Curlew

30th August

Nevern Estuary - high tide

sunny, dry

I saw a Curlew here just where the left bank meets the river. It flew off eventually with a 'curlew' call. Lovely! There were loads of Canada Geese there too, taking a break on their long journey to who knows where.

Curlew in Welsh is Gylfynir.

Ty Canol Woods

29th August

Weather: sunny spells, dry

2pm

Dad and me went for a short walk to the ancient woodlands of Ty Canol Woods near Newport in Pembrokeshire. It was very beautiful and very quiet. We barely saw or heard another soul. We heard plenty of birds though. I'm getting to know the songs of quite a few by now - the Wren (y Dryw), Nuthatch (Delor y Cnau) and Blue Tit (Titw Tomos Las) and the Goldfinch (Nico) too. I know the easy ones like a Woodpigeon (Colomen) and a Jay (Sgrech y Coed) too. And crows!

We didn't see any other animals. It .was very quiet there. But you can't expect nature to put on a show for you every time you go for a walk. Sometimes, it's just quiet.

But very beautiful... Prydferth iawn.

When we got back to the car, we saw this foot in a wall. Can you see it too?

It was a lovely walk too!

Hwyl! See ya!

Butterfly Meadow

The other side of the Nevern river        28^th of August

The other side of Llwyngwair Manor’s River – the Nevern

Afternoon

2:00pm

Today me and my Dad went the other side of the river in Llwyngwair on our way we heard a Nuthatch and saw it hunting the tree with its beak for food, suddenly swooped two beautiful but NOISY Tree creepers and chased each other, then one went flying somewhere else and the other was chasing a Bumble Bee!

After when we were in the woods I spotted a Forest Bug.

The woods on the other side of the river look like a jungle.

When we got to the field (where I once saw a fox from the other side of the river) where we were told a lot of butterflies I called it the Butterfly Border!

We spotted…

·       Small Tortoiseshell

·       Speckled Wood

·       Red Admiral

And some Dragonflies

On our way back we paddled through the cold river - it was great - and then two Kingfishers (Glas y Dorlan) flew past us!


Well See ya! Hwyl!

Other summer wildlife videos

Over the summer holidays we have seen lots of wildlife. Here are some of the films we have taken just using my Dad's mobile phone.

At Llysdinam, we saw a spider with what looked like its babies in a white sack underneath its belly...

Here's another hard-working spider in our back yard. It spun a web across the path during the night. How it did this I have no idea...

 

 

 Here's some kind of grasshopper or cricket in the woods of Llwyngwair...

More dragonfly action! I love them loads...

And here's an ants nest at Lam Cam...

and to finish off, a wild rabbit in North Wales.

Llysdinam Newts and Caterpillars - & skimming stones at Lam Cam

Newbridge-on-Wye, Powys

 

Cardiff University Field Centre, Llysdinam

 

Thursday 20^th of August

 

Today we went to an old University Field Centre where people from Cardiff University used to come to study nature but it has recently closed down. My Dad used to go there a lot when he was young to see the students and watch them work with birds, newts, polecats, badgers and loads of other animals.

 

The pond is still there and is being re-worked. It has a new path and loads of life thriving in it. By the pond we found…

·         2 small Smooth Newts (Madfall Ddwr Gyffredin - Lissotriton Vulgaris)

 

 

·         Nuthatch (Delor y Cnau - Sitta europaea)   

 

 

·       2 Privet Hawk Moth Caterpillars (Gwalchwyfyn Yr Yswydd - Sphinx ligustri)

 

 

 

 

I am getting to know how the Nuthatch calls now. It has a whistling whoop-whoop sort of call.

                                                                                      

After visiting Llysdinam we went down to the Wye river and a bend near Llysdinam called Lam Cam (in Welsh it means sort of 'Big Bend'). It's a great place to see wildlife. But you need to be careful near the river.

We skimmed stones across the river and then saw a Yellow Wagtail (Sigldigwt) ...

and loads of Minnows (Crothell) in the small rock pools left as the river went down.

This huge old tree grows next to the river. The roots must be a great place for wildlife to hide. I think it was a Beech tree (Ffawydden)

Plenty of places for animals to hide...

Looking up at the huge gnarled mossy Beech tree

 

 

Interesting things again today. And all on our doorstep!

 

Hwyl! See yah!!

 

Bug Hotel - open for business!

Bug Hotel! Gwesty'r Pryf!

The really cool that we have done this summer is build a bug hotel in our garden. Dad began it during the week of the Royal Welsh Show in July. Then we all helped finish it later on in August.

We recycled things that we found in and around the garden to build a safe place for all sorts of bugs to thrive and get shelter (hopefully).

Here's how we did it. Hope you like it!

Adding old pallets...
 

Filling up the pallets...

Adding all sorts of stuff...

Nearly finished...

Wedi gorffen! Finito!
 

We used old bricks, straw, pine cones, old plastic bottles, rolled up paper and cardboard, old pipe insulation, bamboo sticks, slates and old roofing, old flower pots, old bird houses. Dad also drilled holes in loads of bits of wood (which he really enjoyed doing!) To finish it off Mam collected pinecones and Nanna gathered moss for the top. We got some old slates from Tadcu too. A real family effort!

Glaslyn Ospreys

At Glaslyn Ospreys Nature Reserve

 

30^th of July

Afternoon

Weather: Sunny

On top of Wales! (but not so sunny)
 

 

After a tiring morning climbing Snowdon, we went to Glaslyn Ospreys Nature Reserve and saw some very interesting things. The reserve is now run by some of the people who live in North Wales.

 

We saw...

A GreaterSpotted Wood Pecker (Cnocell Fraith Fwyaf - Dendrocopus major) zipping along the river bank.

