Looking towards Rhoscolyn Beacon

We might not have done very well in the sea fishing stakes during our summer visit to Anglesey but we managed to get out and about a few times so here are a few of the better photographs I took while we were there.

Helicopter from RAF Valley practicing over the headland

Looking South West from Aberffraw Bay towards the Lleyn Peninsula

Six-spot Burnet Moth

All of the photographs in this post are taken using the Canon EOS 450D with most of them using the standard ‘cheap’ 18-55mm lens. To enhance the skies I used a hoya circular polariser which also cut down on the glare from the sea in some of the shots.

They were all taken in RAW format so if I need higher resolution versions or need to enhance them further the detail is stored within the file. All of them were cropped to size in photoshop and sharpened a little as they tend to blur a bit when you take them down in size so much.

The only other thing I tend to do is straighten the horizon on the seascapes as no matter how hard I try, when hand holding the camera I can never get it exactly horizontal.

I’m really enjoying my photography at the moment and Anglesey gives anyone the opportunity to visit some truly beautiful, almost deserted, areas which for any amateur photographer is great.

Saint Cwyfan Church, Porth China nr Aberffraw

Small Tortoiseshell butterfly

It was good to see a few Small Tortoiseshell butterflies feeding on all the flowers – these have been hit with a disease in recent years and I’ve not seen anything like as many as I used to as a child – but they seem to be doing OK on Anglesey.

Sandwich Tern returning to chicks with a Sandeel, Cemlyn

We arrived on Anglesey with two weeks of doing anything except work in mind and thats exactly what we did. Sea fishing, walking, photography and bird watching, Anglesey has never disappointed us and these past two weeks have been no exception.

Sunday started with blue skies and after discovering that there was a supermarket just up the road from where we have stayed for years we made some sandwiches and went for a short walk at Cemlyn Bay to see if the Sandwich Terns were still there. As you can see from the above photo not only were they still there but they were still flying backwards and forwards feeding their young.

There were hundreds of them and even when we walked around the headland you could still hear them calling and see them diving into the sea in search of Sandeels.

Cemlyn Bay, Anglesey

The bay itself is fairly steep and covered in shingle rather than sand which keeps away all but the most hardcore sunbathers so we almost had the place to ourselves. As you can see – hardly a ripple in site and we decided to come back later and have a go at fly fishing in the sea for the first time, more on that later.

Six Spot Burnet Moths on Ragwort

All along the edge of the beach and cliffs the Ragwort was flowering and covered in both the moths and caterpillars of the Six Spot Burnett (Zygaena filipendulae), the caterpillars look identical to the Cinnabar Moth ones I’d spotted in Bolton during the previous week (yellow and black stripes) but where the moths have a red stripe and a dot the Six Spot Burnett has six spots on each wing. Sometimes the simple beauty of our countryside and wildlife amazes me and this first proper day on Anglesey was turning out to be one of the best yet.

A small whiting for me

Later that evening we came back to Cemlyn for a spot of sea fishing.

The fly fishing, although not a total disaster proved a bit troublesome in the evening breeze but we’d brought our light beach / bass gear with us and as the sun set cast a couple of juicy crab baits to the ‘gutter’ formed where the shingle meets the sand which in theory is where food is washed by the tide and hence the fish are to be found.

A lad fishing down the beach from us told us his father had had a few Bass there the previous evening but as per usual this was not ‘last night’ and the Bass didn’t show for us or him.

I managed to save a blank with a greedy little Whiting then a darkness settled we made our way back to Ty Cristion.