Category Archives: Events

RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch results for Wales

Leave a reply

 

The RSPB‘s Big Garden Birdwatch results arrived through my letterbox today, together with a new keyboard, a vital necessity after I tipped a glass of lemon squash into my previous one on Monday, annihilating the entire bottom row of keys, and most of the upper right.  Two pieces of post that made me very happy, with all due thanks to my postman for continuing to provide a brilliant service when they are under serious pressure as all of us turn to online orders.

Compared to our first 1979 survey, Big Garden Birdwatch results show declines in once common species such as greenfinch and chaffinch – mirroring the loss of wildlife in the wider countryside.  Yet there are signs of hope – in the last decade numbers of some garden species, including house sparrows, goldfinches and great tits appear to have increased, showing signs of potential recovery.  The version of the results sent to me was the version produced for residents in Wales, which was particularly interesting.

  1. House sparrows are still on top, and although numbers have been in decline since 1979, the rate of fall shows signs of slowing.
  2. Blue tits show a rise in numbers, and we certainly have a lot around here
  3. Starlings are down, although still common.  They say that starlings were spotted in 80% of Welsh gardens, but I have never seen one here.
  4. Blackbirds, one of my real favourites, are down.  Apparently a lot of chicks are lost at nesting time, and they can be helped by leaving hedges uncut and providing them with mealworms (which the robins and blue tits go crazy for too, at least in my garden)
  5. Chaffinches are down, but in Wales they were reported in 47% of gardens.  I have seen one this year
  6. Great tits are 12% up over the last 10 years, and we always have plenty in Aberdovey
  7. Goldfinches, permanent residents in my garden are up an incredible 50% in the last decade. A group of goldfinches, incidentally, is called “a charm.”
  8. Long-tailed tits are on their way up.  The last time I saw one was in the park over the road from my house when I lived in London.  They are enchanting.
  9. Robins were seen in 87% of Welsh gardens (mine included) but overall have fallen by almost one third since 1979.
  10. Magpies are on their way up and are doing well in Wales.  They are forever quarrelling with the jackdaws in my garden, and are often here when the pheasants visit, perhaps knowing that peanuts will be forthcoming

Chough. Source: RSPB website

Interestingly, just as happened last year, the pheasants moved in to my gardens and neighbouring gardens for the winter, and have now headed off again, rarely visiting.

A lot of birds are losing their natural habitats, like hedgerows, and climate change is impacting some species, like the puffin.  And have you seen a chough hereabouts?  I had never heard of them but they are crows with crimson beaks and red legs, that need cliff-top farmland for nesting and feeding sites.   There are only a few hundred pairs still remaining in Wales.

Vintage postcards #17: A special train on the Cambrian Coast Line

2 Replies

This must have been a wonderful sight – a steam-hauled special train on the way into Aberdovey along the side of the estuary on the Cambrian Coast Line.  The reverse of the postcard says that it was sold in aid of the Talyllyn Railway in Tywyn.  The Aberdovey stretch of the railway was established in 1864, connecting via Machynlleth to the south in 1867 (the subject of an earlier post) and the last steam engine run along the route was in 2017, marking the 150th anniversary of the Grade 2 listed Pont Y Bermo (Barmouth Bridge), that carries the line over the Mawwdach estuary.

I naively thought that it would be easy to find a date for what I thought must be an unusual event, but my assumption was wrong.   Thanks, therefore, to Sierd Jan Tuistra, via RMWeb member Martin McCowgill, who provided the information that this is one of the annual AGM weekend specials from Paddington to Towyn, 24th September 1960.  It was a double-headed special, with two engines pulling the carriages from Shrewsbury to Towyn, each pulling a coal truck before the passenger carriages. The engine at the front is 9017, otherwise known as the Dukedog class, which was the nickname for the Great Western Railway Earl Class.  Behind it is engine 7330 in the Mogul (GWR 4300) class.

Steam was not an uncommon sight on the Cambrian coast, a lot of regular services were steam hauled until 1966. Double headed train were less common, but quite a number of Cambrian Coast express summer Saturday specials were double headed because of the number of passengers & carriages.

