Showing posts with label beach. Show all posts
Showing posts with label beach. Show all posts

Thursday, 26 March 2020

The Coast

As you might be aware we are now on a lock down in the UK for at least three weeks, I am working from home so it's garden birding for me for the foreseeable future. This post is from a day out we took a while back before everything changed.

We took a day out to the coast to try out our new car (not new new but hopefully one that doesn't eat money in repairs!) and give it a good run. The East coast is one of our favourite places - Filey, Bridlington, Scarborough.......

An early stop at the Holbeck car park in Scarborough on the off chance of a Mediterranean Gull, we didn't see any but the sun was shining and we had a walk down to the sea anyway.






It's a long way down


And a longer way back up....phew!!


On to Brid, the weather by now was a little mixed, cloud, sun, wind and it was pretty quiet everywhere. The tide was coming in and Turnstones were up on the walls around the harbour and I managed to spot two Purple Sandpipers on the beach.

Purple Sandpipers


Taking a bath with some Turnstones!


Turnstones




I saw a Cormorant on the marker, looked away for a few seconds and it had been replaced by a Gull!



There were Gulls everywhere of course, i'm still working through IDing them!



Herring Gulls








Black-headed Gull




Lots of Redshank were in the harbour







We found quite a few shells along the tideline and a few dead fish, some kind of Flounder perhaps?



A plant root I think?


Then my husband found this fossil - we've never found one before so it created a bit of excitement!





In the walls along the jetty's lots of snails were hiding.





This was the scene on the way home


I think nearly everyone who checks in on the blog is probably affected by Covid-19, I hope you're all staying safe and continue to do so. 

Monday, 26 August 2019

Pembrokeshire Coastal Path

The Pembrokeshire Coast Path runs for 186 miles along the coast and part of it goes from Abeireddy on to Porthgain, this is the only part of it we walked. It's said that you could walk it in one go taking about 10-15 days but the rate we walk it would take us at least double this!!

Walking along from the Blue Lagoon there is a hidden away beach, Traeth Llyfn, which has rock pools, sand and beautiful sea............and a lot of steps to get down to it!









The cliff tops were covered in butterflies - Painted Ladies, Wall, Gatekeeper, Meadow Brown, Blues.......

I think these are all Common Blue








A rather worn out Painted Lady


A less worn out Painted Lady!


Meadow Brown


Small Copper


Gatekeeper


Peacock


Meadow Brown


......and birds - Linnets, Meadow Pipits, Wheatear, Stonechats, Gulls, Raven, Crows, Sparrows and Oystercatchers, though we heard those long before we managed to spot them.

Oystercatchers


Linnet



Meadow Pipit


Wheatear


House Sparrows


Plenty of other insects buzzed around, lots of Bees, Crickets/Grasshoppers, Shield Bugs and Beetles

Pied Hover Fly?


Meadow Grasshopper?


Field Grasshopper


Sawfly?


Hairy Shieldbug


We walked on to Porthgain - lots more steps down to it and they were having a local 5 a side tournament so it was quite busy. The lady we rented the cottage from had recommended The Shed - the local Fish and Chip shop here but in the end we weren't really in the mood for fish so decided on lunch in The Sloop Inn instead, lovely big plates of food and a nice cold drink! We got ice creams for the walk back and had to eat them quickly as it was so warm. 



I've got to say the walking is fine, I can walk for hours usually but throwing in all the steps today was painful, my poor calves!! It was all worth it though. 

The view looking away from the sea


and towards it







So our little bit of the Coastal Walk took us a good few hours and it was just beautiful. I'd love to go back to walk other parts of it some day.