as we have actually made the journey in even rougher conditions, survived and gone on to have a spectacular day. Anyway, onwards and upwards to Wooltack Point. The views out over St.Bride’s Bay are truly spectacular, but the sea around this point can be treacherous with concealed rocks and strong currents, hence the presence of the Coastwatch.

The incorrectly marked compass (click to enlarge)

We attempted to work out the layout of the islands we could see, picking out Skomer easily as it was close by and Ramsey Island as we recognised the shape of St. David’s Head, but were guessing at the others. I spotted a compass of sorts on a plinth outside the door of the stone hut and as I leaned in to take a picture of it the coastguard popped out to tell us that its directions are useless as all points are wrong. Apparently even the North marking is incorrect. He was quite amused by the fact that “there is nowhere in the world from which that plaque would be correct” and has no idea why it has never been replaced.

The nearest we got to Skomer Island today, just 2 miles across the Sound

Ramsey Island, 9.5 miles away is located off St David’s Head

Dropping down onto the cliff in front of the hut we discovered it to be sheltered from the wind and much warmer. We sat there for at least an hour watching the array of seabirds flying back and forth or swimming and diving around the rocks below us.

Razorbills were the most numerous birds on the water, but there were a few guillemots and cormorants too.

Razorbills swim on the surface then suddenly make a synchronised dive and disappear underwater for ages, eventually reappearing some distance away

Cormorant flying close to the rocks, low over the water

Herring Gulls passed us by very closely

Lesser Black-backed gulls were another frequent sight

We were delighted by the appearance of Grey Seals in the sea just below us, and even more thrilled when we realised there were dolphins too. The first dolphin we picked up on was following the Skomer boat on its return trip to Martin’s Haven, but soon realised there were at least three in total.

Grey Seal

The island of Grassholm is occupied by an enormous colony of breeding Gannets (another highly recommended trip to take) and although it is 10 miles away from where we were today we kept a hopeful look out. We were rewarded with an initially distant sighting of a number of the birds circling and diving, but over the course of twenty minutes or so they gradually worked their way towards us, clearly following the progress of a shoal of fish. This is why the dolphins were there too. It would have been lovely to have had closer views, but both they and the birds were near enough to be seen well through binoculars.

One of a number of Gannets closely following a shoal of fish

The spot we had chosen to settle in seemed to be within the territory of a Pipit. He made several tours of the rocks immediately around us, making some rather disgruntled noises, clearly not happy with us, but otherwise undeterred by our presence.

I think this is a Meadow Pipit, but going on its location, it could be a Rock Pipit

The Pipit demonstrating his ‘parachuting’ display flight whilst singing

This is undoubtedly a tough environment for wildflowers, but there was thrift and sheep’s bit flowering and almost squashed into the short grass several tiny specimens of pretty blue spring squill.

There were bumblebees visiting most of the available flowers

Leaving our sheltered viewpoint we continued our walk around the remainder of the headland then cut back inland towards the car.

Rocky coves with sheltered beaches such as the one below the cliff here on the far side of the peninsular are perfect places to see grey seals and their pups. The land in the top right of the picture is the tip of Skomer.

Next on the agenda was to seek out another sheltered spot in which to eat our lunch. With hindsight we did consider that perhaps if we had not stopped at M & S in Haverfordwest for decent sarnies we may have squeezed onto that boat … ? (Normally we would have made our own, but pinned in by the tree we couldn’t get out to the shops yesterday and had no suitable supplies.) But, on the bright side, it was more than pleasant here and we had had some very fresh air and some wonderful sights. We located another likely spot to enjoy our food in and settled down. We soon realised we were being watched; a baby bunny was peeking through the grass at the top of a sandy hillock close by that we could now see was above the entrance to a warren.

Baby rabbit on the roof of the family home

We were thoroughly enjoying our lunch sitting on a grassy bank in a warm and sunny spot, appreciating our beautiful surroundings and reviewing the wealth of sights we had enjoyed, when another bird appeared in front of us. This was a handsome jaunty male Wheatear and once again we seemed to have settled ourselves in the middle of his territory. He seemed to be making a point of travelling around us, settling on rabbit hills, brambles, rocks and the like. We did feel a little guilt but carried on enjoying the sight of him quietly, staying as still as is possible whilst yielding a hefty camera lens.

A female appeared too from the same direction and made a similar circuit, so we surmised that they had a nest located somewhere behind the bank occupied by the rabbits. Beautiful birds.

The very handsome male Wheatear asserting his territory from the top of a rabbit hill

The female Wheatear with her browner plumage is also a very attractive bird

Arriving back at the lane leading to the beach we headed for the loos to find there was an unusual queue to enter the building. A number of Barn Swallows were waiting for people to leave, taking their opportunities to swoop in to their nests built in various places inside.

One of a pair of Barn Swallows waiting to get into the toilet block and back to their nests

Although they are a familiar sight swooping and gliding over the countryside, it’s not often you get such close views of these elegant birds and to appreciate their very glossy plumage.

This bird was taking advantage of the waiting time to thoroughly preen its feathers

I was listening and watching for a sight of a Whitethroat, as we have always seen them here in the past, but not so today. As we made our way up the hill towards the car park we did see another Wheatear and had a quick glimpse of the back of a Dunnock singing from a bramble patch.