the best of the rest

Elsewhere whilst on holiday on the Lleyn Peninsular I had a Purple Hairstreak and Southern Hawker (see photo of it eating a wasp) at PortMerion and a distant Osprey on the estuary here, and 2 Whooper Swans and 5 Little Egrets at the Glassyln Marshes near Porthmadog on the 10th whilst traveling home along the Conwy valley we had an Osprey over the river Conwy near Dolgarrog.

Closer to home Autumn seems to be coming in thick and fast with many of trees now turning; especialy the Limes and Poplars, and the Swifts steadily disappearing summer will soon be gone. Signs of Autumn where evident in Wavertree Mystery Park yesterday with the Long Tailed Tits now grouping up the flock contained a Lesser Whitethroat and Chiff Chaff. In Greenbank Park Nuthatch and Willow Warbler where both in song, along with Great Spotted Woodpecker, Treecreeper, Swallows, Grey Heron, female Tufted Duck, Farm Goose, Swift, and 2 Red Eared Terrapins.

Sea Legs

Whilst away on the Llyn Peninsular last week we ventured out on a wildlife cruise from Pwllheli Harbour, the trip was run by Shearwater Coastal Cruises (for details click or see the end of the post) and really is a must if you are spending time in the area. The cruises encounter regular Bottlenose Dolphins and on many occasions if they are not feeding they will join the boat and ride the waves on the bow, yet alas I was not in luck this time, but they do provide up to date photo diaries of all the dolphins they encounter on board..........bit of a kick in the face but never mind!

Yet the trip still was successful with very close groups of Grey Seals, feeding Gannets and Sandwich Terns, Manx Shearwaters, and large numbers of Shags which included nursery groups of immature birds; I had never heard of this behaviour before but the adults and immatures seem to totally remove themselves from each other (check out the disgusted look on the faces of the left hand birds above!), Kittiwakes where still breeding on the cliffs, as where Cormorants, we where to late to catch up with other breeding sea birds such as the four breeding species of Auk as they will have left the cliffs around two weeks previously and headed out to sea. But if you did use this service in June and July you would undoubtedly be treated to close up views. 2 Chough, and a family group of hunting Peregrines over the sea cliffs rounded the day off nicely.

The trip is run by Shearwater Coastal Criuises, 01758612251 or 07815717241, alan@shearwatercruises.com