Wild Journeys: West Williamston Nature Reserve

First glimpse of West Williamston Nature Reserve

As a wildlife and landscape photographer I tend to journey far and wide searching for the wonders of nature, but nothing quite beats the local sites. They’re quick, they’re easy, fewer zombie-like moments when the alarm screams at 3 AM, and less time zooming past cars on the motorway. No, wait, that last point doesn’t count. I love zooming past cars on the motorway! Now, where was I? Oh yeah, the local patch.

Local doesn’t just mean sticking your head out of the window and snapping the birds in the garden; I count local as anything within about 45 minutes of home. The starts can still be early, particularly in the summer (Zombie-man Lives!), but it’s a lot easier and cheaper to manage. Anything that saves me money is a good thing.

A couple of days ago I received a tip from my sister that an osprey had been seen at a local nature reserve. I think she basically stalks the bird and nature websites to challenge me, or perhaps to just try and ruin my day by telling me of some stunning sighting in location A when I’ve spent the day at location B. But her tip of the day was West Williamston.

Now I’d never been to West Williamston Nature Reserve. It’s managed by the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales, sitting to the northwest of Carew in Pembrokeshire, on one of the snaking eastern tributaries to the Cleddau Estuary. But at the merest hint of an osprey, I grabbed my gear, leapt in the car, and headed south.

There’s a small carpark for the reserve on the outer fringe of the village of West Williamston. And by small, I mean three cars and that’s it. You might fit four in if everyone turned up in a Mini but squeezing anything else in is going to require swapping insurance information and many bodywork repairs.

There’s a small sign there to let you know you’re in the right place, but you must walk down a road, through a gate, and across a couple of fields before you get to the nitty-gritty of the reserve itself.

Go through this gate, trek across a couple of fields, and you’re there.

The reserve is a combination of the sweeping expanse of the estuary and a small section of woodland. Ash dieback has decimated the woodland, which means that it’s currently closed due to safety concerns. So that left the estuary.

A bed of sea purslane.

Beds of cord grass and sea purslane sweep along the saltmarsh towards the confluence of the Cresswell and Carew rivers. The reserve sits on the promontory between them on the eastern side of the estuary, so you can follow the path along until it eventually dead ends at one of the many tidal creeks that cut back into the woodland. These channels were man made as access routes to a limestone quarry and show the full depth of the tidal range, coming close to ten foot deep or more, despite standing above the main river itself.

As I opened the gate and stepped through into the reserve my first impression was one of emptiness. I’d walked across fields, through gates, under trees, and so on, only to be presented with this sweep of open land. It was unexpected and a little daunting. Just how much wildlife was going to be out there?

The grand expanse of reserve opening out ahead of you.

The woodland stood unknowable to my right, the diseased-wracked remains of ash trees standing skeletal against the sky. A warning sign barred entry.

A slender path snaked away into the distance as though marking the boundary between the salt marsh and dry land. Brackish water gleamed between the leaves of sea purslane as if in warning. Further left I could see evidence of the Carew River. The tide was so low that there was only the barest glint of water where it ran in a deep channel between mudbanks. The whole place was stark, empty, almost barren, and yet I could feel the life there. The strong iodine smell of sea and vegetation filled the air and the cries of lazy gulls drifted on the wind, hinting that birds were hidden in the distance.

I began to walk forward and the whole place sprang to life. Butterflies fluttered through the air around me and bees crawled over flowers and buzzed happily to give off an intoxicating energy. There were flowers, loads of flowers, and plants that I had never seen before.

A rather dog-eared Sea Aster.

My camera swept up almost of its own accord and I began to take photos, then I got my phone out and took more photos, then back to the camera, and so on. You get the picture.

Large White Butterfly

Walking along I was thrilled at the range of butterflies around me. I saw large whites, red admirals, and small tortoiseshells. The fluttery things kept dancing ahead of me and were probably laughing their heads off as I attempted to photograph them.

Small Tortoiseshell Butterfly

Common Carder Bee

My goal was the osprey, though, so I pressed on.

The path led along just below the high tide line. Small sticks, grasses, and nets of seaweed were beached on a bank to my right. Putting a foot down was a bit of a hazard. You might think it was due to the small, slippery stones littering the narrow path, but you’d be wrong. It was the crabs. I could see them scampering into the sea purslane at my approach. Most of them were about an inch across, but some were getting towards three inches. It came as a surprise to see them so far from the river, but then the knowledge that this was a salt marsh hit home and the gleam of water through the sea purslane showed that safety wasn’t far away.

But there was still the osprey to look out for…

End of the trail. You might be able to scramble across with a hefty dose of courage, some waders, and the emergency services on speed dial, but I’m too cowardly to give it a go.

By this time, I had walked from one end of the reserve to the other and come to an abrupt stop where one of the tidal creeks cut across my path. There was no hope of crossing it unless I turned into an Olympic long jumper, and I had a sneaky suspicion that my huge photographer’s backpack would drag me down backwards into the creek as I sailed through the air, only to land with a squelching thump in the bottom where I would probably have flailed around like an upturned turtle.

