An afternoon walk down Rhossili, Gower

Date:  28 September 2018

Location:  Rhossili, Gower
Weather:  Sunny with a slight breeze

A long over-due walk down the outstanding beautiful Gower and it's jewel in the crown, Rhossili 

It's been awhile since we ventured down Gower, so seeing as we had the afternoon free we decided to head to Rhossili, one of the most glorious parts of the Gower Peninsula. It is only a 40 minute drive and the weather was beautiful.

Rhossili is owned by the National Trust, so not being members we had to pay for parking (£2.50 for 2 hours, £5.00 for all day). There's plenty of parking and a few eateries around, but we just wanted some fresh air and to see what wildlife we could discover.

We headed straight towards the Worm and it wasn't long before we heard that familiar squawking of Choughs. We could see two, but unfortunately couldn't get a pic, but it didn't matter as it was just great to see them again.

Arty photo with Worms Head in the background

We were debating whether to walk over to the Worm, but we thought we may have left it too late and we didn't want to be marooned there. So we sat on the cliffs and scanned the ocean and cliff faces to see what wildlife we could spot. We saw a Kestrel a number of times and a few Rock Pipits. We also saw a number of butterflies, especially Red Admirals and Peacocks. 

Red Admiral

We continued exploring and I saw a large bird sitting on a nearby wall. I could see it was a Kestrel, perhaps the one we had seen earlier? But it was beautiful, I think it's a female and she sat there for quite awhile and for the first time I managed to get some good pics of the bird.

Beautiful Kestrel

Kestrel striking a pose

Another pic of the awesome Kestrel

Other bird life we spotted was Ravens, Stonechat, Dunnocks, Wheatears and lots of gulls, including Lesser and Black Backed Gulls.

Raven

Stonechat

Pied Wagtail

Apart from birds, there were quite a few fungi on the ground, here are just three photos of some of the different ones we found.

A rather large fungi

Tiny little puffballs?

A lovely looking mushroom

As we started walking back to the car we decided to pop into the sunflower field. This year the Gower National Trust planted 400,000 sunflowers. This is amazing for bees and birds will absolutely love the seeds when they are finished flowering. Next year they plan to plant lavender fields too...this will be awesome! Unfortunately, we left it too late to fully appreciate the sunflowers in all their glory, but we did find a few that were still flowering. Next year I will have to come and see them earlier :) - If you want to see what they looked like just type 'sunflowers Rhossili' into Google to see all the amazing pics.

Most of the sunflowers were dead (but with lots and lots of sunflower seeds for birds)

I found one sunflower though that was still shining bright :)

We had a fantastic time with our spare few hours and we don't understand why we don't explore the Gower more often (its literally on our doorstep!) - The sun was setting and created that lovely warm Autumn glow over the bay. I took one last pic as I looked back on the bay and it's no surprise that this is an Area of Outstanding Beauty.

Beautiful warm glow from the setting sun over the coast

The sun sets behind the worm and we say goodbye to Rhossili