Last week, Paul and I ventured across the Atlantic Ocean and visited an exotic land: Wales! We stayed in Conwy -- a medieval walled city (castle included) on the northern coast -- and spent three glorious days exploring centuries- (and even millenia-) old man-made structures and amazingly dramatic countryside. We saw tons of things in our relatively short visit and had an awesome time!
There were old buildings and landscapes, of course, but we saw plenty of wildlife as well, mostly birds. It was really cool to hang out with these foreign (for me) creatures, and I even reached a new level of familiarity with a few recurring birds by the end of the trip. One of these was a bird that we saw everywhere we went in Wales, but which made a particularly strong presence at our home base in Conwy: the Eurasian Jackdaw.
These handsome birds (members of the crow family) were all over in Conwy, and especially in the main part of the town, where they were busy building nests in the tall, 13th-century walls:
I think these birds are extremely cool-looking, with those stark silvery outfits and brilliant eyes. And they certainly looked right at home among the craggy ruins of walls jutting up above more modern rooftops, watching over the town like sleek uniformed sentinels:
All throughout Conwy's town and castle, we saw Jackdaws peering out of holes in the old stone walls:
Basically, the Jackdaws seem to have some degree of ownership over parts of Conwy. And even more interesting to me, Conwy itself seems to have made the bird-town connection official. Surely that's a Jackdaw on top of this signpost in the center of town, yes?
The term "jackdaw" is also apparently used to refer to people born within Conwy's town walls. Overall, I feel like Paul and I got a special view of this town because we were paying attention to these birds.
The Jackdaws weren't the only birds vying for space among Conwy's walls and rooftops, but these other avian occupants were already pretty familiar (even if their home wasn't). Conwy's Rock Pigeons demonstrated why "pigeon hole" is a phrase:
And just as big and loud as they are here in North America, Herring Gulls staked claims on the walls as well:
Away from the Conwy town center and on our countryside travels, several other utterly delightful birds popped up. This Blue Tit was one of my favorites, and I was very happy whenever one of these fancy relatives of our chickadees and titmice appeared:
This Eurasian Wren was also adorable, perched here on an old stone wall near the small town of Dolwyddelan:
Wood Pigeons were quite common, and I thought of them as Mega-pigeons because they're so much bigger and bulkier than the Rock Pigeons that I'm more used to seeing:
Finally, we saw quite a few European Robins, and after three days, I came to love these gregarious little puffballs who popped up frequently to sing and show off -- often at eye level -- with very little fear of us. Their bright orange bibs certainly stood out among the predominantly brown (early spring) landscape:
These birds looked even more handsome, though, when they posed among new spring-green buds:
One robin landed directly in front of Paul and I as we rested on a park bench, and it proceeded to serenade us (LOUDLY) for several minutes:
Sing it, little bird!
But hey, watch where you're pointing that beak!
In all, I loved getting a feel for Wales through some of its common avian wildlife. We met a few other creatures, as well, who -- while not technically wild -- seemed especially Welsh.... But that's another post entirely! Stay tuned!
OK, so we did get to do a little woods-walking on our trip after all. :P We spent a day in Bergen, Norway, and while we were there we took a tiny train up to the top of neighboring Mount Fløyen, then walked the mile or so back down winding paths through the woods. I know it's strange for me to post pictures that have buildings (and people) in them, but this will help set the stage -- the little building at the very top of the ridge is the train's destination, with Bergen's streets in the foreground, and all that forest in between:
And this forest was just beautiful:
Everything was all moss and leaves, and every surface green. The trees were positively shaggy with all that extra growing stuff:
I could've walked these woods for hours, but our time was limited. We did get to see some cool (and of course, completely new to us) wildlife while we were there, though!
This is one of the first birds we noticed when we got to the top of the mountain, a Great Tit (a relative of our chickadees and titmice):
This fellow was puffed up and singing loudly, and since neither Paul nor I knew what this bird actually was at the time, we called it by its song -- I'm guessing this is probably the only time anyone's ever said the phrase, "look, there's the Beepoo-beepoo again."
We saw another Great Tit further down the mountain, this one closer to us and less conspicuously gregarious:
Here's another bird that seemed to be pretty prevalent, and we saw it a few times -- a Chaffinch:
As a side note, I love that I can now put some bird faces (as it were) to formerly mysterious names -- I've heard the word "chaffinch" before, and probably read it in books, but never had any idea what such a bird would look like. As it turns out, it's pretty crazy-looking! Nice color combination, bird!
Here's a bird whose face I did know from pictures and illustrations, but which I'd never seen before in real life -- a European Robin: (and what a wonderfully shaggy tree it's chosen for its perch)
This Eurasian Blackbird was flitting from ground to rooftop, singing a surprisingly beautiful song for such a plain bird:
And it wasn't all birds in the forest, either. We were impressed by this big slug by the side of the path (possibly a Spanish Slug, which is apparently invasive):
There were flowers everywhere as well. I don't know what this flower is (I haven't been able to find an online source for identifying Norwegian wildflowers), but I love its delicate purple stripes:
(Updated 6/6/11: It looks like this is actually Herb Robert (Geranium robertianum), a species of geranium that's originally from Europe but which has naturalized in North America as well. Thanks for the ID help, hikeagiant2!)
It was a while into our walk before we realized that something felt a little strange about the Norwegian woods: We'd seen plenty of birds, but no mammals -- no squirrels or chipmunks or any of the other scurrying critters that are so ubiquitous in North America. In fact, we didn't see any mammals on our whole trip.... The internet tells me that squirrels at least do exist in Norway, so maybe it was just chance that we didn't see any, or maybe they're not as prevalent as they are here.
In any case, this was a great part of a fantastic trip. Have I mentioned that Norway is awesome?
After we left Bergen, our next stop was the famous fjord at Geiranger, but that's a post for another time! (Which is to say, tomorrow.)
