Walking on a carpet of flowers at St Govans

 

Walking on a carpet of wild flowers.

This post continues the blog concerning our adventures in Pembrokeshire over a recent weekend.

After Stack Rocks and a pit stop at the Ye Olde Worlde Cafe at Bosherton ( I adore the Cream Scones with a coffee) Paul and I found ourselves going to church. Well not quite, its a very small chapel named St Govans. It recently featured in the BBC Dark Materials series.

Our stop for refreshments

St Govans Chapel

On this occasion we did not enter the chapel but said our prayers from the overlooking clifftop and headed off on what would turn out to be a very long walk along the coastal path back towards Stack Rocks.

Once again as we began our trek I was amazed at the wild flowers growing all of the clifftops.

Paul and I tried to identify what we could of the flora and came to the conclusion that there was -

• Thrift ( Pink)
• Sea Companion ( White)
• Red Campion ( Pink)
• Spring Squil ( Purple/Lavender coloured)
• Bird Foots Trefoil 
• Vetch (Purple and Red)
• Green Winged Orchid ( Purple)

Green Winged Orchid

During some parts of our walk it was like walking on a carpet of wild flowers. It was so pretty in parts I felt guilty walking on them.

Beautiful Flowers

Thrift and Squil dominated the flora

There was so much to look at I almost forgot I was looking for birds as well to photograph. At St Govans there was a lot going on to be honest. There was lots of people enjoying it just like ourselves walking along , some jogged , others had a picnic and some brave souls were climbing the cliffs doing rock climbing.

The birds that live there though are quite tolerant of all the humans and we saw plenty of Choughs.

I must admit they were challenge during this walk to photograph. There "danger zone" was quite wide so getting close was a challenge and the heat haze was horrendous.

I tried to get close to pair that were feeding in amongst a nice spread of Squil. The haze was a pain but in the picture below you can see what I was trying to capture - a nice background with some cool birds in the foreground.

A pair of Choughs with the Squil beds in the background.

The flight shots against the sky were better for overall sharpness but I find sky backgrounds a little boring.

A Chough flypast

As we progressed along the path we spotted more birds. Rock Pipits, Meadow Pipits, Linnets and Stonechats put in an appearance. There were also Wheatears. One of them perched on an old army heavy transport vehicle and tank track.

Tank Commander -Wheatears perch.

Wheatear (Male) on a Tank Track

A real huge surprise during our walk was when Paul spotted a Red Kite flying along the cliff tops. What a fabulous sight it was and I must say quite unusual for us as we have never seen one of these raptors on the coast before in our experience.

The bird was magnificent to watch. It flew so close to use that we could not fit the bird in full frame on our cameras.

The colours on it were stunning. It had what we think was a small chick in its talons and it was eating it on the wing.

I don't think I can recall ever being so close to a Red Kite like this in my life other than at a feeding station.

When we were spotted by the Red Kite

Red Kite soars over the squil covered cliff tops.

Red Kite from above.

After all that excitement and exercise as we had walked miles it was time to take a break and admire the views.

Paul on the lookout.

This was as far as we got before our legs started to ache and we made the decision to turn back and head off to Pembroke Dock where we were staying overnight.

The next and last blog in this series to be written soon, is all about this years annual pilgrimage to the island of Skomer.