Day 11 - 30 Days Wild - A trip to Crymlyn Bog, Swansea

* Today's random act of wildness - A meet up with my local Wildlife Trust group *

On Saturday 11 June, Dan and I met up with our local Wildlife Trust group (Swansea) to visit a local nature reserve - Crymlyn Bog, Swansea. It was a good turn out, about 20 people, and it was great walking around the reserve learning all about the plants and other wildlife that was there. Our guides were Wildlife Trust's Peter Hatherley & Tara Daniels, but we all helped each other identifying different things - all the people in the group were so friendly.

This is what we discovered...

flowers...

Southern Marsh Orchid

Marsh Lousewort (Thanks to Mark Barber for helping me ID it)

Common Cottongrass

Common Sundew

Marsh Cinqufoil

Ragged-Robin

Water Dropwort

The group walking along the boardwalks

insects...

Damselfly (needs Identifying)

Damselfly (needs Identifying)

Azure Damselfly

A funnel web created by the Labyrinth Spider

Beautiful jewel Dock Beetle

Dock Beetles mating

More Dock Beetles

Wolf Spider

Nettle Tap Moth (Thanks Dan Newton for helping my ID it)

Hoverfly

A species of Cranefly (?) mating

Sabre Wasp (correct me if I am wrong)

Broad Bodied Chaser Dragonfly (male)

Brown China-mark moth (Thanks Dan Newton for helping my ID it)

Some of the crowd exploring the reserve

birds...

A Song Thrush's egg - we found two on the floor, one was broken - who knows why they were there or what had stolen them from the nest.

Great Tit with it's dinner

It was a fantastic day out and even though the weather was a bit dull and grey we still managed to see lots and learn about all the different things we discovered. When everyone went home Dan and I decided to have one more walk around the reserve while things were quiet. It was starting to brighten up a bit and it was definitely getting warmer so we headed to the boardwalks where we had seen lizards before. 

Quietly we walked around and it wasn't long before the lizards started coming out - we saw three altogether and one was even growing a new tail, which I am never seen before.

This lizard must have lost it's tail and growing a brand new one

A common lizard 

Another common lizard

Here's Wildling helping me trying to ID some of the flowers!

Day 7 - 30 Days Wild - Lunchtime Safari

* Today's random act of wildness - Lunchtime Safari *

After reading Chris Packham's 'Wild Side of Town' it encouraged me to go and look around the City of Swansea for wildlife for my lunch break. It's quite a busy city, so I was so please with what I found within the hour...

Herring Gull on top of car park lights

Goldfinch fledgling in the car parks trees

Another goldfinch fledgling in the trees

Male Goldfinch 

Male goldfinch

Female sparrow

Carrion crow on a street light

Carrion Crow just a few feet away

Lots of feral pigeons...

...and some more!

Jackdaw contemplating whether it likes this piece of sponge cake

Back in the office Wildling checking out for seagulls

It's also my sister's birthday today, so happy birthday June - Some more good news is my local Swan's cygnets hatched today, they still on the nest so we don't know how many there are - Here's a pic of them last year from 30 Days wild - Day 14!

Day 20 - 30 Days Wild - An evening at Crymlyn Burrows

For Day 20 we ventured down to Crymlyn Burrows, Swansea Bay for the evening. The weather was a bit dull and it was very windy - but we still managed to see a number of awesome things.

Crymlyn Burrows

Carrion Crow

Crymlyn Burrows at low tide

A pair of dunlin

Seaweed on the old wooden fence when the tide is out

Jelly bags seaweed (aka Spiral wrack)

A trail of dead crabs

Dead crab closeup

Sea Holly plant

Lots of different terrains

An array of meadow flowers

Skipper moth

Funnel Web Spider

Stonechat

A wonderful place and just on our doorstep. If you are interested in reading more on Crymlyn Burrows then check out my other blog from my visit back in March.

http://sands-walks.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/crymlyn-burrows.html