(Sunday 26th July)
Over to Loggerheads Country Park in Denbighshire this morning. A westerly wind blowed the odd gust but, as ever, we were pretty much sheltered down in the woods. The 16°C temperature was much cooler than it had been in the last few days, but there hadn’t been any rainfall for quite some time – in fact, North Wales had officially been declared as being in a drought only days earlier.
The pond just beyond the old sluice gate was completely dried up and the exposed earth resembled crazy paving. Admittedly, this is just a shallow area of water – a ‘spillover’ if you like – and we quite often see insects such as dragonflies and damselflies roaming over it and, on occasion, a solitary Heron. But not today.
Halfway across the stone bridge leading into the woods, we paused to look upstream: the River Alyn was still flowing reasonably well, but when we looked downstream, after just twenty or so metres, the river became a mere trickle of water before disappearing altogether. I should point out that the Alyn does naturally disappear underground at Loggerheads into the limestone swallow holes and caves before the river reappears further downstream, a phenomenon that is more noticeable during prolonged spells of dry weather in the summer months. But even taking this into account, this was the lowest we’d ever seen the Alyn at Loggerheads.
We weren’t expecting to see much in the way of birds or wildlife at all, given the lowness of the river, to be honest. However, we often see White-throated dippers along this stretch of the river and we know they don’t tend to stray far from their habitat, so we crossed our fingers. We were in luck – before long we saw, perched on a rock mid-stream, a Dipper perform the familiar bobbing action that gives the bird its name. We watched for a while as the Dipper submerged itself in the water searching for food before it eventually flew off upstream.
White-throated Dipper
Moments later, we were surprised to see three Grey wagtails – two adults with a much duller-coloured juvenile. When we were last here at Loggerheads six or seven weeks ago, there was the same family set-up – that is, two adults and one juvenile. Although Grey wagtails will carry on feeding their young and staying close by them after they leave the nest – monitoring their progress, if you like – this is typically for about two weeks. So, the juvenile that we saw back then should already have become independent and have had to find its own territory, which means that the juvenile we saw today is probably from the adults’ second brood.
Grey wagtail
We carried on along the Leete path beyond the wooden ‘bat’ bridge (the bridge has a carving of a bat suspended above the centre of it). Looking down at where the river usually flows, we could see only the dry rock of the riverbed.
There was a distinct absence of birdsong too, everywhere eerily quiet. This is probably due to many of the birds not wanting to draw the attention of predators as they go through their summer moult: replacing feathers compromises the birds’ ability to fly well, leaving them vulnerable. (Some birds, such as ducks, shed all their flight feathers at once, leaving them completely flightless for the three or four weeks it takes for them to be replaced).
The dried up River Alyn by the ‘bat’ bridge
Besides the Grey wagtails and the Dipper, there were still one or two birds about today. We saw a couple of scruffy-looking Robins skipping through the undergrowth and we watched several Nuthatches darting from tree to tree. None of them made any noise though!
The morning had remained largely overcast although under the protection of the trees this didn’t really matter. But now it started to rain. Well, it wasn’t really rain, which would have been very welcome, but more a thin spray of the faintest vapour which disappeared almost immediately.
The important stuff
Over to Tŷ’r Felin (The Mill House café) which has moved from the small room right next to the mill and now sits in the much larger area in one of the main buildings at the entrance to the park. We sat outside under the tree sipping our Cappuccinos and savouring the delights of a slice of Bara Brith, with full butter of course (Col), and a slice of Cherry Cake (Stu). Marvellous!