Apparently there also used to be occasional summer steam trips on a Sunday from Aberystwyth to Pwllheli, so although this was a fabulous sight, it was not actually as rare as one might have expected.  Halliday, the photographer, specialized in vintage train photographs in the 1950s, mainly black and white.

Produced by Judges, about whom more on an earlier post.

Fireworks two nights in a row! This time from Borth

Leave a reply

I love fireworks so I was very spoiled last night when I heard the first bang and saw a gorgeous explosion of colour from the other side of the estuary.  Gorgeous.  Great that the two villages decided to do their displays on different nights.

 

A splendid Aberdovey Bank Holiday fireworks display

Leave a reply

Splendid to see the DoveyFest Bank Holiday firework display tonight.  Although it has been a lovely day I didn’t venture down into the village because I knew that it would be bedlam, but I was really looking forward to the fireworks.  What a super way to celebrate the last summer Bank Holiday of the year.  It was a lovely display, full of bright, wild colours and splendid patterns, bursts of vibrant light on the backdrop of a truly balmy night.  Congrats to Bright Works Fireworks Displays for such a great show.

Cooking with Seabreeze hake and samphire from the Aberdovey Food Festival

Leave a reply

Day 2 of working joyously through my treasure trove from the Aberdovey Food Festival 2018, I used the second fillet of hake and the rest of the samphire, both from Seabreeze, together with some clams in their shells (from a Portuguese shop in Wrexham) and some prawns to make myself a cataplana (a Portuguese cooking method that combines steaming and poaching in a single tightly sealed metal device, also called a cataplana) in a cream, white wine, saffron and marsala stock.  Served it again with cubes of sautéed maris piper spuds, because they needed using up, lots of black pepper, a drizzle of tabasco and lemon slices.  Dipped a chunk of the tomato focaccia from the Mountain Road Bread Collective into it, and what it lacked in elegance it compensated with amply with pure flavour.  I’ll halve the white wine and double the saffron next time, and chuck in a few slightly under-ripe tomato chunks.  Another happy Festival outcome.

Aberdyfi Food Festival, 18th August 2018

Leave a reply

My haul from the Food Festival: seeded wholemeal bread, apple chutney, mangalitza sausages, two types of focaccia, a pain au raisin, a chelsea bun, a bag of fresh samphire and two stunning fillets of hake

I was in Chester for most of last week with my father, but I ensured that I was back in time for the Aberdyfi Food Festival 2018, the fourth anniversary of the event, which takes place in a field, at one time the school playing field, next to the station.  It was superb!  It was a grey day, with drizzle, but everyone dressed up for the weather and it was packed, with a great atmosphere.  There must have been about 30 stalls.  Some sold food and drink in packets and bottles to take home, whilst others were providing a wide range of consumables to eat and drink on the hoof, including paella, hog roast, pizza, oysters, Pimms, cider, beer, coffee and much more.  Straw bales were scattered around to sit on, and there was a marquee where events were taking place.  These included: Welsh lamb at its best / Fizz Masterclass / Something fishy! / Cocktails / Foraging and syrups.

I bought a lot of wonderful food.  My two bags were stuffed to capacity.

I went slightly mad at the Mountain Road Bread Collective stall, acquiring various products for the freezer because I love artisanal bread.  A seeded loaf, two types of focaccia (one of which was vegan), a pain au raisin, and a Chelsea bun made up my haul.  I was lucky to get near the stall because I had passed it twice when it was three deep with customers, and I pounced in a quiet moment.  The Mountain Road Bread Collective (Andy’s Bread and Rye and Roses), a member of the Real Bread Campaign.

Welsh Mangalitza and Butchery

There was so much to select from the Welsh Mangalitza and Butchery (best of show in 2016) that I was struggling to choose what to buy.  In the end I chose Hungarian sausages and some black pudding, but there was so much else that tempted me.  Unfortunately my freezer is stuffed to the gunwales or I might have gone mad.  Husband and wife team Angela and Stuart are based in Llanddewi Brefi in the Cambrian mountain foothills, and both breed the wonderful Mangalitza pigs.  The mangalitza breed is from Hungarian breed of domestic pig, the result of cross-breeding in the 19th century, with woolly coats that are ideal for Welsh winters.  The pigs are free-range and all meat is butchered, processed and cured on the premises. They apparently attend Aberystwyth Farmers’ Market on a regular basis, so that’s something to look forward to.  Unfortunately they don’t have a website, so there is no online ordering facility, but their Twitter page is @mynyddmawrherd and they have a Facebook page.

