What's outside

This prompted me to look up the wildflower, fragrant agrimony - llysiau’r dryw pêr. We’ll have to find some in the summer.

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Gwych - well worth a visit! If you’ve not yet booked Llanarmon DC has two very nice small hotels, The Hand (where the receptionist spoke Cymraeg!) and the West Arms (ond ar werth ar hyn o bryd dwedodd rhywun wrtha i dydd Sadwrn); the Mulberry Inn (formerly Golden Pheasant) in Llwynmawr might be another possibility (oedd rhai cwsmeriad yn siarad Cymraeg yn y bar!).

But back to Llanarmon DC - back in the 1920s Warrington wanted to do the same to Dyffryn Ceiriog as Liverpool notoriously did later to Tryweryn. Yn ffodusiawn DC was saved from that fate - you can see the story here (just about - sorry, facing the sun again!)

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Now that I didn’t know! We visited Dyffryn Ceiriog (and stayed at The Hand in Llanarmon) a long time ago (nearly 2 decades!!) but I never heard about the 1920’s proposal to flood the valley. I’m very glad that one (at least) was avoided! It is such a lovely area.

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We are staying at the Hand which looks like it was a good choice @johnwilliams_6 & @Sionned.

I took a photo of a violet today but can’t identify it. I wasn’t expecting it to be that hard, but it seems I should have sniffed it. I do hope it is a sweet violet because, then it will be a fioled bêr. I’d never heard the word pêr before yesterday & suddenly everything is pêr.

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After looking at all the beautiful pictures of lush green Cymru all you wonderfull people have been putting up. I thought i would put up a photo of the area near my work i took today of the arid lands. Bare in mind this year has had a particularly wet summer in this area.

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I will never again complain about ‘dreich’ Scottish weather and all the damp dripping lichen on our trees!

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The area where I actually live is very lush. I do remember it being really wet in Scotland when I was there but it looked amazing!

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I also had my first face to face conversation in welsh with a native welsh whom is one of the dads at my kids school. I had almost given up on welsh due to lack of people to speak it to regularly.

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I live very near the west coast, just a hill or two between me and the sea in one direction and a couple of miles to a sea loch in another! All the west winds bring rain from the Atlantic, so we are mild(relative to say, Moscow!) and wet! I would not like your desert or your pryf copyn (spiders)!!!

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I haven’t been able to visit this discussion for some time owing to other study commitments, but thought I’d share this picture of the" Brogaod" which have been active in the garden pond for well over a week now.

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Gorgeous! We never seem to see the adults in the pond, just spawn and then tadpoles. Sometimes isee brogaod a llyffantod, frogs and toads elsewhere. My little poodle is a bit wary of toads on our back steps!

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Wow, diolch & well done! The frogs here are too quick for me. Great picture.

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Our toads are very slow! I have had to pick them up to move them away from whichever nervous dog was refusing to climb the steps! But this is always at night and getting a picture in the semi dark… well I’m bad enough at it in daylight!

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Teulu emu. Emu family

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Wow! Makes our tits, doves, finches etc. seem pretty run-of-the-mill!!! But then, for all I know, a blue tit in Australia would be only seen in an aviary! And there are golden eagles up here and capercaillie, though not just around here!

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Llinos werdd - iâr. Female greenfinch. I don’t see many greenfinch in our garden & sadly this one was looking as if she had troubles to bear. The llinos werdd is know to be infected by parasites. Although not unduly lethargic her breathing was noticeably hard going for her. Haven’t seen her since this pic dydd Gwener. Druan ohoni. Poor thing.

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A lot of our birds, in various years, have fluffed up like that and not been long for this world. I am not sure of the cause. I thought it was a virus, but it may be parasites. I have a distinct impression, but no statistics, that we get fewer greenfinches now!

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There is also bird flu about, of course, and cases have been reported in Wales and Scotland - see: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/avian-influenza-in-wild-birds-winter-2016-to-2017. Not many on the list, but it seems they’re relying on reports from wildlife reserve wardens and only asking the public to report deaths of some larger species of birds, so there could well be hundreds of unnoticed cases in small birds …

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I don’t think it was bird flu our little birds kept catching. I have a notion the RSPB put out info at the time, mainly about thoroughly cleaning feeders, tables etc., Janet is very careful to do this. All i know is that the affected birds looked fluffed up just like the one in @pippapritchard’s picture.

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Birds do tend to fluff up when the weather is cold, just to help keep warm.

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