Easter weekend

Easter saw me doing what I have been doing for many years over that weekend. Making a long weekend of it back home in Wales. Back to where 15 years of my life were spent. I am very much a country boy at heart despite living in the best city in the world.

Number one on the Wales agenda was a visit to a red kite feeding station. With three options in wales we went for the shortest drive over to Llanddeusant on the edges of the Brecon Beacons. It was a beautiful day which unfortunately made the photography difficult. Never the less I came away with some photos that I was happy with.

Red kites were once common over the skies of London but numbers were reduced through persecution to a handful of pairs in central Wales in the 1980s. Numbers have now recovered to approximately more than 2,000 birds and are now a very common sight throughout Wales and are even occasionally seen flying over London. 

Saturday was spent looking for the resident Bottlenose dolphins that live in Cardigan Bay. We have been seeing dolphins along this trench of the Welsh coast for years, but it was still good to see them again. The boat trip was through www.baytoremember.co.uk. We were lucky with dolphins; probably 6 in total were seen. They were busy feeding so were not in the mood to play! Oystercatchers, shags, lesser black backed gulls, guillemots and herring gulls were also seen as well as the beautiful coastal scenery between Cardigan and Mwnt.

Herring gull

Lesser black-backed gull

The 70-200mm lens that I was hiring for the weekend (www.lensesforhire.co.uk) was given a walk around the farming community that so characterises this part of Wales. 

Other images taken over the weekend.

 

White-throated dipper

Small tortoiseshell