Skip to main content

Hill Walking and at Home

I had a day in South Wales this week. Parking in the Blaenavon World Heritage Site at the Keepers Pond. I took the steep path down into the head of Cwm Llanwenarth to pick up the route of Hill's Tramroad. This is quite an impressive piece of engineering for 1820 cut into the side of the valley after tunnelling from Blaenavon.
In the photo you can see the tramroad cut into the hillside. In places the stone sleepers are still clearly visible despite being disused since 1860.
At the site of Garnddyrys Forge there were abundant meadow pipits and the occasional robin. I had heard other small birds in gorse bushes which were careful to stay invisible. Garnddyrys is noted for the formations of iron slag. The most spectacularly architectural were vandalised some years ago but some still remain.
Following the tramroad one thing that startled me was a red kite, the first that I have seen in this part of Wales although I have since been informed that they have reached as far as Usk. Unlike the Chilterns however, buzzards were still by far the most common birds of prey. What was impressive was a tree covered in mistletoe which deserves a visit at Christmas.
The head of the incline to the canal is easily missed as the tramway continues a little further, presumably for empties waiting for horses from the loaded waggons. Then you suddenly realise that you are no longer walking on stone sleepers and the path drops rapidly taking you round the side of the mountain to the Punch Bowl. This is a quite heartbreakingly beautiful spot with a man made pond in a glacial cwm (remember your O level geography?). By this point I could have done with a cup of tea and a slice of bara brith but instead I had a steep climb up to the road and a slog back to the car park with the sun in my eyes all the way. Apart from a few buzzards there wasn't much to see and the timing was such that I was too late for the cafe in the Blaenavon visitor centre and had to make do with Starbucks at Monmouth Services.

At home we had one treat with a hen brambling among a group of chaffinches. She didn't come to the feeders, luckily the spotting scope was ready beside the window so I could have a clear look and identify her.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

More Starlings

At least one brood of starlings have been regular visitors to the feeder and today the fledglings got the hang of taking the food for themselves. Other broods must be less developed as adults were still taking away quantities of fat. The tits aren't so common at the moment, I don't know if this is because they have dispersed, if wild food is available or if pressure from the starlings has driven them off. Single blue tits are dropping in fairly regularly and a coal tit took fat away as well. The woodpecker seems to have become a regular visitor and still has a brood to feed. He definitely comes before the starlings in the pecking order and keeps them off the feeder until he has finished. The new feeder with perching rings is popular with the chaffinches and the goldfinches, the latter suddenly seem to prefer the high energy mix to the nyjer seed. With all this demand for feeding young ones the fat is going down very rapidly and I am putting larger quantities out on the ground t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Usual Suspects

With some cold dry weather there has been a lot of activity on the feeders this weekend. With three different robins visiting the garden there have been fewer fights than I would have expected. The sight of the weekend has been a robin regularly visiting the starling feeder with a pair of beady eyes peeping over the top of the fat bar. As I had run out of sunflower hearts I topped up the ground hopper with pinhead oatmeal which seems to have been very popular. I even had a song thrush inside the cage which is a first. Althogther the weekend has included goldfinches, chaffinches, great tits, blue tits, coal tits, marsh/willow tit (I must learn how to distinguish those), blackbird, song thrush, robin, dunnock and wood pigeon. Unusually for this area a heron also flew across the garden during the day. I haven't seen any long tailed tits or greenfinches around here for a while and there wasn't a single house sparrow around during the weekend.
Post a Comment
Read more

Forest of Dean

I had a day in the Forest yesterday, walking and then a ride on the preserved railway. The trouble with woodland is that you don't get the rapid views of multiple species that you get in wetlands. However, after parking at the Nags Head reserve I walked down to the Lower Hide. The ponds were pretty well down to muddy pools and I was treated to the unusual site of what must have been a family of nuthatches bathing. I had lost the sense of scale through the bins and I wasn't sure what I was looking at until a robin hopped into view to give me a relative size. The real treat was a nuthatch working its way up an oak tree. I then walked through the forest to Bix Slade and down the line of the old tramway to the wharf on the old railway by Cannop Ponds. No manarin ducks this time but I did see tufties, moorhen, and both pied and grey wagtails. I followed the railway back to the road, crossed back over the Cannop Brook and planned to follow a forestry track back to the reserve. Howe...
Post a Comment
Read more