The Dee and Thereabouts

Category: Denbighshire

Down in the Woods

(Sunday 29^th March, 2026)

There was a south-westerly blowing this morning, although we escaped the worst of the gusts by virtue of being in the woods at Loggerheads Country Park in Denbighshire. It was still a bit chilly (8°C) but I think we’re all becoming accustomed to this topsy-turvy ‘spring’ weather. At least it was dry.

    Just as we joined the Leete path from the little stone bridge near the mill, we saw a Song thrush fly in and settle on a high branch of one of the trees upstream from us. We’ve seen both Song thrushes and Mistle thrushes in these woods over the years but we’re seeing them less and less as time passes – nationally, both are in decline.

    Nuthatches, on the other hand, have greatly increased their numbers since the 1970s and we often see them hopping up and down tree trunks, or flitting about filching nuts and seeds.

This Nuthatch used ‘diversionary’ tactics to conceal its food source…

Today was no exception and it is amusing to watch them fly from tree to tree, executing a sort of diversionary route – presumably to foil either predators or, more probably, to avoid revealing their food source to other birds. Mind you, there was little they could do once the Carrion crow discovered their source!

    …but the Carrion crow discovered it anyway!

Apart from the odd bit of hawthorn blossom here and there, the trees are generally free of any foliage (well, not counting the evergreens). But I don’t think it will be too long before everything begins to flourish. We noticed, for example, the aroma of wild garlic which reached us when the occasional gust of wind pushed through the woods. There is an abundance of garlic leaves to be seen on either side of the River Alyn, but no sign of the plant’s distinctive white flowers just yet.

False turkey-tail (we think!)

    There are other signs that spring (or should that be summer?) is finally on the way. We watched, transfixed as two Robins circled around us, flying close to the ground, disappearing then re-emerging from the undergrowth. Male and female Robins look very similar and are difficult to sex but, as neither of these birds was acting in the typical territorial mode that Robins usually display, we’re fairly confident that we were watching a male and female. One of them posed for the camera, as you can see below!

    We saw another pairing shortly afterwards: on a few of our visits to Loggerheads over the last few months, we’ve spotted a single Grey wagtail at various stretches of the river. Today we saw two together, although they’d separated before Stu managed to get a photograph of both of them simultaneously. It was encouraging to see though, and hopefully they’ll manage to breed successfully.

After last week’s success at Burton Wetlands, Stu managed to capture another Grey squirrel on film – it seems like they’ve finally grown tired of hiding from him!

The important stuff

Over to The Mill House café (Tŷ’r Felin) for a cappuccino each and a Blondie Jammie-dodger (Col) and Millionaire’s shortcake (Stu). Scrumptious!

03.04.2026
A Misty Morning at Loggerheads

(Sunday 8^th March)

Midweek I saw my first butterfly of the year in the garden – a yellow (male) Brimstone. At last! I thought, the spring’s here. But another false alarm it seems. While this morning wasn’t quite a pea-souper, it was very misty when we set off to Loggerheads Country Park in Denbighshire, and we had resigned ourselves to not seeing much. But, of course, nature rarely disappoints.

    The undergrowth was still quite bare except for the odd clump of primroses and daffodils, although this will change soon, I’m sure. The River Alyn was flowing strongly, but less rapidly than last week, a sign of the recent reduction in rainfall locally. Funny how you notice these things!

Nuthatch scanning its surroundings even as it feeds

    Once again, there were Nuthatches feeding at the tree stump, looking like little aerial masked bandits. It was interesting to note that they approached the tree stump in stages, first flying from the tops of the trees along the riverbank to one of the trees closer to the stump. From here they scanned the area below to make sure it was clear, then they nipped down and grabbed some food in their beaks before darting smartly back. It looked like they were shoving one or two morsels into the bark of the trees, but Nuthatches are notoriously difficult to watch closely as they are so quick in their movements.

    A Chaffinch appeared as soon as the Nuthatches were out of the way. With its lovely, striking vermilion chest and distinctive white wing bars and pale grey cap, this male Chaffinch certainly caught the eye. There was a female too, though she was not quite as colourful as the male – more brown than red, and with a patch of olive-green on her back – and she arrived and fed separately.

