Conwy

Blog post: How to build a straw house, part I

julian hughes — Wed, 15 May 2013 08:03:00 GMT

If you've visited the reserve over recent weeks, you'll have seen our new building, The LookOut, emerging from the earth bank next to the Coffee Shop. When it's finished, we'll use it for all sorts of events and activities, and it'll be open to visitors most days to enjoy the wildlife on the lagoon. But this is no ordinary building. If you've been following progress on our blog, you'll know that it's mostly build of wood, straw and clay. Yesterday, we started with the fun (and messy!) bit. Here's how we got on.

The timberwork has all been created by a team from Greenbuilt, but the roof and floor insulation and the walls are being built by a team of staff and volunteers. None of us has ever built a straw-bale building before, but we know a woman who has built plenty. Barbara Jones (right) of Strawworks has designed The LookOut and is training us to build it. First up was a safety briefing, to ensure we would be safe and that we wouldn't damage the building. We had to be very careful to stand only on the beams - if we put a foot through the birch plywood ceiling, we'd wreck it and risk falling through.

The first task was to break open the straw bales donated to us by The Crown Estate, and grown and baled for us at their farm in Cheshire. The bales are smaller than the size that most farmers would use today, and we hear the farm manager had to find an old baler that would do the job. He's done the job perfectly, and we split each bale roughly in half and pushed it into the void between the beams. This involved a fair amount of pushing and smacking (of the bales, not each other), then packing the gaps with loose straw so that there was as little air as possible. All this straw will keep the building toasty-warm in winter. And makes it totally cool!

Meanwhile, other members of the team were mixing sand and milled clay, which is a by-product of brick-making. This was hoisted up to roof height and we pushed and pressed the clay mix onto the tops of the bales. This forms a fireproof barrier and protects the straw, while still allowing to breathe. This bit was very messy and by far the most time-consuming part of the job/

This is what the roof looks like when it's nearly done (the loose straw on top of the clay had blown from elsewhere on the roof). We completed about half the job yesterday and we hope to finish the work today. Then Greenbuilt will put wood over the top to seal it all in. Tomorrow, we'll be trained in building the walls of straw, which is when we'll really start to get an idea of how The LookOut will feel. We'll update the blog as we go so you can see what we're up to.

Over the weekend, we'll make the final decision about what will go in the time capsule, which will be placed among the straw insulation in the floor. Thanks to our Twitter followers and Facebook friends for the great suggestions. Check back here next week to see what's going in.

The LookOut is part of our Conwy Connections project, giving RSPB Conwy a makeover - read more about it here.

Photo: Linnet

stevo — Mon, 13 May 2013 21:17:00 GMT

After spotting 5 wheatear outside of the Carnethau hide I decided to go and get my camera. On my return the wheatear had gone and these colourfull Linnet had decided to take their place, males and females.

Photo: White Wagtail

stevo — Mon, 13 May 2013 20:59:00 GMT

As the weather grew worse on our visit 28-4-13 the bird life seemed to get better.

Photo: Sand Martin

stevo — Mon, 13 May 2013 20:43:00 GMT

Sand Martins mixing with the Swallows

Photo: Swallow

stevo — Mon, 13 May 2013 20:39:00 GMT

This little guy and all of his friends were sheltering from the atrocious weather.

Photo: The fly-by

stevo — Mon, 13 May 2013 20:18:00 GMT

This guy was getting hounded by crows and came in realy low in bid to try and lose them I think.

Photo: The Fisherman

stevo — Mon, 13 May 2013 19:09:00 GMT

Took this photo just outside the cafe on 7-4-13. Although the herons are quite a common site at Conwy I felt quite lucky that I was able to get as close as i did and watch him fishing in the shallows.

