Wonderwool, red kites and lambs

I know it's a bit late but wanted to write about my visit to Wonderwool and that lovely part of Wales. I stayed in a B&B in Llandindrod Wells and on Saturday evening went for a drive to Rhayader, to see if there were any red kites, I stopped to look at a field of sheep and beyond the field was small wood of I think mainly fir trees. I saw a red kite and then loads of them started circling around above the woods - an amazing sight. There is a feeding station at Gigrin Farm in Rhayader and that must be why so many are centered around there. Not so long ago these beautiful birds had been persecuted to the edge of extinction but with the dedicated efforts of the RSPB and other conservation groups/people their numbers have now increased greatly. It is heartening to hear of success stories such as this

They were too far away to be anything but dots in my photos but this one circled overhead.


The next morning I went back into the hills very early, the landscape there is very beautiful and I saw more red kites and a couple of skylarks and some sheep which I think were Torddu or Badger-faced sheep

Here are a couple of the lambs peeping at me. They have strange faces with white eyebrows, some of the the lambs are very black coated but become more varied, with some brown when adult.


I loved Wonderwool and bought far too much. It was great to meet Ambermoggie, Andy(Alpacabuyer) from bluefaced.com, Amanda from Natural Dye Studio, Jenni from Fyberspates, Freyalan and the lovely people who have a shop called Ippikin, and lots of other folk I chatted to. Below are some felted bags from the Ippikin stall, I bought some Colinette yarn and the pattern to make one.


Below is the place I stayed in in Llandindrod Wells, I was in a little room right at the top, there were other people from Wonderwool there.




This was the sunrise from my bedroom window on the Sunday morning.

Beltane

I started off the day waking up to go to the loo and realising the sun was about to rise I felt suddenly (and uncharacteristically at that time in the morning!) full of energy - so got the dog, who was amazed, and headed off to see it rise at Pendennis point. We were blessed with a beautiful dawn.

The picture below is looking back into the woods.


Later on that morning we went for a walk around Mawnan and I had tea and date slice at Glendurgan, which I shared with a chaffinch. On the walk I passed by a hedge and a blackbird flew out and then I heard some cheeping so I had a peep and saw a nest with three (at least) babies. Below is a photo but I didn't get too close for fear of disturbing them too much, I think you can make out a beak if you enlarge the picture. I always feel so lucky to be shown wild things living their lives, it felt very special as it was Beltane.


Below is a Cornish hedgerow so full of wild flowers