Trip reports
South Stack - Sally Connelly
Tuesday, 30 June 2009
The reserve is beautiful and consists of a large maritime heath with a wonderful coastline. The main visitor's centre is called Ellin's Tower, which is a pretty crenellated white building with great views out to sea and of the cliff-face where thousands of nesting seabirds congregate. There is a very picturesque lighthouse which is visible from Ellin's Tower on the small island of South Stack which gives the reserve its name. It is accessible via an enclosed footbridge (after descending 400 steps from the road!) and I particularly enjoyed my time in the lighthouse grounds as I was outside for most of the day - enjoying close views of the nesting kittiwakes and gulls. The latter were right next to the path with close views of the gull chicks, which entranced visitors and myself. Another thrill one morning was observing two chough fledglings emerging from their cliff side cave, being fed by their parents. I supported the most popular visitor pastime of "Spot the Puffin" by pointing the telescope on the opposite cliff - where the puffins nested - and finding puffins for the visitors. There are only 12 pairs this year but I got pretty good at finding them! I never ceased to be entertained by their comical appearance and their clumsy movement and it was great to help people see them for the first time.
The volunteer house was situated in the reserve itself so I could go walking every morning and evening. The cliff top walks in all sorts of weather were magical - amazing sunsets, misty mornings - I even enjoyed the gales!
In addition to the auks, gulls and choughs, there were fulmars and gannets (the latter fishing not nesting) and lots of heath-loving birds like stonechats, linnets and pipits. There was even a solitary hooded crow. Some of the guillemots are the variant called bridled guillemots which have a facial marking akin to a pair of spectacles.
I got three days off, and I included a visit to Cemlyn Bay, which is half an hour north of South Stack. This has a large colony of nesting sandwich terns and common/arctic ("comic") terns - wonderful close views - and I saw a black guillemot out in the bay. (I also saw a black guillemot in its more common location of Holyhead harbour.)
But the enjoyment is not just birds - the spring flowers are wonderful. Three types of heather, thrift, kidney vetch, sea campion, thyme; the list is endless. There is also spathulate fleawort which grows nowhere else in the world but most obligingly grows just behind Ellin's Tower!
On another day off, my husband joined me for a walk along part of the Anglesey coastal path - we did just a small stretch of the total 125 miles but it has whetted our appetite for the full walk to see more birds, flowers and even dolphins and porpoises.
My volunteering experience this year was quite different to last year's, where I went to Blacktoft Sands in early February. Both were most enjoyable but a real contrast - different habitat, different volunteering activity (habitat management at Blacktoft) and very different weather! I wonder where I'll end up next year...