Creature Feature (16): Wildlife at Mwnt, Gwbert and Cardigan Island

Mwnt from the Cardigan Farm Park
You can just make out the white bell tower of the Church of the Holy Cross, halfway up on the right.

We enjoyed a visit to Mwnt on the Cardigan coast of Wales last weekend.
The weather was glorious and we saw some interesting wildlife.
This was the first sign (below) we saw as we left the NT car-park at Mwnt...

This is the church in its glorious setting...

We were just enjoying our cliff-top picnic when we spotted our first seal...

After lunch we drove the short distance on to Gwbert,
to do the coastal walk around the Cardigan Island Coastal Farm Park.

We were thrilled to see this Common Lizard,
who had ventured indoors.
It was 'rehabilitated' seconds after this photo was taken.

Out on the cliffs we spotted a few Oystercatchers...

and this female Stonechat...



We spotted a Skylark ...

having watched Pipits earlier at Mwnt...

Suddenly we spotted this 'tortoiseshell' bird.
It was my first Turnstone:
an exciting moment!
The bird is sporting its breeding plumage.

By now, we could see Cardigan Island very clearly
from our gorse-lined cliff path...

I tried out my mini-tripod for the first time,
to see if I could get a steady shot of the bluebells on the island,
and of the nesting gulls.
I'm afraid I was only moderately successful,
but it gives an idea of the beautiful blue swathes.

We spent ages with these gulls, waiting for more seals to surface,
but the tide was high
and there were a lot of motor boats about, making quite a racket,
despite the speed limit in these conservation waters.

The Herring Gull below was nesting on the rock between the mainland and the island.

I have often seen Burnet Moths on the cliffs at Mwnt.
We were too early this time, but I did spot the caterpillar below.
It unrolled itself and trundled off into the grass.
It was pretty fat!

There were scores of small blue butterflies from the Lycaenidae family,
but they were too fast for me to catch on film
and I did not like to disturb them.

However, this beautiful creature from the same family
was quite unperturbed
as I took its photograph
on the way back to the car...

Small Copper Butterfly

Postscript...

We kept our eyes on the water as much as we could in the hope that the Porpoises or Bottlenose Dolphins would appear. We did not spot any on this occasion, but I was pleased to read on the Whales in Wales blog that they were definitely around. I hope you were able to enjoy fine weather in your neck of the woods, and that you spotted some interesting flora and fauna, too.

• BBC website: Gwbert panorama
• A Coastcard Land&Lit post on the Mwnt | Bardsey Island literary associations
  

Window on Wales (3): Beach Huts, Langland

It's been a long winter, but at last there are signs of spring. My thoughts even turned on to summer when I read Kay's post about beach huts. It made me wonder whether those of you who live in other parts of the UK or beyond have a beach hut photo to post?

I took these in the summer, when there were blue skies overhead. Langland is on the Gower Peninsula. It is adjacent to Mumbles and very close to Swansea, home town of the poet, Dylan Thomas.

Incidentally, speaking of Gower, you might enjoy looking at these fabulous adder photographs at Nicholaston on the Welsh Wildlife site, accessed via the excellent Gower Wildlife Blog. I was amazed to think of adders in early spring, especially after such a cold winter.

Window on Wildlife (6): (Not a) Lizard...

Kilchurn Castle on Loch Awe, Scotland

• Lizard?
• Castle (with David)
• Orchid

We drove past this wonderful loch-side castle en route for the isle of Skye last year. It was one of our regrets that we did not have time to stop, so this year we made a point of including Kilchurn on our Scottish itinerary. The castle was built by Sir Colin Campbell in the middle years of the 15th century. Recent research into masons' marks indicates that some of the masons who worked on Rosslyn Chapel may have moved on to exercise their skills at Kilchurn.

It was rather dull weather when we there, but I found some colourful views on Google Images.

The orchids were truly amazing in their beauty and abundance. I recall my school days in Kent when it was considered a red-letter day if we spotted an orchid in the wild. However, my excitement at seeing these flowers was surpassed on this occasion by the delight at finding and photographing the small lizard. I have occasionally seen lizards in the wild (we once found one in our back garden before we moved to our present house), but this lizard was so colourful. I have looked on the internet, and it may just be a Common Lizard; but its markings seem a little unusual. I kept coming across the Red Eft on the web, but I have a hunch that this was a lizard and not a young newt.

• Reptiles and amphibians of the UK

STOP PRESS: My thanks to Chris, the Co-ordinator of the Sand Lizard Captive Breeding Programme and Administrator of RAUK (www.herpetofauna.co.uk) for telling me that my

'first assumption of a Red Eft is closest. It is, in fact, a juvenile newt.'

The fact that the pale stripe down the back continues to the tail apparently suggests that the creature is a juvenile Palmate Newt.