Chaffinch

    The Chaffinch is sometimes known as the Bachelor finch: Fringilla Coelebs is its Latin name, Fringilla meaning finch or small bird, and coelebs deriving from caelebs meaning single, unmarried, or bachelor. This name was given by the Swedish biologist Carl Linnaeus who observed that it was only the females who migrated south from Sweden for the winter, while the males stayed behind near to their breeding grounds, often grouping together with other males. It’s possible that the females were actually distancing themselves from the males due to food competition – outside of the breeding season, the males are less likely to share food resources, apparently.

    The more familiar English name Chaffinch is probably derived from the bird’s habit of rummaging through threshed chaff looking for grains of seed.

Female Chaffinch

    In the United Kingdom, the birds tend to lay their eggs between late April and mid-June and, generally, Chaffinches will produce only the one brood each year. The lateness of these clutches being laid is thought to be a deliberate strategy as the much thicker foliage and vegetation that appear now helps to hide the nests and protect the chicks from predators.

Blue tit

    After the Chaffinches made their brief, separate appearances a small group of Blue tits descended from nearby branches and stole in to help themselves. We were then stalked by a Robin or two (we couldn’t quite work out the numbers) all the way back to the café.

This Robin stalked us along the Leete path!

This one just came to say hello!

The important stuff

A cappuccino each at The Mill House café (Tŷ’r Felin) and a slice of gooey Millionaire’s shortbread. Very nice!   At the very moment we were ready to leave, the Grey wagtail flew overhead and landed on the roof of the gift shop, only to disappear over the far side. Obviously it was not in the mood for a selfie today!

13.03.2026
St. David’s Day in the Park

(Sunday 1^st March, 2026)

Loggerheads Country Park in Denbighshire to be exact. The River Alyn was flowing strongly, there was a southerly breeze, which was barely perceptible in the woods, and the morning was sunny and dry with the temperature climbing to 12°C. After the long, wet winter, are we finally entering spring? Well, it’s the United Kingdom we’re talking about so I won’t make any rash claims just yet!

Grey wagtail

    Just a short distance down the Leete path we saw our old friend the Grey wagtail. We’re unable to determine if this bird is male or female as it’s generally difficult to separate the sexes. One tell-tale sign is that males develop a black bib during the breeding season, and are a deeper yellow than the females, so we’ll keep a look-out and report any developments in the next month or so. This Grey wagtail was mooching about on the far side of the river when we first spotted it: later it immersed its feet in the shallows of the water, feeding on any insects and small crustaceans that it could find.

    Further along the path a couple of Nuthatches were feeding. Not birds that like to hang around for too long, Nuthatches: they darted in from high in the trees nearby, grabbed some food and then quickly departed. Despite this skittishness, Stu managed to take some very good photographs of these lovely little birds.

    The Robin, on the other hand, wasn’t at all shy about being seen! This one tracked us as we walked through the woods and then, as we paused on the wooden bridge to look up and downstream, it landed on the branches of a nearby tree and began to sing. I thought it was auditioning for ‘Song of the Morning’ or something. It was a pleasant tune of course – but LOUD! Below is a great picture of the Robin belting out it’s song.

Robin auditioning for us – LOUDLY!

    Later, as we retraced our path and passed the spot where we’d earlier watched the Nuthatches, we saw a couple of other birds feeding. Drawing closer, we saw that one had a distinctive black stripe down its yellow breast, marking it out as a Great tit. The second bird was a Coal tit.

Great tit

    The Coal tit is widespread throughout the United Kingdom but is much smaller than the Great tit and a lot more timid, tending to only appear fleetingly. Certainly, we rarely catch sight of them on our excursions. It has pale straw-coloured underparts, white cheeks and a black cap and black bib, and has a predominantly grey back.

    The Coal tit is similar to both the less common Marsh tit and the even rarer Willow tit and is sometimes mistaken for one or other of these birds. Apart from the rarity factor, the Coal tit can be differentiated from either of these two in other ways: first, it has white wing bars which neither the Marsh tit nor the Willow tit possess; and second, it has a distinctive patch of white stretching from its crown down to the back of its neck. This is not always visible of course, particularly if you’re looking at the bird head-on but you can just make it out in the picture here.

