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 

An evening walk at Crymlyn Burrows, Swansea Bay

Sanderling on Swansea Bay

Date:  24 July 2017

Location:  Crymlyn Burrows, Swansea

The weather has been really weird the last few days, so when the sun decided to shine at 6 o'clock we made our way to one of our favourite nature havens: Crymlyn Burrows, Swansea Bay.

I have written a few blogs on this special place and every time I visit I always discover something new. Now owned by Swansea University, this  SSSI designated area has an array of different habitats: salt marsh, woodland and sand dunes. We were only there for a hour and this is what we discovered...

Dragonfly - needs IDing

Evening Primrose flowers

The sandy dunes to the beach

When we got to the beach we noticed lots of jellyfish were being washed up on the beach (we counted over 20 ranging from small to gigantic ones). I think they are barrel jellyfish, but not 100% sure - be great if someone could confirm that they are.

Apart from the jellyfish there was a lovely group of sanderlings near the shoreline. I love the way the run away when the waves come in, then follow it back out...lovely little birds and a new spotting for #My200BirdYear (I am now on 124).

Sanderling

Sanderlings near the waves

Sanderlings with Mumbles in the background

On the way back to the car we spotted more interesting things such as a flock of linnets, a 11 spotted ladybird and a pellet. Crymlyn Burrows is one of my favourite places in the world, a great place to explore...

A flock of linnets

=

A ladybird

Some sort of bird pellet

Day 11 - 30 Days Wild - A trip to Crymlyn Bog, Swansea

* Today's random act of wildness - A meet up with my local Wildlife Trust group *

On Saturday 11 June, Dan and I met up with our local Wildlife Trust group (Swansea) to visit a local nature reserve - Crymlyn Bog, Swansea. It was a good turn out, about 20 people, and it was great walking around the reserve learning all about the plants and other wildlife that was there. Our guides were Wildlife Trust's Peter Hatherley & Tara Daniels, but we all helped each other identifying different things - all the people in the group were so friendly.

This is what we discovered...

flowers...

Southern Marsh Orchid

Marsh Lousewort (Thanks to Mark Barber for helping me ID it)

Common Cottongrass

Common Sundew

Marsh Cinqufoil

Ragged-Robin

Water Dropwort

The group walking along the boardwalks

insects...

Damselfly (needs Identifying)

Damselfly (needs Identifying)

Azure Damselfly

A funnel web created by the Labyrinth Spider

Beautiful jewel Dock Beetle

Dock Beetles mating

More Dock Beetles

Wolf Spider

Nettle Tap Moth (Thanks Dan Newton for helping my ID it)

Hoverfly

A species of Cranefly (?) mating

Sabre Wasp (correct me if I am wrong)

Broad Bodied Chaser Dragonfly (male)

Brown China-mark moth (Thanks Dan Newton for helping my ID it)

Some of the crowd exploring the reserve

birds...

A Song Thrush's egg - we found two on the floor, one was broken - who knows why they were there or what had stolen them from the nest.

Great Tit with it's dinner

It was a fantastic day out and even though the weather was a bit dull and grey we still managed to see lots and learn about all the different things we discovered. When everyone went home Dan and I decided to have one more walk around the reserve while things were quiet. It was starting to brighten up a bit and it was definitely getting warmer so we headed to the boardwalks where we had seen lizards before. 

Quietly we walked around and it wasn't long before the lizards started coming out - we saw three altogether and one was even growing a new tail, which I am never seen before.

This lizard must have lost it's tail and growing a brand new one

A common lizard 

Another common lizard

Here's Wildling helping me trying to ID some of the flowers!