Seabreeze’s excellent fish stall in a van

With a particularly happy heart I approached the Seabreeze restaurant stand and bought two slabs of hake, a bag of samphire.  They have an excellent mobile stall that enables them to sell seafood out of the back of a van which had been cleverly adapted to offer a superbly designed fish counter.  There was also dressed crab, glorious looking plaice, huge pieces of haddock, whole fresh mackerel and a range of other wonderful produce.  Bliss. If only I had had more room in my freezer!  The pop-up kitchen to its side was doing a roaring trade in paella.   I have been worried about acquiring fish in the Aberdovey area since the fishmonger closed down years ago, but chatting with the lady running the stall my mind is now at rest – Seabreeze, where I’ve eaten many times, not only sells fish in Tywyn on a Saturday morning, but if you walk into their restaurant during the day you can buy fish directly from them.  Happy!

I bought some pure white goats cheese from Caws Teifi Cheese from Ceredigion.  It is glorious stuff – delicate but full of flavour.   I was tempted to buy more cheeses, but I had come back with quite a bit of Perl Wen and Mrs Bourne’s Cheshire cheeses from my recent trip to Chester.   Caws Teifi Cheese was established by Dutch owners who arrived in Wales “with dreams of organic farming . . . . using raw milk and local ingredients to make high quality artisanal cheese.”  Happily they sell online.

My final purchase was apple chutney from the Mrs Pooks Kitchen tent.  Again, there was a mind-boggling choice of jams, marmalades and chutneys, but I had some cold pork in the fridge that was calling out for an apple chutney, and when I put the two together it was a marriage made in heaven.  They are based in Ciliau Aeron, just outside Aberaeron in Ceredigion, but I have been unable to find any online presence for them.

I tried some sparkling wine made by a Welsh vineyard called Llaethliw,  and it was gorgeous but at 26 squids a bottle out of my league.  In  the 1990s I worked on a British wine project, and retain familiarity with a lot of the vineyard names and grape varieties to be found in Britian, and am a great enthusiast for sparkling wines, but this was new to me.  They are located in Llaethliw Vineyard at the foothills of the Cambrian Mountains in Neuaddlwyd, Aberaeron in Ceredigion.  Their website explains how Richard and Siw Evans bought Llaethliw in 2008 after investigating the new possibilities provided by climate change and 6500 vines were planted in 2009.

I would have loved to have tried one of the spicy Kurdish meat pasties from Kurmang Rashid’s tent, but he had sold out!  Good for his bottom line, sad for my taste buds 🙂  He’s based in Blaenau Ffestiniog but as with some others mentioned on this page, no online presence is discoverable.

The leaflet advertising the event, which I actually picked up at the festival itself, has a Village Food Trail, which says that a hut has opened on the wharf to sell seafood caught in the area, which I will go and find during the week.  I know most of the other businesses on the list, restaurants, pubs and shops, but seeing them all listed together makes for impressive reading.

My happy efforts with Seabreeze hake fillet with steamed Seabreeze samphire, rather too many sautéed maris piper potatoes and a caper, lemon and butter sauce

I almost never eat breakfast or lunch but today was an exception.  The Mountain Road Bread Collective’s seeded loaf was married with leftover cold shoulder pork from the Aberdyfi Butcher and the Mrs Pooks apple chutney, and I have rarely been happier!   I lightly fried one of the Seabreeze’s hake fillets in butter and served it with steamed Seabreeze samphire, sautéed potatoes and a caper, lemon and butter sauce.  The hake tasted super-fresh and was full of flavour.  There were rather too many spuds, but hey ho!  What a splendid culinary adventure, thanks to the Aberdyfi Food Festival.