Blog post: The web of life

Sarah Money — Sun, 12 May 2013 15:25:00 GMT

These last few weeks have seen amazing aerobatic displays from hundreds of swallows, martins and swifts, zooming past at head height busy feeding up on insects after their long journey back from Africa. The one benefit of all this rain is that at least it makes the displays even more spectacular - in these conditions the insects keep low and so do the birds, hawking for them sometimes only feet from the ground. Visitors to the reserve may also have noticed clouds of these birds skimming the lagoons on some days, hunting for food. So what are they eating? At this time of year, we get big emergences of the adult stage of the chironomid (non-biting) midge's life cycle, and it is probably these that the birds are picking up. If you look closely in the cobwebs in the corners of the hide windows, you'll see lots of these tiny creatures, which make ideal food for the hirundines. Their larval stage lives in the mud at the bottom of the lagoons, and ultimately it's these that we are trying to manage the lagoons for, as they're also great food for all the waders. Lots of birds on the reserve depend on this tiny overlooked creature!

Swallow photo by Alan Rogers

This time of year is all about nests and young, and we've got a few lapwing broods, Canada goose goslings and mallard ducklings about, and the great crested grebes, in contrast to previous years, actually seem to be staying with their first nest rather than making several attempts. Fingers crossed they make it first time for once! The stoats have started to become much more active too, being seen most days by the Coffee Shop or by the car park entrance. And the really exciting news is that Ceri Morris from the Mammals in a Sustainable Environment (MISE) Project, who's been working with us looking at mammal populations on the reserve, caught some footage of two otters playing on the reserve on her trail camera. We regularly see spraint (droppings) round the reserve, but seeing the actual animals is much harder, and it's thanks to her persistence that she finally caught them on camera!

We still have a few migrants passing through though, with big numbers of wheatears on the Estuary Path last week, a few white wagtails still, a cuckoo on 4th May, a grasshopper warbler on 6th May, a yellow wagtail on 10th and 11th May, and up to 27 whimbrel on the estuary. High tides have also brought sandwich terns into the estuary to look for fish - they're most easily picked up by their distinctive rasping call, wonderfully described in the Collins Field Guide as "like pressing amalgam into a tooth"! Now there's a description that will stick in the mind.

Blog post: Wildlife Explorers : The Sponsored Bird-Race

Jane E — Thu, 09 May 2013 13:07:00 GMT

Conwy Wildlife Explorers have been raising money to help the RSPB's Rockhopper penguin appeal. Rockhopper penguins live mainly in the south Atlantic Ocean and their numbers have been dropping - less than one tenth of what it was in the 1950s. The reason for this isn't clear and so the RSPB want to investigate. The money that we raise will go towards buying gadgets like data loggers and satellite tags that will be used to track the birds to find out what is going on. Hopefully then work will start to stop the decline of this fantastic looking bird. It's name comes from the way it jumps over rocks and stones at the seashore !

Here's what Peter Jenkins age 8 had to say about our fundraising effort:

"Today we did a sponsored bird race around the reserve.

That’s a bird spotting race where you are supposed to spot as many birds as you can in 1 hour 20 mins! We spotted 38 birds! The other team got 38 but they cheated, they counted the penguin they were carrying so we said they had 37. Altogether we spotted 48 different bird species.

My favourite bird that I spotted was a buzzard. It was gliding across the estuary and it was the best because it was the biggest.

We have taken home a sponsorship form to raise money for Rock hopper penguins and that is what we have been doing today."

Blog post: Revealed: what we're going to call our House of Straw

julian hughes — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 15:08:00 GMT

The latest part of our Conwy Connections project has really started to shape-up this week. And now we can reveal what we're going to call the new building that will soon grow next to the Coffee Shop.

This week has seen a load of steel work arrive on site. The only steel in the finished building will be the door and its frame, but to ensure we can build everything safely, we have created a scaffold 'cage' to enable us to work at height. It starts to give us an idea of the scale of the new building, but of course, it will look much nicer than all these tubes.

The straw was transported from The Crown Estate's farm at Tabley in Cheshire last week, and we're storing it temporarily in a big barn at one of our other reserves. We've brought some of the bales to Conwy, and that's why there's now a large blue shipping container on Y Maes. That's not too pretty either, but it will mean we can keep it dry and the team can do some carpentry work when the weather is bad.

