Nature takes a rest in Wales during December - the shortest day is followed a few days later by Christmas and the possibility of snow! All pictures taken at Plas Farm:

Image 1 by Richard Bowen

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December Gallery

Middle Row - From Left to Right

4. Cascading Mountain Stream
This stream is a tributary of the River Clydach. It enters the river some fifty yards downstream of the holiday cottages and marks the southern boundary of Plas Farm. There are lots of small cascades along the stream and it is great for a spot of river walking! The long boughs that overhang the stream are mainly rhododendron that thrive along its banks. The source of the stream is on the boggy flanks of Mynydd Marchywel

5. Snowberry Symphoricarpos albus
This deciduous shrub grows along the river bank, upstream of the holiday cottages. Snowberry, a member of the honeysuckle family, was introduced from North America in 1817 and used as cover for game. It produces small pink flowers between June and September followed by fleshy round white berries. The berries are not very attractive to birds but are sometimes eaten by pheasant in very hard winters. As a child I used to feed the odd snowberry to our chickens and they seemed to quite like them! The leaves of the shrub are a food plant for the caterpillars of Death's-head hawk moth.

6. Great Tits [Parus Major] on Beech Tree
The Great Tit is the largest UK tit - green and yellow with a striking glossy black head with white cheeks and a distinctive two-syllable song. It is a woodland bird which has readily adapted to man-made habitats to become a familiar garden visitor. It can be quite aggressive at a bird table, fighting off smaller tits. In winter it joins with blue tits and others to form roaming flocks which scour gardens and countryside for food. This picture was taken on the lawn outside the holiday cottages at Plas Farm - a great place for spotting these gangs of tits during the winter months as tits are particularly fond of beech tree seeds.

Bottom Row - From Left to Right

7. Welsh Oak on Earth Bank
These Welsh oaks have donned their fetching winter coats of green moss and orange lichen. The Atlantic oakwoods of western Britain are one of the world’s most important habitats for lichens, mosses and liverworts. Indeed, Britain’s warm, damp climate has blessed it with about 10% of the world’s known species. Many of these live at Plas Farm, whose upland oakwoods (sometimes referred to as temperate rainforests) are a great place to find many weird and wonderful varieties. At this time of year they are very prominent and give the woods a mystical ‘Lord of the Rings’ atmosphere. Lichens are very sensitive to air quality and the clean mountain air at Plas Farm is very much to their liking.

8. December Landscape at Plas Farm
This picture was taken on a fresh and sunny December morning. The summit of Mynydd Marchywel can be seen on the horizon and Welsh Mountain Sheep graze the pastures in the middle distance.

9. Robin Erithacus rubecula
The robin is the UK's favourite bird - with its bright red breast it is familiar throughout the year and especially at Christmas! Robins are very prominent during the winter and will come to within a few feet of you - cocky, confident and looking for food. There are over four million pairs in Britain and the great majority hold territory all the year round, doing almost all their feeding, courtship and breeding within a prescribed patch. The robin's association with the Christmas season seems to have started in Victorian times when the livery of the postmen included a bright red jacket. Nicknamed 'robins', their red-breasted namesakes were portrayed on traditional Christmas cards with an envelope in their beak, posting greetings into the letter box, which was invariably covered with snow and a sprig of holly.