A Shorttailed Vole (again - like the one in Portmeirion) (Llygoden Bengron Y Gwair - Microtus Agrestis)

 

 

Many Chaffinch (Ji-binc - Fringilla coelebs)

 

 

Many Goldfinch (Nico - Carduelis spinus)

 

 

And some very busy Grasshoppers (Sbonc y Gwair - Caelifera)

 

 

The man at the Nature Reserve had recently found…

A DeathsHead Hawk Moth (Gwalchwyfyn Penglog - Acherontia Iachesis)

 

 

If this Moth is irritated it squeaks like a mouse! Wow!

He had also found a Horntail / Wood Wasp

 

 

At the back of its body it looks like a stinger but the female uses it to lay her eggs, they can’t harm you at all!

As well there were videos of the Ospreys LIVE and RECORDED  it was very interesting, thru the telescope you could see the pole and the cameras, the Ospreys huge nest and their heads popping out of the nest!

Here's me and my sister in an Ospreys nest! (not really :-)

 

Am ddiwrnod! What a Busy day!

Hwyl! See ya!

 

 

Portmeirion - Voles and Dragonflies

In Portmeirion 2:00pm

  

29th of July

In the Woods above the village

Weather: overcast, sunny spells

Today we went to Portmeirion in North Wales, there were a lot of ponds with Dragonflies Banded Demoiselle (Gwas y Neidr) ,The Emperor Dragonfly and small fish that may have been trout we think.

I was on a bridge by one of the ponds and I started walking on the path when I saw a small hole with old bread and a Short Tailed Vole! (Llygoden Gota'r Maes)

Here is a video of the vole nibbling on the old bread and trying to get it in its hole.

I also heard some strange noises, we don’t really know what it was if you know get in touch. We think it was an Osprey (Gwalch  y Pysgod) perhaps. Portmeirion is near the Glaslyn nature reserve and the people there said that there could be Ospreys in Portmeirion but not many.

Another wonderful adventure! Antur gwych arall!

Hwyl! See ya!

‘Jellyfish Day’

22^nd of July

Weather: Overcast

At about 12:00am we went to the Traeth Mawr again. We were very excited to go in the sea when but I went in on my surf board I realised that there was a pale orange Jellyfish swimming beside me. Later on my friends found another one in the sea. Afterwards we found about 8 or 9 on the shore. Here are some pictures of them.

We also found a huge shell and took it home. The next day we boiled it and it popped open. We found out the huge shell is called a Scallop and the small ones are called Queenies.

Before:                                                  

After:

All together we found 11 Jellyfishes!

Another wonderful adventure at Traeth Mawr!

Tuesday 21st July - The Royal Welsh Show

Shwmae bawb!

Yesterday we visited the Royal Welsh Show in Llanelwedd, Powys. It's the biggest agricultural show in Western Europe. There were lots of stands about nature and wildlife. My family joined the Wildlife Nature Trust so that we can learn more about local and British wildlife.

On their stand we saw this Bug Hotel which is a great idea for encouraging insects and bees in your garden. I love bugs! My favourite is the Dung Beetle (Chwilen Du / Chwilen y Dom / Chwilen y Tail) Scarabaeoidea.

So today we began building our own Bug Hotel. My Dad got some old pallets from my Nan's house and set them up in a corner of the garden. 

Here's the pallets.

This is the corner we chose.

We have a butterfly hotel already - but no guests today.

Dad used some logs to hold the pallets.

So this is it so far - two floors. 

We need more pallets! Watch this space!

Here's good guide from Merthyr Tudful council on how to build a Bug Hotel - here.

Also at the Royal Welsh, I had my picture taken with this beautiful Kestrel (Cudyll Coch)

Cudyll Coch

But we had a big surprise when we went to the toilet in one of the big exhibition halls. There was a nest of Swallows (Gwenoliaid) above the door of the Gents! The parents came in to feed the four babies every minute or so. Here's a video my Dad took. I hope they'll be OK there.

Another interesting wildlife day! Diwrnod diddorol arall!

Pob hwyl! See ya!

Sunday 19th July - first blog entry!

Shwmae! Hi there!
My name is Cadi and this is my nature blog. My first entry is from Pembrokeshire in Wales, UK. Hope you enjoy it!


Morning - In Llwyngwair Wood

Weather: damp and soggy

At 8:00am on Sunday Morning I went to the woods with my Dad and we saw a White throated Dipper. The Welsh name for this bird is 'Bronwen y Dŵr' (White Breasted Water Bird) 

Latin name : Cinclus Cinclus

In the Nevern river we saw many brown trout swimming in a deep pool. The Welsh name for the Brown Trout is 'Brithyll y Môr' ('Brith' means 'speckled' or 'spotted')

Latin Name: Salmo Trutta

We also saw some Badger (Meles Meles) set holes. The Welsh for badger is Mochyn Daear (this literally means 'Earth Pig'). In Welsh the name pig is given to lots of animals e.g. a Woodlouse is called a 'Mochyn y Coed' (literally 'Wood Pig').

But they looked old badger holes. There were no signs of actual badgers.

The Housemartins (Gwenoliaid Bronwen - Whitebreasted Swallows) were also busy.

Afternoon

At Newport Beach – Traeth Mawr

Weather: a sunny time

At  one o’clock I went to the beach and I found some crabs. (Welsh: 'Cranc')

 To be honest we don’t now what type of crabs we found - if you know, get in touch. It might be a Shore Crab

We also found a dead Jellyfish (Sglefren y Môr) and caught a huge Shrimp (Berdysen) in the rock pools.

We had a great day looking out for wildlife. I learnt a lot. I hope this blog will help me learn more. I hope you learnt a few things and I hope the Welsh names were interesting too.

Pob hwyl!  See ya!