Hells Mouth - a 'rubbish' beach in North Wales

Visited the Lleyn peninsula in North Wales last weekend. Despite the rain, Debbie and I managed to get out and see most of the area by car plus quite a few walks when it stopped raining.

Overall, the Lleyn is a wonderful place. The towns and villages are clean. The wildlife is no doubt excellent but we didn't see a great deal due to the time of year and the weather. Highlights were Ringed Plover, Chough, Common Lizard, Redshank, Common Blue, Red Admiral and a Small Tortoishell Butterfly.

Above: Common Lizard

Above: Common Lizard

The only real shame was the wonderful beach called Hells Mouth, south west of Abersoch. Its approx 5km long with a soft cliff face which is constantly erroding. The beach is a mixture of fine sand, cobbles and in places, an unbelievable amount of plastic rubbish.

How sad is it that the world has come to this... within 20 years human beings have turned our oceans, seas and rivers into rubish dumps. Just seeing it made me feel sick... and the i found a dead Cormorant among the rubbish. Just another innocent victim of waste caused by human greed. Not sure if the locals aor the council ever tidy this beach but they would be fighting a loosing battle... this plastic could continue to wash up on this beach for hundreds of years even if we stopped dumping our rubbish in the sea mmediately.

I feel disgusted to be part of the human generation responsible for this complete and utter lack of respect for our planet.

Above: Among the detritus... Johnsons Baby Oil... kind to your baby's skin... not so kind to the planet?

Above: View looking south east along the cliff face where a constant spread of plastic drinks bottles could be seen. Nice place to lay down your towl and sunbathe!!



Above: Nylon fishing nets, rope and other plastic bits and pieces such as plastic gloves, plastic containers etc.

Above: Wonder where this came from?

Above: here... a victom of all this rubbish... the speckly brown blob in the centre is the poor Cormorant

But is was not all bad... the broody weather produced some nice sunsets!!

Hunting on Exmoor... in the rain

What seemed like a whole week of rain on Exmoor still provided plenty of opportnities for new experiences and to explore.

On the non-butterfly side of things, a Nightjar was one highlight. While walking up Bin Combe near Dunkery Beacon, Debbie disturbed this elusive bird which flew a short distance before landing and allowing me the chance for just 3 photographs before it flew off into undergrowth.

Above: Nightjar at Bin Combe

The Nightjar was however not the target of our visit to Bin Combe... we were here to see Heath Fritillary butterflies but the weather was so bad that we did not see any and by Wednesday we had pretty much decided that we would forget about Heath Fritillary till next year.

On the last day of our holiday, the sun finaly appeared... so such so that we even paddled in the sea for about a mile along Saunton Sands before returning to the car park via Braunton Burrows where among all the wild flowers and butterflies we met this male Common Lizard.

Above: Common Lizard at Braunton Burrows

Dispite the bad weather, we did also manage to seem some stunning butterflies... Marbled White, High Brown Fritillary, Silver-washed Fritillary and Dark Green Fritillary being the highlights with Heddons Mouth, Watersmeet and Braunton Burrows being the best locations.

Above: Dark Green Fritillary at Heddons Mouth

Above: A male Silver-washed Fritillary at Watersmeet

Above: A male Silver-washed Fritillary at Watersmeet

Above: High Brown Fritillary at Heddons Mouth

Above: High Brown Fritillary at Heddons Mouth

and I only managed to take over 1,500 photographs!!

On the hunt for Silver-studded Blues

Back from my holiday on Exmoor and can now finally report on my visit to Prees Heath and Great Ormes Head three weekends ago on the search for Silver-studded Blues.

Dispite being slightly cool with some sunny spells, we found it easy to find Silver-studded Blues at Prees Heath. The site has recently been purchased by Butterfly Conservation and is the only site in the midlands where the Silver-studded Blue occurs. The butterflies at Prees are of a subspecies 'masseyi'... the females being completely brown with only small traces of blue on their upper wings.

Above: A view of the underside showing the slivery blue studs.

Above: The steel blue colour and white fringes of a pristine male is unmistakeable

Above: A female showing only small traces of blue.

We then went further north west into Wales to the Great Ormes Head where the Silver-studded Blue also occurs. Here it is in the form of the subspecies 'caernensis' where the butterflies are smaller and the females have much more extensive blue colouration on the upperwings. Dispite the rather cold wind, it was sunny in North wales for most of the afternoon and when we finally decended from the sumit to more sheltered areas, Silver-studded Blues were seen in large numbers.


Above: A female from Great Ormes Head showing extensive blue colouration and more defined orange lunes.

Above: A male

Also on the Orme is the subspecies 'thyone' of the Grayling which we also saw.

Above: Grayling nectaring on Valerian

Above: The undersides are ideal for camouflage.

Above: Several Dark Green Fritillaries were seen on the Orme.

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A visit to Prees Heath and on to the Great Ormes Head in North Wales for Silver-studded Blue and Grayling proved to be an excellent move last Sunday. Had a superb day and took loads of photographs which I hope to post the best of here soon but I'm on hols next week in Exmoor on the hunt for Heath Fritillary if the weather improves so on my return, I hope to report back on Exmoor too.

Getting The Blues at Green Down and Collared Hill...

My first visit to Green Down, a Wildlife Trust site which has probably the largest colony of Large Blue butterfly in Britain last Sunday following the rain of the preceeding Saturday provided some good views of Large Blue plus the opportunity to photograph a mating pair.

Dispite the previous days poor weather there were a few Large Blue on the wing along with Marbled White, Ringlet and other species. It was a really enjoyable visit although our time there was restricted to approx 1 hour.


Above: A mating pair of Large Blues

Green Down is not open to the public during the flight season of the Large Blue but you can visit by applying for a ticket during an open day each year. The site is superb for butterflies and wild flowers.


Above: Green Down in the sun following horrible weather the previous day.

Its also well managed and because access is restricted, its a pleasure to visit and you are encouraged to put the butterfly's wellbeing above everything else.

A visit to the only public site for the Large Blue at Collared Hill is a different story. My first visit to Collared Hill last year left a bitter taste as photographers from far and wide behave like missbehaving paparazzi where their photo takes priority over the butterfly's wellbeing.


Above: Large Blue at Collared Hill

Its great to have a public site where the general public can visit but the behaviour of a few people is quite depressing. At times, I dare not twitch or even indicate that I had seen a butterfly for fear of being pounced upon by photographers desparate to get 'the' photo.

I enjoy taking photos too but I also respect the subject, its environment and people sharing the experience. I find my own butterflies (there were plenty to go round) and prefer to take photographs in peace... something which seems impossible to do at Collared Hill. So after approx 45 minutes we left, disheartened by the behaviour of a few. Although I love butterflies and its been my dream to see the Large Blue and to get a few good photographs, one thing I will not be doing again in the forseable future is visiting Collared Hill.

As a protected butterfly, we are privilleged to have the opportunity to see the species in the UK after it was declared extinct here in 1979. The re-introduction has been a success but those who visit sites such as Collared Hill should perhaps give the butterfly and other people more respect. Then perhaps we can all enjoy the beauty of such a wonderful creature.