My Ordeal: Part 1

Sorry for the long delay. These tablets are playing hell with me. Over the next few weeks I'll try and explain as best as I can what's been going on over the last 345 days. I'll warn you though, it's not a pretty story.

Ready for action...

Eddie, Cliff and myself have set up the new 'super camera' in this old disused pill box. Even though we're a good 500 yards from the beach I reckon we will soon be able to get some great shots of herons, terns, spoonbills, cormorants, greybellies, longnecks, shags, frigates , shearwaters, oystercatchers and so on. We are taking shifts at manning the camera.

Watch this space...

New kit #2

I must admit i was a bit concerned at how cumbersome the new lens was when it arrived:

Still, me and Eddie took it out for a trial. Eddie's brother Cliff drove us down to Pembrokeshire in his van.

Here's the picturesque village of Lower Crumblestone. I took this pic using one of my normal cameras:

And here's the same shot using the new lens:

Happy days!

New kit

Well, my week in Cwmgrwfi is over.
I always feel a bit sad coming back to Carmarthen...
But Eddie has made me very happy with this great present. He has made me a new camouflage suit. Here it is:



Can you spot me?
We're going to get some great shots using this. Plus I've bought a great new zoom lens from The Cambrian Trader- so watch this space!

Homers

Here are two great Cwmgrwfi carachters.

Elfyn 'Tex' Evans and David 'Dai Titanic' Davies. Local pigeon fanciers. They send their homers all over the country on the backs of lorries and on trains- back they come, unfailingly to Upper Cwmgrwfi.

Here is a very famous pigeon from the legendary Upper Cwmgrwfi Lofts: El Gran Senor.

El Gran Senor was the only Welsh pigeon to serve in the Spanish Civil War- Cwmgrwfi Anarchists sent him out there in a show of solidarity to the Republican Forces in 1937. Of course, being a homer he was back within a week.

By the way , did you know that pigeons have been a great inspiration for poets in the past? John Keats' sonnet, On First Looking into Chapman's Homer, celebrates a famous bird of the Regency period.

Pigeons nesting...

The locals had told me that there were birds nesting in the tops of one of the 104 wind turbines that overlook Cwmgrwfi. I scaled up there to have a look and sure enough, there they were, a clutch of young pigeons.









Thanks to my Auntie Vi who took the pic of me scaling the turbine.

A long hike.

Still relaxing in Cwmgrwfi...
Didn't get much sleep last night as there was a rowdy Dydd Gwyl y Wy Mawr Olaf party in the street, then of course woken by the nestlings at 03:30...
Still, up on the moors again and ... no low flying jets!
Spotted this joker:

I haven't got any of my bird books here with me but I reckon its either a Goldfinch or a Blue Tit.
Managed to snap this one with an old Minolta camera that I swapped for a karaoke machine in Cash Convertor.
Massive hike up Mynydd Cwmgrwfi and down through Abergrwfi pass. Ended up at Llyn Grwfi where there are loads of birds on the lake- coots, grebes, morons, swans, all sorts of ducks.

Got back to Cwmgrwfi at sunset and snapped these fellows heading home to roost.