On Monday, the big deliveries of wood arrived. And we mean big! The beams that run the length of the building are each 12 metres long. Most of these are made from softwood and ply, but even so it took four people to move each one from the car park to the worksite. And then the mother of all oak beams arrived. I'm not sure what it weighed, but it took ten of us to move it, and even then it was a struggle. We knew that if we put it down, we'd probably never pick it up again. Thanks to all the volunteers and staff who came to help This piece of oak will be the central supporting beam, and it's going to be fun winching it up to roof height!

From the outset, we had a working name for the new building, but we hadn't revealed what we would call it when it's finished. It's going to be The Lookout (and Tŷ-gwylio in Welsh). We've called it that because it's going to be a great place from which you can see wildlife and enjoy the view. It'll also be a great space for small events that are about getting closer to nature.

In a few weeks' time, we'll start to stuff the roof and floor with straw as insulation, and then we'll stack and pin the bales to create the walls of The Lookout. Within the floor we'll place a time capsule, and we're delighted that so many people suggested items to put in it. We're working through the list to work out what will fit in the box and what we can easily get hold of, and we'll post up a list and some photos in a couple of weeks. But our first thank you goes to regular visitors Brian and Alice, who after reading last week's blog about the time capsule, gave us their limited edition Golden Curlew pin-badge for the time capsule, and gave us a generous donation too. Diolch yn fawr!

Blog post: Dance of the Lapwings

julian hughes — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 13:23:00 GMT

One of the highlights of our spring is the displaying Lapwings, as Conwy is one of only a handful of sites along the North Wales coast where these once-common waders now nest, following a serious decline across Wales. Last autumn, we scalped the islands on the lagoons, removing all the vegetation so that when the Lapwings returned in March, they'd have short grass on which to nest (they like it short so they can keep an eye on what's happening around them). At this time of year, Sarah's alarm clock goes off extra early so that she can count the nesting waders and waterbirds. The cold weather has rather messed up the Lapwing's breeding season, but we currently have four Lapwings sitting on eggs, and there are several more pairs that haven't quite got round to it yet. Their aerial display flight, captured so well in Aled Williams' photo, involves them swooping to the ground from height, shouting their 'pee-whit' call which gives them their old English name. Their Welsh name Cornchwiglen is also onomatopoeic, the 'chwig-len' sounding like their call. Fingers crossed for a successful breeding season.

Many of our summer migrants are now with us: there are now lots of Chiffchaffs, Willow Warblers and Whitethroats around, though Blackcaps still seem a bit scarce. The first Garden Warbler arrived on Thursday (25th) and our first Whinchat was here the same day, though unlike the others, it won't stay to nest. There were also up to 30 Wheatears and a Yellow Wagtail that morning. The most surprising spectacle of the week came with a slow-moving weather front of drizzle on Thursday morning, dropping at least 32 Common Sandpipers on the reserve, of which 17 were feeding in a single flock on the Paddock! The same day brought a good arrival of Sedge Warblers, holding territory despite the slow growth in the reedbeds.

A few waders have been moving through: a small group of Dunlins this morning, Greenshank, Knot and Whimbrel on Wednesday and Thursday. Several Arctic terns were seen earlier in the week, and there have been plenty of Swifts, Swallows and House Martins. A dead Bottle-nosed dolphin was, sadly, washed into the estuary on Tuesday morning. On a more positive note, Cowslips are abundant around the Coffee Shop and if you're walking along the estuary track, look out for Lady's Smock and Dog Violets growing along the bank, part of which we cut over the winter to encourage a wider variety of plants and insects on this southwest-facing slope. Like the management work we do for the Lapwings, we're working hard to give nature a home. Enjoy it!

Blog post: Meet the muralist of Tal-y-Fan hide

Bethan Lloyd RSPB — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 12:34:00 GMT

Apart from the fresh new look, the exciting new facilities such as the new play area, new picnic area, new viewpoint...and everything else that Conwy Connections has to offer, Conwy Connections has created many other opportunities, including the chance to work with some of Conwy’s greatest talents.

Artist Richard Hackett, from Colwyn Bay, painted a fresh new mural for the Tal-y-Fan hide. He took time away from his busy, creative schedule to talk to us about his work and Conwy Connections:

How familiar were you with Conwy reserve before working on the mural?

