Coast Walking (Wales): South Side of Dyfi Estuary to Borth 28 June 2014

Common lizard at Ynyshir

Bridewort by Dyfi Furnace

Picking up the road along the south side of the Dyfi (A487), we travelled as far as Ynyslas Dunes nature reserve and the village of Borth on the coast. The only access anywhere near the river all the way to Ynyslas was Ynyshir RSPB reserve, where we could walk down to hides overlooking lagoons and saltmarsh. All the usual garden birds could be seen at the bird-feeders outside the Visitor Centre. By the shore there were plenty of herons, a glimpse of a kingfisher, a solitary non-breeding great egret, and a family of little grebes. Woodland areas had pied flycatchers feeding young among the oaks, along with tree-creepers and greater spotted woodpeckers. Ditches had water-purslane, broad-leaved pondweed, tufted forget-me-not, common valerian, water-plantain and bulrush, while the woodland floor had a mixed flora including wood-sorrel, cow-wheat, primrose, bluebell and a little climbing corydalis; heathland sported trailing St. John's-wort. After rain the paths swarmed with young toads, and when the sun came out we saw both common lizard and adders basking. We found the rare sap-beetle Soronia punctatissima and drinker moth caterpillars. Boards celebrated R.S. Thomas’ nature poems.

Between Ynyshir and the coast is a hamlet called Furnace, named after the Dyfi blast furnace sited here for smelting iron ore shipped in from

Cumbria

, the site exploiting the power of the River Einion created by a waterfall. In use 1755-1810 the vast water-wheel later powered a saw mill and is now preserved.

The beach at Ynyslas had fewer bivalves than we had collected north of Aberdyfi, although they included a few Callista chione, which we have come across very few times before. The thick shells of Arctica islandica were common. The high points of the mobile seaward dunes gave views across to Aberdyfi and up the estuary. Pyramidal orchids were scattered all over. Some people we met mentioned bee orchids on this western side as well, but we did not encounter any. A surprise, though, was a plant of Sweet William!

The pride of these dunes was just south of the visitor centre (with its colourful mosaic murals and floors) in the slacks, although these seemed rather dry. Swathes of marsh helleborine were everywhere and it was difficult not to step on young ones whose flowers had not yet opened. Close-up, their flowers are among the most exotic-looking of our native orchids. Among them were many early marsh orchids, mostly the rose-pink variety. The site is also remarkable as one of the few places where one can see both northern and southern marsh orchids, the former a much deeper purple than the latter. A few of the latter had spots on their leaves, especially of the “ring” type, now recognised as variety junialis or leopard marsh orchid. We also saw brookweed and one patch of bog pimpernel. A solitary bee feeding on bramble seemed to be Coelioxys conoidea, which is a dune species but slightly north of its known range along the south coast of

Wales

. The red leaf-beetle Chrysomela populi, which feeds on willows, was noticeable. We also found the spurge bug Dicranocepahlus agilis, which mainly feeds on Portland spurge, and emperor moth caterpillars. Much of the stable dune area to the SW had been lost to caravans.

The walk down the beach from Ynyslas to Borth was marked mostly by the need to keep circumventing groynes, which often collected pools of water on the very level beach, making wide detours necessary. Inland of the beach on this stretch is a golf course, leaving only small remnants of stable dune in odd places. We did see kidney vetch here but not on the reserve to the north. The foreshore has the remains of a submerged forest that was killed about 1500BC, the stumps of various trees (oak, pine, birch, willow and hazel) once preserved in peat very visible at low tide. Sea rocket occurred near the beach-heads along with young rosettes of yellow horned poppy, whose populations may have been decimated by winter storms. Storm damage was evident at the beach near the centre of Borth, where bulldozers were still landscaping the shingle, which had obviously been thrown up to the road and left in general disarray. It looked as though they had also had to reconstruct much of the promenade along the top.