Coal tit: the white patch from its crown to the back of its neck is just visible in the photograph

    The Coal tit prefers coniferous woodland and relies on seeds from conifer cones, particularly during the winter. However, the bird also enjoys the nuts of deciduous trees such as beech, so – like other tits – it is adaptable in its choice of habitat. Luckily, Loggerheads is a mixed woodland area of broadleaf and coniferous trees, so the Coal tit gets the best of both worlds!

The important stuff

We had our customary cappuccinos at The Mill House café (Tŷ’r Felin). Stu chose a Bara brith flapjack to accompany his coffee, while Col had a Jammie dodger blondie with his. A lovely way to celebrate Wales’s national day!

06.03.2026
Nuthatches at Loggerheads

(Sunday 8^th February)

Over to Loggerheads Country Park in Denbighshire this morning. An overcast morning, peaking at 7°C, it was at least dry – for the first time in several days. In fact, the sun came out temporarily, although only as we made our way home! Much of the UK has been hit by a prolonged spell of extraordinarily wet weather so far this year, with many areas flooded, so it was a relief to see that the Loggerheads flood defence works that were completed recently have proven successful. Still, the volume of rushing water in the River Alyn reflected the amount of rainfall that has fallen in recent weeks.

Snowdrops decorated the ground here and there and we saw a few clusters of Jelly ear fungus as we wandered down the Leete path.

Jelly ear fungus

    On an old tree-stump at the water’s edge, we saw Nuthatches darting in from nearby trees to collect nuts which had been left by someone concerned for the winter welfare of the local bird population. They didn’t hang round long, so getting photographs was a bit tricky.

Nuthatch collecting food

We’ve seen crows feeding here before, but this was the first time we’d witnessed Nuthatches helping themselves! Slightly bigger than a Robin, these birds have quite a distinctive shape to them, having large heads and short tails. Their wings and back are slate grey and they have an orange-red underbelly. Their white throat and cheek are separated by a black eye-stripe that always reminds me of a mask-wearing bandit, although perhaps that’s just me!

    There were two Nuthatches and, based on their well-defined colouring, I think they were both males – females tend to have a more muted complexion – and each of them took it in turns to land on the ‘platform’ of the tree trunk. Nuthatches, incidentally, are the only UK birds that can walk up and down tree trunks, which their strong feet and claws allow them to do. (Treecreepers and woodpeckers can walk up but not down). The name Nuthatch comes from their habit of lodging nuts firmly into the bark of trees, then repeatedly pecking at them so as to get to the edible kernel inside.

Carrion crow reminding the Nuthatches of its territorial rights

    Eventually, a Carrion crow alighted on the trunk, at which point the Nuthatches sensibly took refuge in the nearby trees. The crow didn’t seem to be feeding – it was probably just reminding its avian cousins that this was its territory!

Bat hanging around

    We continued down the path to the wooden bridge where the Bat likes to hang out. It’s hard to believe that, where these torrents of water were flowing so forcefully today, that the river can be reduced to a trickle, or even dry up completely during long spells without rain, particularly in the summer months.

The River Alyn at full spate

    The birds were evidently enjoying this particular change in the weather as much as we were: we saw Chaffinches, Blue tits, Great tits and Woodpigeons making the most of it. We spotted a couple of our old friends, too: first, the White-throated dipper presented itself for a photo-opportunity and then we saw the Grey wagtail who was trawling along the sandy mud of the far riverbank. Always a pleasure to see these two birds.

White-throated dipper

Grey wagtail

The important stuff

Over to The Mill House café (Tŷ’r Felin), where we had our customary cappuccinos and a cake each – Toffee Biscoff for Stu and Vegan Cookie for Col. It was still dry but we sat inside by the Mill anyway. Very pleasant.

