Lower Gronant, Barkby Beach and Point of Ayr Round 30th June 2021

Pyramida orchids,

The first as yet unidentified remains - suggestions welcome.

Sea holly and orchids.

The bird we were hoping to see.

A Skylark - another good spot.

Distant views of the Little terns.

One of the six delightful juvenile Winter wens that flew across the path withinin a couple of feet of us.

The Common spotted orchid seen today.

Not a good spot - but a very unexpected one to see on the beach.

The Point of Ayr Lighthouse o Talacre Beach.

Distance: 11.6 miles. Climb: 290'.
Time: 5 hours 20 minutes. On the move walking average: 2.7 m.p.h. Overall walk average: 2.2 m.p.h.
Temperature: 19.1 Celsius to 23.8 Celsius.
Beuafort Wind Force: 0 - 3. Calm, light air, mainly light breeze and occasionally gentle breeze.
Group: Martyn, Nigel and Wendy.

This walk when planned had two main objectives, to see the Little terns and to look for orchids, particularly the Pyrimad orchids, but arriving at the start, Nigel added an extra one just for himself, namely t test out his new walking boots.

All three objectives were attained, although it was a little disappointing to find that we were 30 metres or more away from the fenced off Little tern colony. Having said that we did get good views of the terns as one or two flew quite near to us and the noise from the colony could be clearly heard from some distance away.

Perhaps the surprises ound of the day came he pig-like squeals coming from the reeds as we had lunch on Presthaven Beach. This was the first time that some of the group had a Water rail calling from the reeds in this way.

As a walk with bird spotting on the vagenda, this proved to pretty good. The birds seen or heard today included: Little tern, Skylark, Meadow pipit, Linnet, Greenfinch, Carrion crow, Jackdaw, House sparrow, Lesser black back gull, Herring gull, Common blackbird, Sedge warbler, Cetti warbler, Common whitethroat, Common pheasant, woodpigeon, Little egret, Moorhen, Mute swan, Eurasian curlew, Barn swallow Oystercatcher, Winter wren Goldfinch, Common kestrel, and Black billed magpie.

If flowers had been on the agenda, this would have been a good walk as well, with two different orchids being spotted along with at least twenty other flowers seen.

We also came across three corpses - a shrew, hedgehog and the remains of a very unusal looking species ( see photo).

Overall a very enjoyable walk with everyone enjoying refreshments at the Britannia Inn at Halkyn. Lees bitter and G and T were drinks that reached the right spot for us!

It was great to get home to find my boots only had a little sand and shell bits in the tread - a five minute clean was all that was needed.