At the hide

Up at eight thirty under an overcast sky for a full cooked breakfast in the hotel dining room. Already there was a group of youngsters on the beach preparing for a canoeing lesson in the shallow waters of the bay with the tide right out. It was eleven by the time we emerged to walk along the beach to the far end of the nature reserve. 

When we were last here at the end of November last year, the bridge across the river nearest the beach had been lifted off its foundations by a tidal storm surge and deposited several metres upstream. It no longer bridges the water, but has ended up along the river bank. Whether taken there by another storm surge or moved there by human intervention it's impossible to determine. Its large metal frame and decking is still intact, and must weight a ton or more.

A hundred metres upstream is a second bridge which has been there for some years, though we never had cause to use it as it takes you back inland at the bottom of a steep hill which is home to Nicholaston woods with its own separate walking trail. Now it's the only way to cross the river dry shod, and then you have to double back along the river bank on the other side to reach the dunes along the shore. 

A brief reconnaissance of the path revealed a constructed water channel runs alongside it, parallel to the river which winds it way through the wetland into the lake above it. I'm intrigued to know what purpose the channel once served. I suppose it could have fed a water mill somewhere along the shore beneath the woods. The water from the channel now drains out into another patch of wetland behind a large area of dunes, rich with its own flora and fauna. What a superb natural environment this is! Always something new to discover, and understand.

There's new Wales Coast Path branded signage on the main walking route across the nature reserve since we were here last. It serves dedicated walkers well, as do the enclosures of protected areas with new stiles and gates, making it easy for those who like to wander and inspect the astonishing variety of plants. Again I traversed the reserve and headed for the hide by the pond. It was quiet and I only saw a moorhen, and a couple of martins  skimming the water to take a drink.

On the way back to the hotel, I called into the village shop and drank a coffee from a china mug, sitting at at table for a change, rather than having a takeaway in a paper cup.  Clare called me and said she wanted to go for a swim, so I joined her on the beach, but as soon as she undressed and entered the water it began to rain, and there was no shelter for me or her, so extracting ourselves without getting soaked through was a bit challenging. I needed a sleep when we got back to our room, and showers continued on and off until mid afternoon when the clouds parted and the sun came out.

We walked together up to the hide. Swifts and swallows were active after the rain, even flying in and out of the hide through its open windows. In the roof space are a couple of nests and recent droppings suggest they have been occupied this year but are not currently in use. A couple of moorhens were in and out of the water, and at one moment we saw a small raptor rise up from an island of reeds and hover for a while before dropping like a stone. I heard the sound of a splash which may have been coincidental. It wasn't a big bird of prey. Googling brought up the possibility that it was a Merlin and that it could have spotted a large dragonfly. I observed one over the water earlier, about twenty metres away, and the bird would have been closer to it than I and with much better eyesight. I got a photo of it hovering, but it's not in sharp focus and no colouration is visible against the bright sky. A small moment of excitement anyway.

We sat outside the village shop and had a drink on our way back to the hotel then had supper at six. I ate three bean chilli again tonight, except that it wasn't three bean. It was made with chickpeas instead, and was hotter than what I ate last night. I didn't complain. It may have been a chef's mistake, and it certainly wasn't a culinary catastrophe. Clare had a huge dish of fish and chips which she struggled to get through. Afterwards we went for a walk up to the church and then back along the beach at low tide, with another group of youngsters having a canoeing lesson off-shore, at eight in the evening. No more rain, but still lots of cloud on the move. More changeable weather tomorrow I suspect.

Footsore after walking over eight miles today, an end to the day uploading photos and reading.