12.02.2026
Goldcrests at Loggerheads

(Sunday 28^th December, 2025)

    Sometimes you just get lucky. We were just about to leave Loggerheads Country Park, in Denbighshire, and head home. Before we did so, we thought we’d take a last quick look from the little bridge opposite the We Three pub. Looking upstream, we caught glimpses of yellow as tiny birds darted around the lower foliage of a tall conifer. (Judging by the leaves, I think the tree is a cypress of some sort, but I’m not entirely sure). These birds were not easy to track but, looking through the binoculars, I could see that they were Goldcrests – the smallest bird in the British Isles and, in fact, Europe. These tiny birds are rarely longer than 9.5cm (3.7 in), with a wingspan no greater than 15.5 cm (6.1 in). On average, they weigh just 6g ( less than 0.25 oz) and are often described as weighing the same as a twenty-pence piece.

    Goldcrest

The Goldcrest has whitish-grey underparts, olive-green upperparts and two contrasting white wing bars, and a distinctive yellow crest on its head, from which it gets its name. The male has a smudge of orange running through the centre of its yellow crest, although this is not always visible: presumably it becomes so when it ‘displays’ during the breeding season. So, the Goldcrest in the photographs could be either male or female. And kudos to Stu – considering how active these birds were as they probed the cones and leaves for food – the photographs turned out really well.

    Goldcrests are actually quite a common bird in the British Isles, where resident birds are joined by migrant birds from Scandinavia during the winter months, although neither of us had actually seen them ‘live’ before. And despite our climate becoming warmer, Goldcrests are still susceptible to the cold: they can ‘burn off’ a lot of body weight overnight when the temperature drops, even when they huddle together. It had been a cold night – and it didn’t climb above 5°C for the whole of the morning – so probably these Goldcrests were replenishing lost energy.

Dipper about to submerge itself

    Earlier in the morning we had seen a White-throated dipper – in fact we traced it to a couple of different spots along the River Alyn. Over time, we’ve noticed that Dippers seem to favour the faster-flowing white water of the river. This one first performed its characteristic bobbing dance, before submerging itself in the river in search of food. Very entertaining!

Dipper showing white eyelid feathers as it blinks

Grey wagtails also hunt in areas of the river where there is fast-running water, but though both species’ territories overlap, somehow they’re both able to share the river’s resources without too much disputation, as far as we can make out. We often see both species out and about at the same time, as we did today.

Grey wagtail on the roof of the mill house

The Grey wagtail flew off before it could be photographed although it – or perhaps another wagtail, we can’t be sure – appeared a little later on the roof of the old mill which is the one in the picture. While some birds are camera-shy, the same can’t be said of our old friend the Robin: a born star that just loves being photographed!

Robin posing for the camera

The important stuff

The Mill House café (Tŷ’r Felin) provided us with much needed sustenance after all that hard work. A cappuccino and a Chocolate Biscoff each soon restored our equilibrium!

30.12.2025
The tail-end of the storm

(Sunday 16^th November, 2025)

    Over to Loggerheads Country Park in Denbighshire, this morning. The River Alyn was running very high in the aftermath of Storm Claudia – Friday and Saturday had been particularly wet and, though it was a cool 8°C when we arrived, the rain had ceased and the day was dry. The rebuilding of the river wall that was completed in 2024 has clearly been successful: in past years, the old mill, the café and the visitor centre have all been subject to flooding after persistent heavy rain, whereas today there was no such damage.

    I thought it was worth including a photograph of the river from earlier this year, just to show the difference that prolonged spells of dry weather and wet weather can produce. As has been mentioned elsewhere on this blog, the Alyn is particularly affected because of the river’s ‘disappearance’ underground (see The River Vanishes, Sunday 27^th July, 2025).

The bed of the River Alyn back in July this year…

   …compared to the aftermath of Storm Claudia on Sunday.

Our Grey wagtail put in a guest appearance this morning and we’re certain it was the same one that we saw only last month: while we recognised the bird, I wonder did it recognise us? (Oh! It’s those two again!). There were several House sparrows, Great tits, Robins, Common crows, and a lone Grey heron flying high above the trees, its legs extended horizontally behind it.

