Week in Wales PT2

 Day 3 Monday 7th of May

Hammered it down with rain all day😢 Had a drive to Tywyn , where lunch was taken in a Cafe called Toast, Gluten Free Sponge was ok, though not as good as my Coffee and Walnut!! Possibly because it was dairy free as well, difficult to pull off! But the Jacket Potato was spot on! That was the highlight of the day!😢

Day4 Tuesday 8th of May

Once again the weather looked dodge on the forecast, with north the best bet, so we headed to RSPB Conwy a reserve on the north coast. We had a nice walk around, a little quiet, though the views of the Castle and the Estuary was nice! Lot's of Warblers heard, including Willow, Sedge, Reed, Cetti's Warblers, Lesser and Common Whitethroat, Chiffchaffs and plenty of Blackcaps, seeing them was difficult, let alone getting pictures!! I had cracking views of a male Bullfinch, but missed the picture😢 The highlight was watching Housemartins collecting mud on the estuary!

Margie's picture of Conwy Castle, her obsession with Castles continues we visit 2 today!  Don't go in obviously, we are not millionaires!😱😂

 

View from the reserve by Margie

View of the reserve by Margie

Dunnock a lot more Cooperative than the various Warblers

Estuarine Mud by Margie 

Mute Swan

Housemartin, tricky little blighters to get shots of

Ringed Plover, these were the only waders we saw, except some Oystercatchers

Baby Coot

great Black-backed Gull flying through

Lightening the load

Tufted Duck

Having a scratch

Linnet along the foreshore

I showed my usual level of bravery when confronted by these humongous beasts😱!!!

Having made it to the safety of the gate, I offered Margie some sage advice on how to negotiate the Stampede. Also does this look like "cowering" to you? No, I thought not!!😂

Heron fly through

Lesser Black-backed Gulls

A selection of Herring Gulls of various ages

Chiffchaff

Love a dunnock!

We retired to the Café for a Coffee and a cake, Gluten Free Millionaires Shortbread was delicious, nice to know I can continue to help the birds through cake eating😀. As we know a birder must never relax, even as I was finishing my cake, a movement in the hawthorn just outside the window caught my eye, a Sedge Warbler, so intent on feeding even  I was able to get some reasonable pics!!

I'm not sure what this was! Had poor views of it, possibly a wet or oiled female House Sparrow or Reed Bunting?

Sedge Warbler in the Hawthorn

Not sure what it was feeding on but must of been tasty as was there for ages

After this, we were unsure of what to do, there were dangerous mutterings about visiting the Castle from a certain party, I headed this off by suggesting a visit to the Great Orme, I was vaguely aware of this place having some wild goats on it and with the Sun coming out it was decided this would be better than visiting a Castle which we had been to before (note: I tend to avoid the "we've been there before" argument to often as obviously it could be used against me at pretty much every bird reserve in the country!!😁) 

The best news was we could drive to the top of the Orme! We arrived and parked up, what a spectacular place, great views all around! Some of Margie's pics below nice to see the Sun as well!

The Gorse in full bloom was lovely, plenty of birds around as well, Wheatears, Stonechats, Skylarks and Meadow Pipits. 

Meadow Pipit on Gorse

We began the search for the Goats, Margie spotted a nice Church lower down the side and some Goats were nearby. In our excitement we headed down the slope, the extremely steep slope, vague thoughts went through my mind of the climb back up, but were banished in the Goat excitement!!

The Church by Margie

The Goats by Margie

We stalked the Goats, some of them had very big Horns but they seemed quite tame! We wandered around the lower slopes, enjoying the Sunshine and lovely scenery!

Goat

Meadow Pipit

Think they will eat pretty much anything!

Wheatear

Linnet

Common Whitethroat

Stonechat on Gorse

Jackdaw, lot's of these about

Blackbird

Red Admiral

We bumped into a local birder, who said he'd seen a couple of Choughs along the path, although when he said it was about a mile and half away, the decision was taken not to pursue them!! 😁

At this point the full realisation of the walk back up to the top dawned on us!! It was a slow old climb, but we made it eventually, the wheezing, coughing and whinging was quite embarrassing and Margie was nearly as bad! Luckily at the top there was a café selling Ice Cream, hurrah and they had Gluten Free cones, double Hurrah!! 😀😂🍦 I went for the Rum& Raisin with Coffee cream two scoop combo, Margie opting for Rum& Raisin/Toffee Fudge in a waffle cone set up!

We ate them sitting on the wall admiring the views, though we couldn't relax as every move we made was being watched!

One false move and this guy would have had the Ice Creams before we knew it, sneakily pretending to collect nest material!! 

Margie wasn't convinced with my assertion that this cloud formation was actually a Welsh Dragon's Head 

A quality view enhanced the Ice Cream eating experience! 

I had just finished my Ice Cream when a couple of the Wheatears that hade been annoyingly distant and uphill for most of the day decided to move in a bit closer!! I went into full stalk mode obvs!

Wheatear

Stonechat joined in for a while as well!

I had just retaken my seat on the wall next to Margie, when a couple of Corvids displaying in the distance took my eye! "They look a bit Chough like" I remarked! A couple of minutes later they landed right in front of us and began to feed!! Stalk mode re-engaged!

Chough, seemed to be finding plenty to eat

We had a quick wander around the visitor center where we learned that 6 pairs of Chough nest on the Orme. They also had interesting displays about the history and wildlife of the Great Orme. 

One of the displays was about the wildlife found in the seas around the Orme, this Blenny was in the tank, though I was gonna pretend I took the pic in a rock pool, I'm too honest for my own good!!!

Kind of glad we didn't find a Goat with Horns this big!!!

A really fantastic place to wander around, lot's to see, we didn't attempt the cable car or the railway! A very nice day all round!!

We drove back to base via Harlech we were going to have an evening wander on the beach, but as we arrived in the car park, banks of Fog started to roll in off the Sea, so we changed our minds, strange to watch the castle, appearing and disappearing before our eyes! Couple of Song Thrush running around on the field in front kept us entertained for a while!

Harlech Castle in the mist

Song Thrush