Aberystwyth to Llanrhystud 30 June 2014

Wood-sage Burnet rose galls

We parked at one of the main car parks in Aberystwyth between the station and the bridge over the Rheidol, which we crossed and followed the Elderly People signs to the south bank of the river.  Among other flowers here we saw pale toadflax.  The mouth of this river is combined with that of the Ystwyth, which arrives from southwards, and another bridge crossed that to carry us to the shingle along the coast south of the town, Tanybwich Beach.  There was much sea holly.  At the end of the beach the path rose steeply up a hill topped by a war memorial.  The trail was then wholly along the cliffs among flowery acid heath, including much bell heather, wild thyme, English stonecrop and betony, much less heath groundsel than yesterday, but a patch of bitter vetch.  Wood-sage, however, continued as one of the dominant plants.  Just after Morfa Bychan was a genuine crab-apple tree loaded with fruit.  While burnet roses had finished flowering they were still bright with the very common red leaf galls of the gall-wasp Diplolepis spinosissimae.  Plenty of butterflies were evident, including dark green fritillary, small heath, ringlet and red admiral, along with day-flying moths like Jersey tiger, cinnabar and six-spot burnet.  Birds included chough, wheatear, linnet, stonechat and meadow pipit.  There were some steep, tiring ups and downs all the way to Pinderi Cliffs, a nature reserve that conserves stunted sessile oak woods descending the cliffs.  Under these dwarf lichen-, moss- and fern-bedecked trees were typical woodland plants like dog’s mercury, tutsan, bluebell, red campion, bitter vetch and climbing corydalis, although these could only be seen by taking a digression into the reserve, the coast walk passing by above.  Fulmars occasionally passed by here and a colony of cormorants was visible below on the lower rocks.  As often found at least once along each of our coast walk sessions, we came across a dead common shrew in the path – presumably they are not usually scavenged because they are distasteful to most animals.  The path gradually became less steep and finally descended to the plain near Llanrhystud where the coast was dominated by a caravan park and we had to go up a lane to the main A487 at the edge of the village to catch a bus back.  A service station supermarket furnished welcome ice creams to eat while we waited 20 minutes for the next bus.

Pinderi Cliffs Stunted oakwood on Penderi Cliffs Common shrew