Y Ddraig Goch

This is the eleventh blog from my time in North Wales, dating from the 18 July 2013.

Mostly my blogs are about real wildlife not mythical creatures, but finding this statue of a Dragon outside a caravan site on the edge of Harlech, I could not resist including it. Maybe having looked for Giant Serpents the day before, its not so out of context, especially as Wales is known as the land of Dragons.

Dewi – 18 July 2013 (Copyright Ross Lockley)

Possibly the most famous of the Welsh Dragon myths is the story of Lludd and Llefelys that originates back in time to the Welsh Celtic mythology. Here the Red Dragon fights an invading alien White Dragon, during which the Red Dragon’s shrieks in pain as he begins to loose. These shrieks supposedly caused infertility, animals to die and general mayhem and madness in the land. Lludd, the Welsh King of Britain, seeks the council of his brother Llefelys, the King of Gaul. Llefelys advises him to dig a hole in the centre of Britain, fill it with beer and cover it with a cloth. Lludd does as he has been advised and the Dragons drink and fall asleep. Lludd then imprisons the sleeping Dragons and buries them still wrapped in the cloth in Dinas Emrys, in Snowdonia, considered to be the safest place in Britain to put them.

Dewi with Harlech Castle – 18 July 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)

Mythology – fact, fiction or a touch of both, I’ll leave that for you to decide. As for Dewi he is made out of 78 square metres of steel sheet that has been cut into many thousands of scales and welded on to a solid bar frame, which was then polished with 12 coats of lacquer, and the work of artist Anthony “Fred” Peacock. Wow! Impressive!

Exploring the Great Welsh Sea Serpent

This is the tenth blog from my time in North Wales, dating from the 17 July 2013.

Standing on top of a large lump of limestone rock on the outskirts of the genteel Victorian seaside town of Llandudno, it was hard to imagine that the old Viking name for for the Great Orme means Sea Serpent, for all you see are the burnt grassy pastures and the masses of tourists thronging the slopes. Away from the honey pot at the top, and down below the first outcrops of rock, where the modern road now runs round this headland, the story was very different. Here, even though the summer had been hot and dry, there was still water dripping out of the flushes and through the rocks. Add to this the effects of differential erosion of the rock, to produce a distinctive patterned of layers formed of green vegetation mixed with layers of white and grey rocks, accompanied by the shape of the headland as seen from out at sea, and the thought that this could be a slavering Sea Serpent might not be so unbelievable.

The Great Orme – 17 July 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)

Wandering along at this lower level, the edges are rich with species. Calcium rich flushes deposit areas of tufa as they flow over the rock surfaces, amongst which many lime green rosettes of the Common Butterwort are spattered, just like pustules on a teenagers face. Each of these rosettes are splattered with a good covering of flies, slowly being digested to provide nutrients for these plants that cling to the rock surface. Above which the purple flowers attract more insects for the requirements of reproduction, followed maybe by a bit of supper!!

Drier areas are green and grassy, especially where the soil depth is deeper, accompanied by an array of flowers through which flit a number of small blue butterflies, tempting and teasing by not sitting still. Now normally small rich blue butterflies are most likely to be just Common Blues, but maybe, just maybe, because we are on the Great Orme there might just have been a Silver Studded Blue amongst them. I only say this, because this was the Great Orme, where a distinctive sub-species of the Silver Studded Blue is found, but unfortunately all I could get to see clearly was the bright blue top of the wings, which when they hardly settled at all could easily have be either.

Amongst the drier areas where the soil was thinner and the vegetation generally much shorter and by now, after a number of weeks of hot, dry sunshine, were very much burnt off, there was one more surprise left to be found, in the form of the small prickly plants of the Carline Thistle. I love the Carline Thistle, as their inflorescences always reminds me of miniature Sunflower heads, that seem to point towards the sky and open and close with the weather. In dry conditions the straw-like bracts surrounding, the delicate yellow inner tubular florets open wide to soak up those rays and invite insect visitors to feed.

Carline Thistle – 17 July 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)

Glimpses

This is the ninth blog from my time in North Wales, dating from the 16 July 2013.

Took to the train for the day, as train journeys are a wonderful way to grab a flavour of the surroundings and be intrigued, especially so when on a heritage line as the speed is limited to a genteel rate. The journey on this day was from the industrial town of Blaenau Ffestiniog down to the coastal port at Porthmadog, following the route that the products of the industrial town would have taken to the local port, but I’m sure the landscape will have been been much changed and tamed since it was used by the Victorians.

Leaving the industrial town of Blaenau Ffestiniog, passing on the way a Victorian stretch of ribbon development which follows the railway out of town that has not been enlarged on this side of town in modern times. The landscape here is rocky and rugged, and the train picks a smooth gradient between the rocky outcrops, running at one stage along the edge of the Tanygrisiau Reservoir, which nestles between a number of these outcrops. Along the far edge we catch sight of the original rail route, now sunk below the surface of the water flooded out, when the reservoir was built.

Tanygrisiau Reservoir – 16 July 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)

On through rough pastures with tantalising glimpses of the surrounding hills and mountains as the train moves forward, circling round the Dduallt spiral, like the Buzzard that circles over head as we passed by. Onwards – only stopping for the odd station to allow passengers to disembark or alight. The journey passes onwards moving from the rough pasture, through scattered trees and shrubs and on into a more wooded landscape, in an area known as Coed y Bleddiau, or Wood of the Wolves. Sadly there are no Wolves in these woods any long, there are supposed to be a couple of Willow sculptures depicting Wolves along this stretch, but unfortunately the continuous moving onwards of the train meant that I failed to spot these creatures, but then that is one of the tantalising things about train journeys – a little only, to tempt and tease, before the next scene is upon us.

Dduallt Spiral – 16 July 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)

Passing through the short Garnedd Tunnel and out into a more densely wooded landscape where amongst the banks of Larches and other conifers there stands tall and proud ancient Sessile Oak trees lonely remnants of the once primeval woodlands that would have covered these slopes. By now the downward run to the coast is well on the way and we pass out of the wooded landscape and on to the drop down through a number of smaller villages on the way to the coast.

The final stretch into Porthmadog is across the causeway known as the Cob, which was built originally as part of an Enclosure scheme at the beginning of the 19th century. The building of the Cob, has resulted in the formation of Glaslyn marshes, which now at low tide is full of birds wandering across the exposed mud flats. Even at the genteel rate of our train it is too fast to see very much apart from the mass of Canadian Geese gosling’s gathered in the closest bit of water. To be honest though these took second place to the view beyond the marshes, even in the heat haze which fogs the scene slightly, this is an amazing view of the complete panorama of the Snowdonia mountains, including the iconic Snowdon.

The Snowdonia Mountains – 16 July 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)