Welcome To My Blog,This Will Be Mainly Used As A Diary For My Local Birding Patch At East Halton/Goxhill On The Banks Of The Humber Estuary,With Occasional Twitching And Visits Elsewhere Including Photos From Mine & Tracey's Walks And Holidays Around Our Beautiful Countryside.
Today we planned to walk from Stackpole Quay,taking in the lovely Barafundle Bay and Beach,then onto Broad Haven and then inland around Bosherston Lily Ponds and back across Stackpole Warren To the car.
This walk,it has to be said,is the most impressive walk we have done along any coastline in the UKand it takes in some truly stunning scenery,with some great places along the way to stop for a drink or a snack,being a welcome added bonus.
The scenery was the main star today,but we did manage some great wildlife sightings and i even found a new species for myself as well.
While looking around Stackpole Warren amongst the dunes i found a Dune Villa Beefly,but flushed it,thankfully after about 10 minutes i managed to find another and this time got some decent photos.I could easily spend a full day here looking for insects.
After enjoying finding this rare member of the Beefly family i then found a Gloworm larvae predating a Banded Snail,which was just brilliant to see and i managed to obtain some decent shots of this cracker as well.
Bird sightings today consisted of mainly Choughs,which is certainly never a bad thing,with 12 in one flock seen near Barafundle Bay and a further 2 near Stackpole Head.
Other species seen included 2 Raven a single Wheatear and 2 each of Raven and Stonechat.
The following are my favourite photos from this epic day!
Chough,Stackpole Warren.
Stackpole Head
Barafundle Beach
Stackpole Head
Some Outstanding Scenery Around Mowing Word.
Broad Haven Beach
Dune Robberfly,Stackpole Warren.
Dune Villa Beefly,Stackpole Warren.
Gloworm Larvae On It's Prey,A Banded Snail,Stackpole Warren.
The Entrance To Bosherston Lily Ponds,From Broad Haven/Stackpole Warren.
A poor forecast today saw us starting the day by walking around a very wet Tenby,then as the rain subsided and eventaully stopped we had a walk around the impressive Carew Castle and later in the day i returned to Strumble Head to watch for seabirds.
Carew castle has an impressive position standing over Carew inlet on part of the Milford Haven waterway and there has been a castle of some sorts here from the Iron age onwards.
It has a great setting for wildlife also,although we did not see anything out of the ordinary,we read that Greater Horseshoe Bats use the castle as a roost site.
After enjoying the castle i dropped Tracey off at the cabin and i headed over to Strumble Head.
After arriving and getting in position in the old WW2 shelter which is used by local birders to watch the sea,it soon became apparant that there was lots of Manx Shearwaters feeding offshore and passing by to their breeding colonies at Skomer/Skokholm and Ramsey Island.
It was great to see these long distance travellers in such good numbers,but it was expected to be fair as half of the worlds population of this species breed on the three islands,approx. 360,000 breeding pairs,so my small count of at least 1500 birds pales into signifcance,but what an impressive sight to see for an east coast birder.
Other species seen here included several Gannets feeding offshore,Kittiwakes,Guillemots,Razorbills and at least 3 Harbour Porpoise,making for some enjoyable viewing.
The following are a selection of photos from the day and a couple of video clips.
Today was a good forecast,until late afternoon/early evening,so we started by walking from Aberiddi along the amazing coastline up to Porthgain and back,taking in the famous Blue Lagoon and then in the afternoon we walked from Green Bridge up to St.Govans Chapel and back walking a good 15.5 miles during the day.
The areas of coast we covered today were just amazing and will last in our memories for years to come.
Wildlife encounters today included 4 Wheatear,6 Chough,4 Stonechat,Wall Brown,10 Dark-green Fritillary and 5 Painted Lady between Aberiddi and Porthgain and the section between Green Bridge and St.Govans Chapel saw us recording 14 Chough,5 Stonechat,10 Wheatear and at least 10 Great-green Bush Cricket.
The following are a selection of pics from our day.
Blue Lagoon,Aberiddi.
Spectacular Coastline Views Between Aberiddi And Porthgain.
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