    A Robin practicing its ‘winter calendar’ pose

But it was the sight of a pair of Nuthatches that drew our attention: we were sitting beneath an old oak tree and, for some reason, I looked up. I don’t recollect hearing any noise, or being aware of any movement, so I’m not sure why our attention was suddenly locked onto the oak branches above. Pure luck, I suppose. As I raised my binoculars, the nearest bird walked headfirst down the trunk. The way I’m describing it, you might be imagining a stately descent but, really, the bird performed a sequence of rapid steps before turning around in the opposite direction, and then quickly hopped up the branches of the tree. This was a female Nuthatch, given the paleness of its red/orange breast (I’m discounting its being a juvenile given the lateness of the season, but I may well be wrong). I’m guessing that the other Nuthatch was male, although it was a little higher up the tree and I was concentrating on the nearest one. No photographs, unfortunately, as they are such quick, darting creatures, but we’ll maybe see them again the next time we’re here.

Above: Velvet shank. Below: unknown bracket mushrooms

    Late autumn is a good time of year in the British Isles to see various fruiting bodies of fungi although this is one area in which we’re admittedly lacking in knowledge. (Only one?!) But, looking online, I think the buff-coloured spherical fungus is a mushroom called Velvet shank. I’m hesitant to say anything too detailed on the other fungus apart from it appears to be some form of bracket mushroom.

No change at the coin tree

The coin tree, which we generally pass without consideration, is thought to be the modern version of the traditional practice of making offerings to wood deities and spirits. The coins have been hammered into the bark and are almost impossible to extract – allegedly!

The important stuff

We sat outside The Mill House café (Tŷ’r Felin) with our customary cappuccinos, each tucking into a slice of Bakewell. Very nice!

20.11.2025
The River Returns

(Sunday 5^th October, 2025)

    Over to Loggerheads Country Park in Denbighshire this morning. It was 12°C with occasional westerly gusts of wind, although we were pretty much sheltered by the trees either side of the Leete path. In stark contrast to our recent visits when the riverbed ran dry after just a short distance, this time the River Alyn was in full spate and flowing strongly after all the recent rain. We’ve reported elsewhere in the blog seeing Grey wagtails and White-throated Dippers along this stretch of water and, today, we were fortunate enough to witness individuals of both species here, happily sharing the same habitat while exploiting the surge in water.

    Grey wagtail

First to arrive was a Grey wagtail – female, judging by the absence of the black bib. She may have been collecting for her brood, or maybe just herself (we saw no sign of a male today). She re-appeared further downstream a little while later, flying low to land on a rock mid-stream from where she scanned the water, her long tail steadily moving up and down as she did so.

    We moved further through the woods, noticing varieties of fungi as we went. The clusters of fungi decorating the moss-strewn tree trunks appear to be Fairy inkcaps, which are quite common mushrooms throughout Britain. I don’t know what type of mushrooms the bracket fungi are, though: initially I thought Dryad’s saddle, but I’m not so sure now. Until further notice, this shall remain a mystery!

  Fairy inkcaps (top) and bracket fungi (bottom)

We pressed on through the woods always with an eye on the river. Our patience and peering paid off as very soon we saw a brown blur approach from the far bank and land in the water, half-submerging itself. Yes, this was a White-throated Dipper.

White throated Dipper

The bird shifted to a small rock to the side of a naturally formed weir and began its comical, characteristic bobbing. It’s apparently this action that gives the bird its name, as it ‘dips’ up and down: and there was I thinking it earned its name because it enjoyed dipping itself underwater! Trying to identify the sex of a Dipper is very difficult as there is little to distinguish between males and females. On the whole, though, males are larger: looking at this one (and we’re sure that it was the same Dipper that we saw put in a couple of separate appearances), I’d say it was male.

There are a couple of photographs where Stu caught the Dipper with its eyes closed as it was blinking: you can see the white feathers of the eyelids contrast strikingly with its brown head and face.

We watched the Dipper plunge into the water in search of food, which it did tirelessly again and again – in fact, you can see in one of the photographs that it has caught something in its beak. Dippers have a taste for the larvae of Caddisfly but will eat aquatic insects and worms, crustaceans and even small fish, although I can’t identify this particular appetiser here.