Conwy reserve is a place that my family and I like very much; I have visited many times over the last 15 years since shortly after my daughter was born. When she was old enough she joined the Wildlife Explorers Club run by Charlie and Jane which taught her a great deal and has instilled a love and understanding of wildlife and ecology. Now that she is older, she has progressed to helping out whenever she can with the WEX Club. My wife and I both enjoy walking the reserve, observing the wildlife and absorbing the peaceful atmosphere.

What inspired your design?

The image is a representation of the reserve as seen through the window of the hide with the castle in the landscape to add a reference point. I also wanted to take account of nocturnal animals so I painted the mural to represent the changing light conditions from early morning near the door to sunset on the far wall.

As an artist, I enjoy the challenge of designing murals that are both useful and decorative, so I added animals such as an otter, a fox and a rabbit as well as various bird species on the walls and the silhouettes of birds and bats on the ceiling with clouds. Visiting school parties are taken to Tal-y-Fan hide and I have included in my design a series of animals and birds painted onto shaped boards that the children can place on the walls themselves.

I have very much enjoyed working with the staff at Conwy Reserve and am pleased with the mural as it has turned out.

What do you think of Conwy Connections as a concept? How will it benefit the reserve?

I was unaware of the Conwy Connections project before I tendered for the mural, but having seen the plans I am impressed and think the development is in keeping with the RSPB ethos whilst adding to the visitor experience. I look forward very much to seeing the finished results. I think that the new buildings and landscape features should add interest to the reserve for visitors of all ages and give more scope for activities and events, which will keep the place in the public eye.

As a local man, how do you think the redevelopments will benefit the local area?

I know from my own conversations with visitors whilst working on site that many were excited by the changes and will revisit later to see the project completed. Increased visitor numbers on the reserve will probably have an effect on the local economy, either directly or indirectly.

Photos of Richad working on the Tal-y-Fan hide mural, by Laura Kudelska.

If you’d like to see more of Richard’s interesting work, including stones balance arts, a visit to his website is highly recommended:

http://www.floatingstones.co.uk/ or read his blog: http://richardhackett.wordpress.com/

We'll be meeting more of Conwy Connections talents soon, so keep an eye out for the next interview blog with another artist...which involves a big, steel........well, we're not going to give too much away now are we?!

Blog post: What shall we bury beneath our new building?

julian hughes — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 11:50:00 GMT

Nature Observatory - work begins
Work has started on the new building this week. We've scooped out the earth bank between the Coffee Shop and the boardwalk, and apart from the brick foundations, glass windows and steel door, the whole construction has been grown. The wood, of course, has been growing for many years, sucking in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as it did so, and as it is FSC-certified, we can be assured that it has come from a well-managed forest. The straw grew on The Crown Estate's Tabley farm in Cheshire last summer, and they have donated it to us for this project, as well as making a generous financial contribution to our fundraising for Conwy Connections, of which this Nature Observatory is a key element. A huge thank you to The Crown Estate, who from the outset have been as excited as us at the prospect of a green building for the reserve.

How to build a house of straw
This week, the contractors have started on the woodwork, and in a few weeks time, we'll be stuffing the floor and the roofspace with straw, and then building the walls with the bales from Cheshire. The outside will be rendered with lime, and the inside with clay (which arrived from a brickworks in Yorkshire yesterday). It is a significant milestone for the Conwy Connections project, as it means that all eight elements are now started (indeed, five have also been completed).

Time capsule
When we stuff the straw insulation into the floor, we're going to include a time capsule. We'll register it with the International Time Capsule Society so that at least someone will know its there long after we've gone. We're not setting a date for it to be opened; it will be there as long as the building is standing, so hopefully that will be many decades, if not centuries. That's where you come in.

We want to know what you would put in our time capsule. It will be buried in May 2013, so what from this era in North Wales would best indicate what we're about to future generations? We'd obviously like to make it pertinent to the reserve, part of our story, but we're open to your ideas for anything. Bear in mind that the time capsule is not the Tardis, we don't have limitless room, so it needs to be small enough to fit in a large sandwich box.