Not an elegant end.

Probably a viral Twitter vid though.

It was at this point that I made a rather nice discovery. As those of you who’ve met me will probably point out, I love having a good natter with the people I meet out on the trail, so it was great to stumble on someone out there in the middle of nowhere. It seems to be a habit of mine.

Now, I’m sad to say that I didn’t get this gentleman’s name. He was lovely and was one of those people who knows stuff. Imagine an elderly man with a wild beard, with similar strands of hair on top of his bonce that looked as if he’d been juiced up on static electricity. He wore Wellington boots, faded blue jeans, and a photographer’s waistcoat that had all the pockets stuffed full of notebooks, pens, binoculars, and so on.

For the purpose of this blog, I will call him Hairy Nature Dude.

Hairy Nature Dude began to sneak back down the trail. I shouted hello and he turned around with a great beaming grin on his face and backtracked towards me. We talked for ages, and he filled me in on where the osprey had been, the fact he’d just seen the reserve’s signature brown hairstreak butterfly (no such luck on my part), and that he’d just been clearing weeds from around the marsh mallow.

Marsh mallow? Hmm… sounded tasty.

Marsh Mallow

I’m not a botanist, not even close, but I love learning, so it was fascinating to hear about this plant. It’s incredibly rare in Pembrokeshire, only existing in one other location. The plants Hairy Nature Dude had been clearing around had been transplanted there by the local wildflower recorder in the hope of re-establishing a viable population.

The conversation then turned back to the osprey, and Hairy Nature Dude pointed to a post hammered down into the mud closer to the main course of the Cresswell River. The osprey had been seen there only a couple of days before, so he wished me luck and headed off along the trail to explore the limestone quarry.

I loitered at the end of the trail for a couple of hours until my time ran out and then started the trek back to the car. There was no sign of the ospreys. Disappointed, but still happy at spending time in such a lovely place, I threaded my way along the narrow path. There were a few gulls sailing by, a couple of little egrets in the far, far distance, and I could hear curlew warbling out their cries, but they were deep down in the river channel, so there was no way I could spot them.

I was almost back to the gate when I caught sight of movement above the river. I squinted against the harsh sunlight streaming into my eyes and noticed what I thought was a juvenile gull winging its way along. It was barely a pinprick of movement against the backdrop of the muddy riverbank, but its flight was strange: it looked heavy and was beating it’s wings slowly. I raised the camera to get a closer look and… OSPREY!!!

An osprey struggling up into the air with its catch. I’m currently using an OM System camera, the OM-1, which can shoot silently. If it hadn’t been for this silent operation, the shutter going off would’ve been like a machine gun rattling out the shots.

I traced the bird along the river as its laboured flight lurched it slowly, ever so slowly into the air. The reason soon became apparent: it had caught a fish.

Big fish, even bigger bird.

Mesmerised, I kept firing off shots as the osprey wheeled round, its catch gripped in its talons and pointed forward to make it as aerodynamic as possible. The osprey circled, gaining height, and then swept out over the skeletal forest of dying ash trees and disappeared. If I’d had more time I would’ve scampered back round to its perching spot, but my day was done.

One final glimpse before the osprey disappeared.

I only got to see the photos properly when I got home. My first glimpse was on the back of the camera where I zoomed in, continually dialling the zoom deeper and deeper until that pinprick became recognisable as the osprey.

My first real view of the osprey on the back of the camera. The two tiny rectangles in the bottom right show the relative size of the bird in the frame, despite having a lens combo with a full frame equivalent of 840mm. That’s one distant shot! (I used the Olympus 300mm F4 PRO lens with a 1.4 teleconverter)

When I lowered the camera, I had one final surprise. There was a delicate flicker of yellow and a clouded yellow butterfly scampered past, dodging back and forward over the trail as though it was too excited to decide which flower to settle on. It was fast and soon outdistanced me, despite my efforts to chase after it like a rabid fanboy. So, I let it go with a sense of disappointment tarnishing what had been a magnificent afternoon and returned to the car.

As I turned the key and the engine sprang to life, a grin crept onto my face. I knew I’d be back and – fingers crossed – I might even get a shot of it next time.

Two days later I did.

A clouded yellow in all its glory.

Up close and personal it’s even more incredible.

There are so many wild places in the world that fall into neglect. We ignore them, we tear them up, we build our modern world on top and lose a part of ourselves in the process. Charities and organisations like the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales work so hard to fight back against that loss, preserving the best part of our world, the best part of our lives so that future generations can get a glimpse of true beauty. The joy I feel when I visit these places as part of my wild journeys isn’t something that you can really tell people about, it’s something you must feel.

So, get out there and experience the beauty of our wild spaces.

Just be prepared to have I nice long chat if you meet me out on the trail. I’m looking forward to it already.