Dippin'

Yesterday's sunshine took us to Llanrhystud on a walk along the coastline south to the lime kilns. Snow buntings had been seen there a couple of times this week so we were hoping to get a glimpse of them but unfortunately dipped out. The walk was still very enjoyable - despite a cold, harsh wind - with good views of plenty of chough, oystercatcher, redshank, rock and meadow pipit, a med gull and a flock of about 40 wigeon out at sea. Towards the end a grey seal popped its head up close in to shore.

For today we decided to walk from Dolgellau to Barmouth on the Mawddach Trail along the estuary towards the coast. Overall the walk was absolutely lovely, with stunning scenery cast into a golden light by the beautiful winter sun, although it did lack a bit in bird life. It started off well with good views of dippers on the river. As I was photographing one dipper another one landed nearby causing my bird to burst into song and to flap its wing in some sort of territorial display. On the walk we noted numerous grey heron, curlew, teal, wigeon, pintail (photo), red-breasted merganser and goosander as well as a treecreeper and a red admiral basking in the sunshine on an old tin bath. As we crossed the bridge over to Barmouth (a stunning piece of architecture providing beautiful views all around) we got ringed plover, oystercatcher, redshank and common gull. Unfortunately, we picked the wrong day for visiting the town as a dirt bike race was on so we did not get the chance the explore the sand dunes and the coastline.