E-mail (conwy@rspb.org.uk), Tweet (@rspbconwy) or Facebook us (if you're a Friend) your ideas by the end of Monday 22 April, and we'll let you know in a couple of weeks what we're including.

Blog post: It has sprung!

julian hughes — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 10:29:00 GMT

The Spring that we thought would never come has finally arrived in a rush. Gales earlier this week made finding birds difficult, but the last two calm sunny days made it all seem worthwhile. In the space of a week, many of our expected summer migrants have arrived: yellow wagtail (Sunday 14th, and more today), whimbrel (Monday 15th), redstart (Wednesday 17th, with more on Thursday and Friday), whitethroat and sedge warbler (Thursday 18th), grasshopper warbler (Friday 19th) cuckoo, common tern, reed warbler and swift (today). There have also been huge numbers of chiffchaffs and willow warblers all week, good numbers of swallows and sand martins, with a few common sandpipers and house martins too. White wagtails have finally arrived in reasonable numbers, with up to 40 around the lagoons and on the saltmarsh - our thanks to Keith for posting this picture on our Flickr website. The first blackcaps that we think are migrants, rather than overwintering birds, have also arrived this week. It's fantastic, with every bush alive with birds, and even a short walk can take a longer than you expect.

We have at least four lapwings on nests, plus Canada geese and the oystercatchers getting territorial too. A pair of little ringed plovers seem to have taken to the island outside the Coffee Shop - will they breed again this year? We've been starting to see stoats again this week, so hope they'll be preparing for a family too. The cowslips are flowering outside the Coffee Shop, and we've seen comma and small tortoiseshell butterflies too.

Among the arriving migrants have been some other scarcer birds too: three Arctic terns today (and one yesterday), firecrest reported on Thursday (18th), bar-tailed godwit (Sunday 14th), pintail (Friday 12th), several black-tailed godwits and Sandwich terns. A handful of siskins and lesser redpolls have been seen, usually around the wildlife garden feeders, where a goldcrest was seen this morning. There's been no further sign of the bittern, seen here on Thursday 11th, but who knows what else will arrive in the coming weeks...

Meanwhile, the Conwy Connections project reached another milestone this week with the completion of Y Maes, the landscaped area between the Coffee Shop and Visitor Centre. It's mostly open for you to use, except for the areas that will be grass, which isn't growing very quickly yet! We'd love to hear your feedback on the new area.

We've also started work on the new building next to the Coffee Shop, which will be mostly made of wood and straw bales. The bales arrived from a farm in Cheshire this week, donated by The Crown Estate, who are also making a major financial contribution to the improvements we are undertaking this year. The carpentry work is being undertaken by Greenbuilt, who started work this week. We plan to bury a time capsule beneath the floor of the Observatory, and we're looking for your ideas of what we should put in it. Look out for a separate blog about this later today.

The speed of progress will depend on the weather, as we can only build with straw when it's not raining. While this work is underway, there's no access from the back door of the Coffee Shop to the trails - you can still use the paths through Y Maes, of course, and we have re-opened the walk through the Wildlife Garden now that the work here is complete.

Photo: Wheatear

The Charmleys — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 21:06:00 GMT

The first wheatear that we had seen was clearly in view on the small island in front of the first hide. We had to take this photo to find out what it was! Taken by our fourteen year old and what a great photo! RSPB Conwy, 9/04/13

Photo: Mr & Mrs Merganser

The Charmleys — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 21:02:00 GMT

We were in the first big hide at RSPB Conwy when Mr & Mrs Merganser swam out right in front of us from the side. A photo opportunity if we ever saw one! 9/14/13

Photo: Grey Heron Taking Off

The Charmleys — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 20:51:00 GMT

This heron flew in and landed right outside the hide window. He looked around for a short while before taking off. RSPB Conwy 9/04/13

Blog post: Back to the freezer

julian hughes — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 11:48:00 GMT

I've been on holiday for a few weeks, and I had a fantastic time of course, but I was also looking forward to getting back to Conwy to see the progress made on Y Maes while I was away. We've been able to open some parts of it for the Easter weekend, and the rest will open in phases over the next few months. As you'll see from the pictures below, the wet ground conditions have made the job a bit more difficult, but this spell of dry, cold weather will hopefully mean that the main work will be completed in the next fortnight. The soft ground conditions have also proved challenging for the team laying the new trail at the southern end of the reserve, which will ultimately end in a new viewpoint overlooking the islands on the Deep Lagoon. We don't yet have a planned opening date for this.

