July 2020 – Tales from Wild Wales

Kingfishers : juvenile on left, adult with worn plumage on right.

Last week I decided to throw off the lockdown shackles and broaden my recent horizons. The first part of the plan was to try to capture the Neowise Comet, which I managed to do with some success; I planned to head off immediately afterwards down to Cardigan (about 40 miles away) ready for a visit to the Teifi marshes, the following morning. So in the early hours I hit the very empty A487 and soon arrived in Cardigan. After a few hours sleep I woke and lit the stove to put a brew on. I soon realised there was a gas leak: so no more cups of tea (or coffee….or toast…..or any hot food……) for me on this trip!

The previous night, as I stood with my tripod in the castle grounds at Aberystwyth, a photographer friend had loomed out of the darkness. She wasn’t up for photographing the comet but was thrilled about the kingfisher photographs she’d recently taken at the Teifi Marshes. A brood of recently fledged juveniles had been brought to one of the pools by their parents to learn how to catch fish; my friend had managed to capture the three youngsters lined up on a branch just as one of the parents joined them! It looked like a very promising time to visit the Marshes.

So by eight o’clock I was settling in to the mallard hide to see if anything would turn up; sure enough, within minutes a kingfisher had appeared. It perched on one of the strategically located branches directly in front of the hide. Between bursts of kingfisher activity I got chatting to another woman there, armed with a camera and long lens. She seemed to know what she was talking about, and I learned the following:

A few days previously a brood of fledged juveniles kingfishers had been brought to the reserve by their parents to learn how to fish.
At least eight juvenile kingfishers had already been ringed on the reserve by the local ringing team. That would make about 17 birds in the area by now, assuming that all were still alive.
Kingfishers have two broods a year.
It doesn’t take long before the youngsters have their own hunting perches, which they defend against allcomers.
Adult kingfishers have bright reddish orange feet; juveniles have muddy orange feet.
Adult females have an orange lower mandible (the underside of the beak); males’ are dark, like the upper mandible.
When kingfishers fly or drop down to catch a fish, they move very quickly! It’s virtually impossible to keep up with them at close range.
The kingfisher hide on the reserve had been burnt down by vandals earlier this year.
Despite this, the kingfishers keep on coming. They don’t seem to notice the line of admirers on the path nearby……….

After a rather lengthy lull in activity I took the opportunity to stretch my legs. It was a short walk down to the site of the kingfisher hide, which was pitiful to behold. The local youth presumably find these hides handy for all sorts of activities, not many of which are related to ornithology, I suspect. I can understand that, but why do these scumbags then find it so gratifying to burn them down? This is the second hide to have suffered the same fate, and another has been systematically vandalised to such an extent that it has had to be closed…… but I digress. By mid-morning the sun was so high and harsh that getting a decent photograph was impossible, so I took a long siesta. Having a coffee in the main street of Cardigan was a novelty after all these months!

I was back at the kingfisher pool by late afternoon, by which time the light was perfect. Kingfishers were active from the word go and I found a spot where I could point my lens through a gap in the vegetation for a different angle on a perch used by the birds for hunting. One individual looked like one of this year’s young, and there were interesting interactions between it and other birds. One such, which I was lucky to photograph (see main pic.), appeared to be with an adult, judging by the latter’s worn plumage and partial moult. As afternoon merged into evening I enjoyed the company of other people. We agreed on how lucky we were to watch these exotic little birds at such close quarters – living their lives in such a relaxed and unselfconscious way. They were totally unconcerned by our presence.

By this time I had taken almost eight hundred photographs in less than twenty-four hours, got through two full batteries, and there was no prospect of any breakfast the next morning. It was time to go home.

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A recent comment from one of my followers (Lotelta) made me realise that I haven’t taken many photographs of the immediate surroundings of my home. I have always found that – sadly – I tend not to notice my surroundings once they become familiar. So spending so much time within walking distance this year gave me the opportunity to put that right. The main image shows the house (arrowed) from the north. However, viewing it from here gives a misleading impression of its location because it is actually on a narrow ridge – one of a series running east/west, each with steep drops into valleys to both south and north. What appears to be a grassy backdrop is in fact the next ridge to the south. The house is at about 200 metres (660ft) altitude.

We had been looking for a new house in the Aberystwyth area for some time which gave us both private space to work in as well as communal rooms, but we were fairly flexible about the location. I think we first visited Brynonnen on the only still and sunny day that January, because the feeling of spaciousness and calm which we both (I think) experienced was lovely. I can only liken it to the feeling of reaching a hill-top after a stiff climb – without the climb! There is a massive downside to the location, of course, because we get wind from almost every direction, which can be particularly tiresome. As I frequently tell people – “we get a lot of weather up here”.

The house is situated in the ‘green desert’ of mid-Wales. This does not imply a lack of rain – far from it – but rather the barren nature of the grass monoculture surrounding us. Agriculture is devoted to one product – sheep meat – and with a few exceptions it is largely a manmade landscape. Most hedgerows – if they ever existed – have been replaced by wire fencing, there are large areas of forestry at slightly higher altitudes, and there is very little wildlife in or over the fields. The one saving grace of this particular valley is its oak woodland. It is more wooded than most in north Ceredigion, having escaped the fate of others locally, where historically woodland was felled to provide fuel for the many lead mines in the area and/or for pit props in the first world war.

The second picture is more or less a reverse of the first. It shows the most extensive area of woodland in the vicinity, although a visit in person shows how even-aged and spindly the individual trees are – a clear sign of clear-felling and then re-growth without thinning. This reduces its wildlife value somewhat but nevertheless the wood is a fabulous landscape feature.

There are some areas of rough grazing nearby and this provides more interest for the wildlife watcher. One such is a gorse-covered, south-facing slope just below the house. It was here that I was able to photograph a dark green fritillary in early June, having first seen one in the garden – a most unusual sighting!

Four pairs of red kites nested this year on the north-facing valley side below the house; the site of each nest can be seen in the top picture. I have written about them in a previous post, and if there is one thing I will remember the area for when I leave it will be the red kites. Barely a day passes without being able to hear their lovely whistling calls.

The spring of 2020 was warm and sunny. In most years by early June the Welsh landscape is more or less one shade of green. and the landscape photographer can more or less put their camera away. The second photograph (above), taken on June 5th, shows that the bracken and oak trees have reached that stage whereas the grassland, with its shorter roots, is suffering from a lack of moisture. There was talk of a drought. At this point the weather changed and the remainder of June has been largely cool and changeable, with plenty of cloud and copious amounts of rainfall. The landscape can now be summed up in one word – green.

I’ve been lucky to be present during two exceptions to the monotony of the last few weeks. During the weather breakdown there were brilliant blue skies one afternoon and slow-moving thundery showers; ideal conditions for a rainbow, and I was able to photograph one from the field behind the house.

The other occurred early one morning. I happened to glance out of the bathroom window while visiting the toilet and saw some wisps of low-level fog floating up the valley from the sea before dispersing. Hurriedly dressing and grabbing my gear, I spent half an hour on the ridge top before returning to bed. This picture is looking inland, down and across the valley to the south of the house.

We get tremdous sunsets throughout the year but again, speaking as a photographer, there is no substitute for a good foreground at sunset. The following was one of the best sunsets I have ever seen, and the tiny tree on the skyline is a crucial part of the image, giving a sense of scale to its surroundings.

So despite the fabulous location of the house, photographically speaking there is no substitute for good light, colourful vegetation, and/or interesting skies. And they don’t happen too often.

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Month: July 2020

Nine things I learned about kingfishers last week.

X marks the spot.