This morning dawned sunny, bright and ... dry! Having recorded things locally for the last few weeks, it seemed a good idea to head off in the car and look at another area on the other side of a valley, so we drove over towards Mynydd Lwyd, a mountain that we've not visited for a couple of years but from there our mountain can clearly be seen.
A different persective.
This too is commons land adjoining Mynydd Maen but even as we parked up there was one big difference. A long string of skeleton pylons stretching across the open landscape.
These steel giants can be clearly seen from our mountain, highlighted on the skyline, but here we were walking right underneath them. I could hear the buzzing of electricity as I stood and took the photograph. I also noticed that something here was different (and no, not the lack of sheep, there were plenty of those around, mainly Mountain Welsh. The terrain was very similar to ours. The rushes too, just like ours had been harvested in great swathes but it was the hoof prints in the muddy terrain that gave the game away. These signs were not ovine but bovine! I became a bit worried about the dog, used as he is to cattle on the other side of the fence, these would be roaming free.
And, as we were soon to discover the bulls had threateningly large horns. I got as close as I dared with instructions to the dog to "stay by" and took a few photographs before quietly backing off. Luckily these grazing bulls seemed unperturbed by strangers, just quietly carried on grazing the grass amongst the recently harvested rushes. Phew! There was also another potential danger looming nearby, cows with calves can be dangerous.
But these Galloways seemed just as quietly curious about us as we were about them. There were many more grazing in amongst the rushes and heather but I wasn't chancing my luck by trying to get better quality photographs. I trust my dog totally with sheep but cattle can be a very different matter, the dog may be able to run away, but I can't, so we moved gently away and left them to continue chewing the cud in the late September sun.
I had my eyes on the ground, although the flora here is very much the same, it seems very differently arranged and to my delight, something I have been looking for in our area.
Touch it and it turns into a tight, defensive ball. It's a fox moth caterpillar. Last year on our commons I saw literally hundreds of them, but have not seen one in our area this year.
They are gorgeous, brightly coloured, hairy little creatures and here there were plenty.
I was also on the look out for something unique to this area that I have come across before when we've explored this stretch of mountain in the past. As you know, I love old stone walls and a few years ago I spotted a cuckoo on top of of one of the boundary walls.
It also drew my attention, to what seemed like a gravestone, curious I took a closer look.
It reads ... "B.H Boundary of Minerals Settled by Act Two of Parliament 1889." N0w, try as I might to google this particular site, I've found no relevant information regarding the stone I photographed today. Though I found references to the act in places as far flung as Canada and Brazil? So sorry folks but no further info regards this stone. I had hoped to bump into the local farmer to ask him what he knew about it, but no such luck today, so you and me both are none the wiser regards the significance of this possibly 203 year old boundary marker. It is still in amazingly readable condition!
But that was not all to today. After a well earned. easy afternoon we were to witness a wonderful sunset. The gold glow of the planet that gives us day warming in the west ...
and in the east, it's complimentary planet was rising above the horizon.
A full moon to end an interesting and unusual day!
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