If you've been into the Tal-y-fan Hide, you'll see that artist Richard Hackett is making good progress on the background scene of the mural, and he'll be adding the wildlife this week. The right-hand side of Tal-y-fan Hide will be closed on Monday (22nd) and Tuesday (23rd) while the new floor is laid. It's all going to look fantastic!

It was a bit of a shock to come back from Central America to the freezing weather, and not surprisingly, few of our summer migrants have yet made the northbound journey yet. However, the sun is back north of the Equator and as the days get longer, so birds will move. The first wheatears appeared on 23 March, only five days later than in 2012. Up to three have been here most days since. The first chiffchaff was heard on Thursday morning (28th) and there were several here today, while ospreys were spotted over the reserve on Thursday and Friday (28th/29th) - it's not hard, all the gulls go bonkers! There was also a Sandwich tern here on Friday, which must be one of the earliest ever dates for the species here.

The cold weather forced stonechats down from the hills, just as they were pairing up for breeding. By Wednesday, there were seven along the estuary path, but they now all seem to have moved on. The cold weather has slowed the start of the breeding season, but blue tits have been inspecting one of the nestboxes on the Visitor Centre, there's been a fair bit of 'bum-shuffling' by lapwings on the islands, and it was great to see that a second great crested grebe arrived overnight to join its mate; we hope that they'll nest here again. The water rails have been calling more regularly and, after a bumper winter survey season, we'll be monitoring them this week to see what our spring numbers are like.

On the estuary, waders are evidently on the move, with small numbers of ringed plovers, the first little ringed plovers (27th), almost 200 dunlins, up to five black-tailed godwits and nine knot. Other birds look like they'll be staying well into April, with lots of snipe still here, and goldeneyes and pochards still on the water. Kingfisher has been seen several times in the last week, probably another cold-weather refugee from farther up the valley. A short-eared owl last Sunday (24th) was the second of the year, but to end on a less wintry note, the first peacock butterfly was spotted yesterday. Spring is coming, honest!

It's like Cannes out there - except it's flippin' cold. The events area (in the foreground) will host our monthly Farmers' Market, the annual Gardeners' Market (first of 2013 on 14 April) and all sorts of things we haven't yet dreamed up. The picnic area has already proved popular, despite the chilly weather.

Muddy Puddle Club. The hill and tunnel aren't finished yet, and as you see from the foreground, the contractors have had real problems with the wet ground. We hope to open the paths later in April, but the grassy areas won't open until the seeds have grown

View from the top: we've opened some of Y Maes this weekend, but you'll have to wait a little longer before you can roly-poly down the bank!

"Can you see what it is yet?" - mural artist Richard Hackett painting Conwy Castle. Next week, he'll be adding some nature to the scene.

Blog post: Bwletin Mawrth Cysylltiadau Conwy - Allan rwan!

Bethan Lloyd RSPB — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 10:34:00 GMT

Helo! O’r diwedd, fe glywn ni chi’n dweud...dyma ein bwletin Cysylltiadau Conwy diweddaraf!

Os oedd eich ymweld diwethaf y llynedd, wel, mae sypreis yn eich disgwyl ar gyfer y tro nesaf. Fel y disgwylir, rydym wedi’n cyffroi’n fawr ac yn hapus iawn gyda'r ail-wampio hyd yma...ond mae dal peth ffordd i fynd.

Am y diweddariad, cliciwch isod i agor y bwletin.

Blog post: March Conwy Connections Bulletin - Out now!

Bethan Lloyd RSPB — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 10:30:00 GMT

Hello! At last, we hear you say...here is our latest Conwy Connections bulletin!

If you haven’t been to visit us since last year, well, you’re in for a surprise! Just as expected, we are very excited and pleased with the redveleopments...but there’s still some work to be done.

For the latest update, click below to open the bulletin: