Black and White Wednesday

Last Wednesday I managed to drag myself out of the comatose state of exhaustion I have spent most of my recent days off in, for long enough to get out into the countryside for a walk. It has been too long. Too long without hearing birds, and feeling mud underneath my feet and TOO LONG WITHOUT TAKING PHOTOS!

So what that it was raining and cloudy and dark…that just gives an excuse to take some photos in black and white!

 

I’m thinking of entering this next photo into Wildlife Photographer of the year…

 

I mean, if this photo can win because it ‘captures the essence of the hare’ could you say that I was capturing the essence of the pheasant?! (image from here)

Birthday Fun at Blwch Nant yr Arian

Pubs, Elephants and Bogs

Yesterday Josh and I went for a nosey around Tregaron, and a very nice day it was too.

I had heard there was an elephant grave there so I was very excited. Apparently in 1848 ‘Batty’s Menagerie’ visited Tregaron. One of the elephants quenched its thirst in the local river, but unfortunately then died due to lead poisoning, and was buried in a field behind the local hotel.

Unluckily for me all I could find was a big stone (I’m not sure if it was meant to be a grave stone or not), unluckily for you it wasn’t worth a photo.

However I did get some nice photos on our subsequent walk around Cors Caron, which is a large raised bog system near Tregaron. Definitely worth a visit if you’re in the area, although I did do my knees in crawling around on the boardwalks trying to get the photos, so remember your knee pads if you’re planning to do the same!

This is what we end up doing most of the times we go for a 'walk'. The perils of living with a bug enthusiast!

I originally forgot to give this a title…I can’t think of anything witty so this will have to do

I’m finally, reluctantly writing a blog entry under the instruction of my beloved brother (don’t use online translators – they make up words). I haven’t written an entry for a long time, I know. I’ve been busy doing various, unblog worthy things and (at the risk of sounding old) the days have just been rushing by.

Blogging hasn’t been at the top of my agenda, and to be totally honest my fingers have been hovering over the ‘delete blog’ button an awful lot lately.
If it wasn’t for the fact that my family use it to keep up with our comings and goings I would have clicked it by now. I feel like time is rushing by with nothing much to report, life is dull.

Or maybe I’m just tired and grumpy because work has been really busy lately and I haven’t been able to be bothered to go on the computer again when I get home, and soon things will be back to normal and I’ll get over it.

Yes, I think that’s probably right too. The world’s best advice. Get. Over. It.

ANYWAY (sorry, feeling a bit weird today), lets attempt to do some sort of recap of the last few weeks…

Welsh week was really tiring but good. It surprising how even a small amount of Welsh can help you understand things that are around all the time. However I haven’t really been practicing (for the reasons stated above) and feel like I have probably forgotten quite a lot. I enjoyed being back in an academic environment though and having my brain stretched by something other than people complaining about the fact they can’t work the carpark machine. I also now own a bilingual diary, but I made Josh buy if from the Welsh shop because I was too scared.

The weekend after the Welsh course we went away to Ffald-y-Benin to sooth our tired minds. It’s a Christian retreat centre in the middle of nowhere. Very, very relaxing and absolutely beautiful. It was also really exciting and encouraging to hear of some of the stuff that is going on there. They have a really powerful Christian healing ministry and it was great to hear some first-hand stories about how they have seen God working in awesome ways – growing people’s limbs back and things like that. They have written a book about it called ‘The Grace Outpouring’ which is meant to be really good, and which I plan to read soon. Available from all good bookshops (including mine!).

View from Ffald-y-Brenin

Then it was back to office to find a huge mound of things that needed to be done. I’ve been working flat out for the last 2 weeks and have just about caught up with things now. I have been doing a lot of design work which I love, so it wasn’t all bad (such as the postcard featured in the last post)

I think that’s about it for now. If you’re in Aber we would love to see you at the film festival each Wednesday at 7.30pm and if you’ve got kids that are already bored by the summer holiday don’t forget to check out the Showstoppers holiday club that is starting next Monday in the bandstand – it’s free!

Enjoying Sunny Wales

My family came to visit

we went to Aberaeron

then we went to New Quay and walked along the coast path

...it lived up to its name of being the best place to see dolphins in the UK (that dot is one!!)

It was a perfect summer's day. The End.

