Hello! I’m in Lapland right now for a few more hours and I’ve spent all morning trying to get pictures of some interesting birds around here. Thought I’d post something on here as well 
Titw Siberia/Siberian tit. Yn Ffinneg/in Finnish “Lapintiainen” (Titw’r Lapdir/Lappish tit)
Llun arall/another picture!
I also had some of them come eat from my hand 
Eira! Snow!
No ceirw Llychlyn/reindeer though 
Angharad was rather put out that you weren’t coming to the 5 day Spanish intensive (no, I have no idea where she got the idea that you might be!). She’ll be even less happy when I show this to her - I know without needing to think about it that the first thing she’ll say will be ‘Can we go there NOW???’… 
Oh wow! I presume the birds see too few people to have learned fear. I have horrid visions of early human ‘hunters’ simply holding out a handful of grass to an innocent fawn and rewarding it with a bash on the head! I hope I am wrong and we were never that horrible, but kind, like you with the tits! Mind, my favourite squirrel never came to hand, but cheerfully ran back to feed at the table when I had a scaredy-dog who ran away from y wiwer goch bach.
Say hi to her and Beuno for me! 
@henddraig - just took a lot of patience. I think I must have stood there with my hand frozen for at least an hour. Took even more patience to manage to catch them on camera 
But yeah, there are not a lot of people around here…
Ha! I recognised it when tatjana said where it was. I was there only a couple of days ago, waiting to catch the boat to the Bay were I spotted several Snow Dogs.
And this one is at the Hayes, just near Waterstones.
Some photos for penguin lovers from the Cape Peninsula and Cape Overberg, S Africa (by the way, does anybody know if the story that the word ‘penguin’ is derived from the Welsh pen gwyn is true?)
… and don’t forget before you set off in your car tomorrow morning!
Do you live in S.Africa? Love the pics,Google gives ‘yes’ as likely answer to penguin, but originally used for Great Auks.
Apparently it is one side of the debate but quite possibly true. However, the story goes that it was actually the Great Auk that was so named, before the name was transferred to the bird that we all know as the penguin.
Just a quick visit from UK to SA for a conference but, very thankfully , with time for a couple of side trips
A few other birds seen:
An ostrich (also Cape Peninsula)
and in Kirstenboch Botanic Gardens
An Ibis (not sure what kind though)
Sunbirds (lower picture on Protea flower) - they occupy the same niche in S Africa as hummingbirds in the Americas so a case of convergent evolution
If forced to guess, I would say one of the fishermen’s platforms at Gnoll Country Park, Neath. Probably wrong but based on:
The only place that I’ve seen a black swan
The rock colour seems right for the Neath Valley.
Had cormorants on Gower, but not ostriches! Neighbour raised guinea fowl to eat! No ibis or sunbirds! My bird chasing Cavalier King Charles had to be kept on lead to stop her trying to pounce on the guinea fowl who wandered free in the lane. Mind, she was convinced she could catch geese and swans. Dwp!
Not hard. I’ll remember this place as long as I live it’s just that it mostly wasn’t so good weather when I was there though but on the day I went on the tour around Cardiff and later on met one of my FB friends it was gorgeous warm weather almost for wearing capri trousers (the only one of such days in the whole time I was in Cardiff though). 
A look a bit more left one could see “The red bridge” and the look you’ve posted is one of those really wonderful ones.
@margarethall I remember this place too but I’ve just past it and, no, htere were no Snow Dogs there at the time.
All the rest - Black swans can be seen in our Arboretum “Volčji potok” too but I’m not sure from where they were brought actually. I tried to find a photo I’ve took once, but I just can’t find it right now.
A few other creatures seen on recent trip to the Cape:
South African Fur Seals on Duiker Island
Chacma baboon at Cape Point Lighthouse tucking into a baguette from a plastic carrier bag it had just snatched from an unwary visitor!
A Dassie/Rock Hyrax at Hermanus (upper photo) and Dassie offspring (lower photo) at Stony Point Nature Reserve (below)
That’s where the photograph was taken, we used to have one in my local town but i have not seen it for a couple of years.
Thank’s all contributors for the great images appearing here.
Gwydd Tseiniaidd - Chinese goose.
Cheers J.P.
It most certainly is. Thank you henddraig.
It is edible (flowers and leaves) and also a stimulant. Wives of knights going off to battle used to give neckerchiefs embroidered with borage flowers to their husbands and no doubt fortified them with borage infused drink too. “I borage give thee courage”.
I had borage growing when I lived in a southern part of Australia, and yes, it does tend to take over the garden somewhat. I used the flowers in salads all the time - not the furry parts @leiafee but just the actual violet flowers. They don’t have a lot of taste from what I remember, but they look pretty in a salad.
Well I did spend most of the rest of the summer eating it. Cooked you don’t notice the “fur” so it went in all sorts of things as extra roughage LOL!
The river bank is looking very attractive at the moment, but trying to get pictures of the birds I hear in the hedgerows has proved difficult.
These are the best shots I’ve managed, over a number of days, of a small brownish bird which calls then flies off. I don’t know what it is. It looks too light in colour to be a Dunnock (Llwyd y Gwrych)
