Posted in Birds, Nature, Uncategorized, Wildfowl, tagged birds, Nature, wildfowl on January 5, 2018| 8 Comments »
Argentine red shoveler (Anas platalea) with an itch
I didn’t have many days off over Christmas and New Year and the weather was mostly wet and windy, but we did manage to visit the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust’s Llanelli Wetland Centre this week, on a day that was quite dry but with a cold wind.
We have been there many times before, as we are WWT members, so many of the birds seem like old friends… (more…)
Posted in Birds, Uncategorized, Wildfowl, tagged Carmarthenshire, wildfowl, winter on January 16, 2015| 18 Comments »
A pair of mallards (Anas platyrhynchos platyrhynchos) picking up scattered corn from the icy surface of a pond at WWT Llanelli
We always try to make a midwinter journey to the Llanelli Wetland Centre and this time it was an icy day, which made the ducks and geese eager to take the corn we offered.
It’s a bit slippery for this European goldeneye (Bucephala clangula)…
Posted in Birds, Dorset, Nature, Uncategorized, Wildfowl, tagged dorset, Nature, wildfowl on August 24, 2014| 15 Comments »
Swan parent and child – with big feet and no feathers to hide them under…
I had heard of Abbotsbury Swannery years ago but had no idea what part of the country it was in. So I was surprised to find (from various Dorset bloggers) that it was near Weymouth and within reach of my annual visit to Poole.
I had visualised the place as a little abbey with a handful of swans in a pond or moat alongside – but how wrong I was! (more…)
Posted in Carmarthenshire, Nature, Uncategorized, Wales, tagged fungi, lichen, Nature, wildfowl, winter on January 19, 2014| 10 Comments »
The start of the Millennium Wetlands at WWT Llanelli…
I did say I would share some more pictures from the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust at Llanelli, a couple of weeks ago when I showed you the birds themselves.
These images are from the wild area of the estuary, beyond the grounds where (more…)
Posted in Birds, Carmarthenshire, Nature, Uncategorized, Wales, Wildfowl, tagged birds, Nature, Wales, wildfowl on January 6, 2014| 11 Comments »
Coscoroba swan (Coscoroba coscoroba) from South America
It seems a long time ago now, but on Boxing Day we visited the WWT Wetlands Centre in Llanelli, where we are members. The weather was glorious and (more…)
Posted in Birds, Carmarthenshire, Nature, Uncategorized, Wales, Wildfowl, tagged birds, Carmarthenshire, wildfowl on January 11, 2013| 14 Comments »
Mr and Mrs mallard duck (Anas platyrhynchos) at Llanelli WWT, late December 2012
Although we are now starting a colder and drier spell – maybe with snow on the way – we have had nothing but rain for months. Ideal if you have webbed feet!
So we recently made one of our regular trips to the Wildfowl & Wetland Trust reserve in Llanelli. At this time of year the (more…)
Posted in Dorset, England, Garden visits, Gardening, History, Nature, tagged birds, dorset, Gardening, Poole, wildfowl on October 12, 2012| 14 Comments »
Upton House in Poole, Dorset – now the setting for a small country park
My childhood holidays in the late 1950s and 1960s were spent in Upton, a suburb on the northern edge of Poole in Dorset. My mother was born in Poole and Upton was where her mother and sister still lived in those days.
But Upton House was unknown to me until a few years ago, as it was in private hands. In fact my cousin now tells me that when she was little the local lady of the Upton manor would go around distributing largesse to poor families like ours!
In this blog post I intended just to show the pictures I took of the lovely flowers in the walled garden and some of the wildfowl you can see from the shore at the bottom of the garden, but (more…)
Posted in Birds, Nature, Uncategorized, Wildfowl, tagged birds, Nature, wildfowl, wildlife, winter on January 18, 2012| 13 Comments »
A bust of Sir Peter Scott at the Slimbridge Wildfowl & Wetlands Centre
Over Christmas I thought I would miss my usual trip to the Llanelli Wildfowl & Wetlands Centre because of the miserable weather, but as it turned out we found a break in the weather on New Year’s Day and went instead to the Slimbridge Wildfowl & Wetlands Centre over the Severn Bridge in England.
This is the original (more…)
Posted in Birds, Nature, Uncategorized, Wildfowl, tagged birds, wildfowl, winter on January 1, 2012| 10 Comments »
Pochard (Aythya ferina)
Between Christmas and New Year we usually visit the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust Centre at Llanelli, but this year it has been very dark, wet and miserable.
So I thought I would (more…)
Posted in Birds, Uncategorized, tagged birds, design, wildfowl, wildlife on January 20, 2010| 2 Comments »
An eider duck (Somateria mollissima) on the ice at Llanelli Wildfowl & Wetlands Centre, Christmas 2009
Eider ducks are different. For some reason I have always thought of them as rather “Art Deco” in design. I hope the pictured Clarice Cliff plate gives you some idea where I am coming from on that one!
A Clarice Cliff plate
For a couple of years I have (more…)
The Squirrelbasket 