Red kites, Cayuga ducks, Wigeon and other wildlife in West Wales

This is my second post about my great week's holiday near Cardigan in West Wales at the end of March.  The weather was very good during the first part of the week so I managed to take lots of photographs.

On Monday, 27th March, we went to the Red Kite feeding station in the lovely location at Bwlch Nant Yr Arian.  There was a path round the beautiful lake that was set in a large valley.

Near the edge of the lake I came across a female Hooded Merganser.

In fact there were two female Hooded Mergansers.  They were being quite difficult as they kept swimming around the edge of the lake, but were mainly in places hidden by trees or tall grasses.  They popped out from time-to-time in spots were there was only a little vegetation.

We arrived in the area at about 2 p.m. and had time to wander round part of the lake before Kite feeding took place at 3 p.m.  The sky started to fill up with red kites, which were very difficult to photograph with just a small camera.  It was wonderful to be there as, eventually, there were hundreds of kites flying around over the lake.

At the designated time, the kite feeder entered the grassy area in front of the red kite hide and threw down handfuls of food.  I think they were pieces of chicken and, in a neat line (similar to aeroplanes landing and taking off), the red kites flew down to the ground, grabbed a piece of meat with their claws and flew back off over the lake.  It was an amazing sight to see! 

This was repeated several times during feeding time and was just amazing to watch.

Some black crows were also trying to join in at the dinner!

The birds seemed to take it in turns to come down and grab some food.  While others were flying in for dinner, others were still wheeling around in the sky.

 When I downloaded this photograph onto the computer and cropped it, I noticed that the red kite on the right-hand side has a recording device fastened to the front of each wing.

I was taking photos during the kite feeding from the back of this red kite hide.  The birds were being fed from the area in front of it.

Back at the self-catering house in Gwbert I had to suffer by watching great sunsets from the large windows in the living room nearly every evening.  It's a hard life, but someone's got to do it!

The next day we went to a farmer's market in St. Dogmaels, which was just across the estuary from where we were staying.  There were stalls with local food and crafts, but I was more interested in the pond on the opposite side of the road.  I had never seen such large ducks before and later learned that they were Cayuga ducks and that their eggs were being sold at the market.

I loved the different set of colours and, in fact, the dark green duck on the left looked more like a black duck when I was taking the photograph.

This huge speckled duck was taking a good look at me while I was crouched down trying to take it's photograph!

Living with the Cayuga ducks was this rather strange looking white duck with red blobs on it's face.  I believe it is a Muscovy duck.

It rained nearly all the next day, so we spent most of the time in the house and only went out for a drive in the afternoon in order to look round a church in a nearby village.  It was too wet to take any photographs.  It also rained on our last day but, at lunchtime, there was a break in the clouds and my sister and I walked down the road to Patch beach at the end of the Teifi estuary.  The tide was in and this is a view across the estuary.

We went back to the house before it started raining again.  Then, later that day, it stopped raining and we walked back down to Patch when it was low tide.  There we were treated to the sight of this white Little Egret promenading round the water's edge.

I quite like this profile of the egret with it's narrow white feathered plume head-dress blowing in the wind.  As you can see, the egret was some distance away from us.

Eventually the egret got fed up of being stalked by a couple of photographers and flew off along the estuary.  It can just be seen going on it's way in this photograph.

We then explored the other side of Patch, nearer to the sea, where (again some distance away) we came across a group of Wigeon feeding on the grass.  The light was bad and they rather blend into the background - but at least I managed to get a picture where they are more-or-less visible!

We walked along the path at the edge of the beach for a while.  Up on the cliffs, in the middle of the row of houses, was the wonderful house where we had spent our week in West Wales.

With many thanks to my sister and brother-in-law for a great week's birthday holiday in Wales.

Trees, Eurasian Teal and Little Egret in Rheidol Valley and Ynys Hir nature reserve, West Wales

I am afraid I am still on catch-up with my blog posts - I've got lots of catching-up to do!  Now I am at the end of March when I went on holiday to Gwbert, near Cardigan, in West Wales with my sister, brother-in-law and a couple of friends.  We stayed in a great self-catering house with picture windows overlooking Cardigan Bay.

On the day after we arrived, Saturday, we went on the Vale of Rheidol steam railway that runs along the edge of the valley between Aberystwyth and Devil's bridge.  At the station I saw this gull promenading along the opposite platform.

The view from the train was really lovely.  There were lots of bare-branched trees so we saw more than we would have done had we been there in the summer when the leaves would have been blocking our view.

There was a river running along the bottom of the valley, which could be seen through the trunks of the many trees that lined the route.

The sun was shining and there were lots of rolling Welsh hills in the distance.

In one section of the valley there was a large reservoir that was bordered by a wood along one side.

I have to say that the view from the railway line was very spectacular during the whole journey.

Here there is a waterfall running down from one of the hills on the opposite side of the valley.

At Devil's Bridge we stopped for a while as the steam engine was uncoupled.  It was moved along the track to the other end of the station before travelling back along the second rail to the front of the carriages ready to be rejoined for our journey back to Aberystwyth.

We are now on our way back along the railway line.

After we got back to the house, in the late afternoon, my sister and I walked to the end of the cliffs in Gwbert.  There, below us on the rocks, were three oystercatchers.  Unfortunately, they were some distance away so I could not take a very clear photograph.

On Sunday we went to visit Cardigan castle, which is very small and not really worth photographing as it is more-or-less just a rebuilt manor house, with very little of the original building left.  It was very hot and sunny so we decided to go for a walk on Poppits Sands.  Here we saw a man with a trotting pony and colourful blue cart/trap.  The pony was trotting backwards and forwards along the beach and in the sea.

Later the same day we went to the RSPB nature reserve at Ynys Hir.  Here I saw this male Eurasian Teal.

 And this female Eurasian Teal.

There were several male and female Eurasian Teals swimming around in one of the lagoons. 

I also saw this white Little Egret which, unfortunately, was in the distance and so I could not get any clear photographs of it.

It was moving along the water's edge at quite a speed, paddling with it's big yellow feet.

I hope to soon post more news of the rest of the week's wildlife spotting, which includes red kites at a feeding station, domestic Cayuga ducks, group of Wigeon and another Little Egret in the Teifi estuary.