A Visit to Anglesey

South Stack

I am a member of the RSPB Wales Advisory Council and Sunday morning I travelled to Anglesey with colleague Bernard Llewellyn for not only a Committee Meeting but a site visit to South Stack.  The weather was wonderful and there were crowds out enjoying the sunshine and the spectacle of this splendid seabird cliff.  The first thing that grabs your attention is the noisy Guillemot colony.  The birds are crowded on tiny ledges each sitting on a single egg.  Like everything else this year they are a bit late and there was no sign of chicks yet.

South Stack Guillemots

Looking out to sea a couple of Gannets passed by and it was then I met up with friends Annette and Steve from Essex who had one of their birding groups with them.  They kindly allowed me to look through their telescope at a couple of Puffins sitting on the sea.

Puffins on the sea

Choughs were also very much in evidence and inside Ellin's Tower we could watch a brood of young birds in a nest on a screen from a camera positioned in their cave.  There was also time to be shown a rare plant the Spatulate Fleawort an endemic found here and nowhere else on the planet.

Spatulate Fleawort

After the meeting and an excellent social evening we rose this morning for a site visit to Malltraeth Marsh.  This is a massive habitat creation project and is now beginning to show excellent results successfully attracting wintering Bitterns and with the real hope that they will stay one year and breed.  Lapwings are also being attracted to nest but there have been no signs this year of the sensational appearance of up to 6 Baillon's Crakes in 2012.

Malltraeth Marsh

We enjoyed a stroll through the marsh discussing management options and walking up to higher ground to see the whole expanse of this 600 acre site.  It was then time to head back south still in glorious sunshine.