Coast Walking (Wales): Aberporth to Cardigan 4 July 2014

Goldenrod

Western gorse

Magpie moth pupa

When we started the tide was well enough out at Aberporth to search for shells, finding a much wider range than we had collected for several days, including tortoiseshell and blue-rayed limpets, nut shells and the uncommon Solecurtus scopula and Pododesmus patelliformis. Most coves along this coast are shingly and almost devoid of molluscs. The headland after Aberporth is MoD territory and normally inaccessible (but see supplement below), so we had to follow a road through Parcllyn along its inland side and then a path through farmland and a long steep valley to the cliffs. The walk undulated as the day before but the cliffs were somewhat lower and less arduous. The path was also rough in places and we often had to plough through high bracken, but in some ungrazed stretches where rocks outcropped there was diverse vegetation. We particularly noticed saw-wort and goldenrod, but slender and trailing St. John’s-worts were frequent, betony (including a good deal of a pure white variety), sheepsbit, common centaury, and most of the other cliff-heath plants we had seen so far. Some of these are now mostly over, such as thrift and English stonecrop. In the path we came across beetles like the click beetle Selatosomus aeneus, which is glossy metallic dark green, and the very common ground beetle Pterostichus madidus. There were occasional sightings of dolphins, one leaping entirely out of the sea, but it was difficult to see many birds in the rain, with only brief glimpses of kestrel and buzzard, and a good many linnets. A major headland with a conical hill, the Mwnt, was avoided by crossing its south side past an isolated white church. These conical hills are presumably relict volcanoes. The cliffs show plenty of evidence of volcanic activity with Silurian/Ordovician mudstones consolidated into slates, folded and intruded by bands of quartz and dolerite some 400 million years ago. The path led to a public convenience and small shelter near an old lime kiln where we could stand to eat our cheese-and-biscuits lunch out of reach of the day’s continuous rain. The weather prevented much butterfly activity although we still saw the browns and a few red admirals, and we did spot the vivid black-and-yellow pupa of a magpie moth hanging from a rose leaf. Swallows had a nest inside the ladies’ and were continually swooping close by.

No sooner had we regained the cliff path but it was fenced off yet again, this time with no adequate explanation other than that work to upgrade the way as the official coast path was still waiting to be done – which was no reason to close it because it had previously been a serviceable public footpath. This piece of bureaucratic nonsense was annoying because it meant yet another diversion inland miles from the coast via roads through Ferwig. It was 5 kilometres before we at last reached the coast again at Gwbert, although we were walking along the east side of the Teifi estuary, having missed a whole corner of the coast and been denied views of Cardigan Island Nature Reserve. We still had to walk road south towards Cardigan (the first bridging point). Along this road there were hosts of fragrant evening primrose, distinct in its yellow flowers soon turning bright-orange and stiff erect little-branched red stems. After 2 kilometres we reached Nant-y-ferwig where the coast path leaves the road to take a cross-field route to Cardigan. Signs led us past workshops to the shore of the estuary and a saltmarsh but we missed the planned path. Instead we managed to walk along the saltmarsh, increasing the range of plants recorded, including sea milkwort, arrow-grasses, yellow sedge, sea spurrey and so on. This was stony and muddy and started getting increasingly swampy when we found a way up beside a house and into a drive that led to a small lane which was where the official coast route also arrived. It was then only another kilometre down lanes to the beginning of the housing at Cardigan and a few more minutes brought us to the quay. We worked up through part of the town centre and happened on the main bus terminus to catch our bus back to Aberporth.

Supplement (3 August 2014) With a BSBI party that had clearance to explore parts of the MOD-owned headland west of Aberporth, we were able to walk along the upper cliffs of this section closed to the public. It contained some extensive cliff top heathland with abundant sawwort, betony, goldenrod and western gorse. A few of the betony were of the white form. We saw a few clumps of the hawkweed Hieracium umbellatum. Violet leaves were common and, although we found no pale dog violet, there were examples of its hybrid with common dog violet. Wet seeps were generally the best for the less common species, such as slender and bristle club rushes, marsh willowherb, and the minute chaffweed (present only as dried-up specimens still with fruits). A little pond was choked with the introduced curly waterweed, but still had small pondweed. Many of the plants recorded were those of disturbed places and arable land, such as borage, corn spurrey and fluellen, many associated with calcareous soil and therefore uncommon in this part of Wales. There was, for instance, quite a lot of carline thistle and a patch of tor-grass. At one place narrow-leaved everlasting-pea had gained a strong foothold, and we found one vigorous clump of fodder burnet with its winged seeds. The most unusual sighting, however, was of a sunfish in the surface of the sea soliciting a herring gull to peck off parasites. The gull initially seemed bewildered, but the fish was very persistent in flaunting itself around the bird, and eventually the gull began to clean it up. The fish was slightly larger than the gull, but was only small compared to the maximum size these fish can attain.