A day out at The National Botanic Gardens of Wales

Date:  28 January 2017
Location:  The National Botanic Gardens of Wales, Middleton Hall, Llanarthne, SA32 8HN

After our bird count on Saturday we decided to venture to The National Botanic Gardens of Wales. The weather was pleasant, a little cloudy, but nice nevertheless. Throughout weekends in January, entry to the gardens was only £3 per person, so brilliant value for money!

The iconic glasshouse of The National Botanic Gardens

Armed with a bag of bird seed (bought at the reception) we went looking for wildlife! Our first stop was the nature reserve and was greeted by several Chaffinches. A inquisitive robin started following us around and almost took seed out of my hand. We also saw some wrens and blackbirds too.

A very friendly robin

Waxwings at The Range, Swansea

I had a tip off that there were about 30 waxwings near The Range, Winch Wen, Swansea. I have never seen one before so off we set this morning to see if we could get lucky.

It's been a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky. When we arrived at The Range carpark we could see a group of people with binoculars instead of shopping bags, we followed them to some nearby trees and there they were...about 15 beautiful waxwing sitting in one tree. I noticed there were some more in a nearby berry bush.

What a find and what a stunning bird, I hope the rest of 2017 will be this easy to spot rare birds, but I very much doubt it. This is now #42 bird for #My200BirdYear - you can see how I am doing here.

Here are some of the pics...

Waxwing on berry tree

Waxwing scoffing the berries