   The pleasantly plump Dipper with its beak full

While their solid appearance could be described as ‘pleasantly plump’, their squatness helps make them strong swimmers – they beat their wings rapidly both in and out of the water. Mesmerising. We were exceptionally lucky to have seen both a Grey wagtail and a Dipper along the same stretch of water on the same day.

The important stuff

While building work continues at Loggerheads, this doesn’t mean that travellers like us have to remain hungry and thirsty – oh no! You can get refreshments from The Mill House café (Tŷ’r Felin) next to the mill at the visitor centre, so we had our customary cappuccinos and Bakewell slices as we sat in the lee of the stone wall. Lovely!

08.10.2025
Rain stops play

(Sunday 7^th September, 2025)

    We were at Loggerheads Country Park this morning and, although it was overcast, it was a reasonably mild 18°C, with a light south-westerly wind which was barely perceptible in the shelter of the woods. As we crossed the little bridge to the Leete path, we glimpsed a Dipper scooting upstream. We’ve seen them before along this stretch, but this was to be our only sighting today.[1]

    We followed the Leete a short way, while scanning the riverside, each of us hoping to catch another sighting of the Dipper. I detected a little movement as I trailed my binoculars slowly over the landscape – or riverscape to be more accurate. Looking again, I saw that the movement was the long, see-sawing tail belonging to a Grey wagtail, which was perched on a rock as it scanned the water for food. This one was either a female or a juvenile as it lacked the distinctive black bib that males display during the summer (and I’m classing this as summer, or summer’s end, despite it being meteorological autumn). The grey, white, black, and lemony yellow form a lovely combination as you can see.

    Seen close-up, the Grey wagtail does strike you as being more colourful than its dullish-sounding name suggests, particularly in its underside feathers, and people often mistake it for the Yellow wagtail: the ‘Grey’ of its name refers to its grey back. The Yellow wagtail has an olive-green back and is much more yellow overall. Habitat is often a giveaway when trying to establish species, and Grey wagtails and Yellow wagtails differ from each other quite markedly in this respect. Grey wagtails are usually to be found near running water, where they can hunt for food, whereas Yellow wagtails prefer open fields and meadows, especially favouring ground that’s been disturbed by livestock, such as cattle or sheep, as this means that the birds can easily graze on the worms and grubs that are revealed as a result.

    We have seen Grey wagtails along the River Alyn here many times over the years and we’re fairly confident that they build their nests in the nearby cliffs that overlook the river. We were also lucky enough to see a family of Yellow wagtails quite recently in a cow field, happily scrabbling around the feet of their much larger bovine companions.[2]

There was a little more water – or slightly less exposed river-bed – than the last time we were here. The river still disappears, but now just that little bit further downstream. However, there is still evidently enough food – aquatic and aerial – to satisfy the Dippers and Grey wagtails that share this short stretch of the Alyn. As the title of today’s post suggests we beat a hasty retreat after only an hour-and-a-half or so. The rain came down heavily and, within seconds, the ground became saturated and we were a little bit soggy ourselves.

The important stuff

Sadly, Caffi Florence closed its doors recently, which is such a shame. The staff were wonderful and obviously we have many happy memories. Today, though, we had to go elsewhere for our coffee and cakes and we decided on Daleside Garden Centre in Hawarden (yes, I know, it’s officially ‘Klondyke Strikes’, but we all still refer to it as ‘Daleside’). Anyway, the cappuccinos were accompanied by an Eton Mess slice (Stu) and a Raspberry Meringue (Col). Very nice!

[1] Morning Dippers, Sunday 24^th August, 2025

[2] Bittersweet Memories, Sunday 3^rd August, 2025

11.09.2025
Morning Dippers

(Sunday 24^th August, 2025)

Over to Loggerheads Country Park this still, warm morning (21°C), where we saw a pair of Dippers. As I’ve stated previously, the River Alyn disappears from the surface a short way downstream from the picnic area, but continues to flow underground.[1] Upstream, however, the water still flows sufficiently enough to attract the White-throated dippers, more commonly referred to as just Dippers. These plump, short-tailed birds are very distinctive: mature Dippers have a black back, dark brown wings and tail, and chestnut head and belly, with a completely contrasting white throat and bib. It’s very difficult to tell the sexes apart, although we suspect that these two were a pair, each patrolling overlapping stretches of the river.