I’ve got measles

Okay…actually I haven’t. But it’s less embarrassing telling people that than having to explain that I actually went out moth trapping without any insect repellent on and now I look like I have been attacked by a marauding toddler with a red marker pen. At least they have faded a bit this morning!

Last night we attempted moth trapping again. After our complete failure last time we figured it could only get better…and thankfully, it did!

We had been given permission by the warden of a nearby forestry commission site (Nant yr Arian if you know the area) to go and trap ‘after hours’ so we set off about ten, and arrived just as the light was dying in the sky.

Nant yr Arian is at the head of a valley and so the view was spectacular. It was one of those moments when the camera really can’t catch the magic of the light over the misty valley floor and the hills behind, with the smell of the woods and heath and the sound of calling of sheep and other night-time creatures.

Then, to top it off a barn owl swooped down to our right (just as I was taking the above photo actually) and flew off up the valley, framed by the orange sky. Beautiful.

Pesky Midges

Then it was down to the moth trapping. Now, I’ve got to be honest – moths aren’t my favourite creatures. Sure, there are some amazingly beautiful moths and it’s interesting to learn more about them, but many are brownish and look pretty much the same as each other to me.

However, I do LOVE how passionate Josh gets about moths and butterflies. He has self taught himself to such a high standard and to hear him getting really excited about little brown moths that most people would walk straight by makes it worth getting bitten to death by midges any day.

Moth Trapping (continued)

…So, as I was saying, on Monday night about 10pm Josh and I headed out to do some moth trapping. Josh got the trap for his 21^st birthday and up until now we haven’t had much chance to use it.

For the uninitiated, a moth trap consists of a UV emitting light which attracts moths (scientists are still debating the reason for this) into a funnel from which they can’t escape. You can then record them at your leisure before letting them go unharmed.

Josh quickly got to work setting up the trap, while I – as his glamorous assistant – sat and watched, eating crisps, drinking tea and trying to convince myself that I wasn’t getting freaked out by sitting in a dark wood in the middle of the night.

However, lets be honest, I have a completely overactive imagination and could see axe murderers or marauding forest monsters around every corner.

And so we waited for moths to arrive…and we waited…and we waited. I was getting bored and as a result the axe murders and monsters were increasing by the minute.

In the end we gave it up as a bad job and headed back to the car. While we were packing the stuff away we saw a few bats flitting around our heads and stopped to watch them. However, we soon realised that there weren’t a few bats flying around. They were everywhere. Hundreds of dark shapes flapping around our heads. The air was reverberating with their wing beats.

It was obvious that we were near a roost and soon located it in the roof of a nearby building.

There are at least 6 in this picture...

We later found out that this is one of the biggest bat colonies in Wales, but we had discovered it all by ourselves and at the moment we were all alone, in the middle of the night, having one of the best wildlife experiences of our lives.

We sat there with our torch on ‘fog mode’ (it seemed to disturb the bats the least) and watched as hundreds of flitting shapes materialised in our torch beam. Occasionally one would land on the wall and climb up into the roof, and then we would get a really good view.

Compared to other mammal species, we know very little about bats, but we think that these bats are Soprano Pipistrelles. Can anyone confirm or correct this please?

Such an amazing find, we will definitely be going back. Just ironic that we chose that area to moth trap…no wonder there were none around!

Staff Fun

Monday was our annual staff day out, which is always looked forward to with a mix of trepidation and hilarity.
This year we went to ‘King Arthur’s Labyrinth’ which didn’t really help quell the over-excited among the group*.

*The Children's Worker

It was, as expected, hilarious.

You’re taken into ‘the past’ by a mysterious cloaked man on a boat into some underground caves and made to walk around in the dark with only a few small lamps dotted around while you’re told some of the lesser known legends of King Arthur . One of which involved a head in a box…

 

I can't really remember was this was about

Most of us regressed back into childhood happily…

The we headed back to Aber to my boss’ house for a BBQ. Her husband is a butcher and we had pretty much every meat you could think of. SOOO good! Sorry I don’t have any photos, I was too busy stuffing my face.

Then, in the evening Josh and I headed out to do some moth trapping, and I had one of the best wildlife experiences of my life.
Unfortunately I have guests coming over in an hour and I need to start preparing food. Check back tomorrow and I’ll tell you all about it. For now, here’s a taster…see if you can work out what we saw that was so amazing…

Answers on the back of a postcard please...