North wales day 1

First day in north wales, caravaning at a site with no facilities in the remote village of Pant glas half way between portmadog and camarthen. The first day was quite bright, but overcast at the same time. we decided to trawl round pordmadog and then go to criccieth just up the coast. Portmadog was not very exciting, but it had an estuary which had a small collection of bird
-teal
-redshank
-curlew
-mallard
-mute swan
-black-headed gull
By the time we got to cricieth in the afternoon it was quite warm so we decided that, after we looked around the town, we would go rock pooling on the beach there. It was about 3.00 in the afternoon when the camera actually came out, although I haddnt originally intended to get it out for rock pooling due to potential damage that it could sustain. However the first thing my brother and dad caught was well worthy of it, a small lobster from one of the larger pools.

-Lobster
After the lobster I decided to keep the camera on me, in case there were any other incredible finds that would be worth a photo.

the next thing we found was a green breadcrumb sponge under a rock, although it was no necceserally incredible, it was still pretty special.

-Breadcrumb sponge
In terms of birds there was a pair of sandwhich terns diving close to the shore, which was nice to see, my first this year.

-Sandwhich tern
Back to the rockpooling and there continued to be plenty of interesting findings. I took photos of everything we saw, so heres a run down of everything, and beleive me there were some pretty stunning finds.

-green shore crab

-Red breadcrumb sponge

-Painted goby

-Butterfish

Very big shanny

there was a great deal of amazing rockpooling finds, one of the best rockpooling trips i have ever done, the best find obviously the lobster, but the butterfish was spectacular and I have never seen a painted goby before so there were plenty of amazing finds.

Back at the caravan I decided to for a walk, because the habitat in the feilds opposite the caravan site looked ideal for bog dragonflies, and black darters living in the area, were obviously top of that list. I was also hopeful that a small red damselfly or two might still be around. So I walked along the cycle track and glanced into the feilds.

I could see small ponds that looked ideal but I was reluctant to go over the gate and have a look, being told off for tresspassing is not a pleasant experience, so I decided not to risk going over the gate to try and flush odonata from the reeds. sadly therefore I missed out on the potential, but i did however find a juvenile robin, which is some consellation.

-Juvenile robin

so overall it was a good day, despite the fact that i was unable to get a decent view of the ponds.

east coast holiday day 2 sunday

went to flamborough head today-nothing unusual there as per usual but plent of interesting stuff. when we arrived it was early in the morning and as we walked down the many steps we saw whitethroats, goldfinches and linnets aswell as house martins. when we arrived at the bottom ther were house martins everywhere aswell as kittywakes. as the tide went out we explored further and came across yet more kittywakes and some guillemots and razorbills too. my brother went rockpooling and caught a blenny and a squat lobster and, most incredibly, a lumpsucker. it was quite amazing but my brother kept bragging about how it was going to be the bast thing on the holiday, but as, if you read on, will find out-it was not.

over lunch we were joined by a bold and hyperactive wagtail. i put out some crumbs and it almost came to feed off my hand-but diddnt. my dad said that it must have a nest nearby but i said i could go and find it because it would be hidden up a cliff and-as far as icould see was not in an accecable place from the ground, due to the riseing tide. howver when my dad said that he thought he had seen a seals head chaseing seagulls i explored through the caves to get closer to the seal. i had not seen a seal yet this year so it was pretty cool. but whats even more amazing is when i turned around from the stretch off rock i was on (i had trainers, not sandels, so couldnt get my feet wet) to see my dad and brother coming i saw the wagtail returing and going into a cave above my nest. i then heard frantic cheaping so inadvertantly found the nest after all.

day 7-last day on the island

another rather fishy day

sea bass
rock cook
corkwing wrasse
lobster