Watching them perform their up-and-down bobbing on rocks surrounded by water was fascinating: frankly, it was comical! One of the Dippers submerged itself in the water, presumably seeking food, although I missed this as I was watching its mate further downstream.

Wandering further down the Leete path, we saw several piled logs, which were presumably laid down deliberately to attract insects. A Wren seemed to be making the most of the grubs and larvae, skipping quickly along the rotting branches and in the undergrowth.

Male and female Wrens look very similar, so we’re not sure which sex this was, but what a lovely bird. The Wren is rotund (not unlike the Dipper) and brown, but with very distinctive markings: note the brown and white barring on the wings and the short tail, which is often held erect. At one point, a Robin appeared nearby, probably guarding its territory from the Wren’s incursion, though I’m pleased to say that there was no squabbling!

We sat at the benches which are a little further along the path, where we saw several Small white butterflies collecting nectar from the numerous Great willowherb flowers in the woods. As we returned to the picnic area, through the tree canopy we saw a Common buzzard floating high above the cliffs – we’d heard its high-pitched mewling before we saw it. At the wild garden, a (female) Green-veined white butterfly posed for the camera – the females usually have two spots on their cream-coloured forewings.

The important stuff

After the morning’s exhaustions, we were in dire need of nourishment so, luckily for us, the café – Caffi Florence – was handily situated nearby. Customary cappuccinos were accompanied by a Strawberry and Almond slice (Col), and Coffee and Walnut cake (Stu). Suitably fortified, we were heading back to the car when we noticed a pair of House martins darting in and out from under the roof of the end building. We looked up and saw two well-constructed nests, although only one appeared to be in use. Stu pointed his camera lens upwards and got a couple of shots of the chicks that the parent birds were delivering food to.

[1] See The River Vanishes, Sunday 27^th July

26.08.2025
The River Vanishes

(Sunday 27^th July, 2025)

We were at Loggerheads Country Park on what turned out to be quite a dullish day. Apart from a single Common crow, the park was absent of any avian sightings. In fact, there wasn’t any birdsong during the morning, which leads me to suspect that ‘moulting season’ has begun, which is when birds renew their feathers. Even if a bird is only partially shedding feathers, it’s flying ability can still be hampered, leaving it vulnerable to predators, so it won’t want to attract attention by making any noise while waiting for its new feathers to grow. It does seem unusual that every bird would moult at the same time, so perhaps they were all having a lazy day in the nest watching (muted) telly. Anyway, it was quiet.

A contributory factor to the silence of the woods was the River Alyn which seemed to abruptly stop flowing just beyond the wooden bridge. No water, no insects – aquatic or aerial – and so no birds. We have witnessed this before[1] and it is peculiar to this area: the riverbed is limestone and has a lot of ‘swallow holes,’ and underground caves into which the water pours. From as far back as medieval times the area was being mined for lead, although the amount extracted greatly increased during the 1700s: the Leete Path takes its name from the artificial water course – or ‘leat’ (also spelled ‘leet’ or ‘lete’) which originally conducted water from the Alyn to the waterwheels that were used to power the mining machinery. During prolonged dry spells and high temperatures the Alyn appears to, well, disappear. It does resurface, so to speak, further downstream, ultimately discharging into the Dee Estuary near Bagillt. I highly recommend the Afonydd Cymru website, which has some fascinating information on the rivers of Wales, including the River Alyn: https://afonyddcymru.org

The important stuff

After a while, we realised that it wasn’t just the Alyn’s riverbed that was dry, and we proceeded to Caffi Florence where we indulged in our usual cappuccinos and cakes. I had Orange Drizzle cake and Stu had a Chocolate Brownie. Lovely!

[1] See Along the Leete 14^th April, 2024

11.08.2025