Finally, we’ve had a rain-less day and, though there was a bitterly cold wind blasting across Cardiff Bay, I had to take advantage of the dry weather so walked an 8-mile circuit right round the Bay. The first highlight was my first two Wheatears of the year, a bit distant, and only popping up very briefly from amongst the huge Barrage boulders, but it was lovely to welcome them back for the summer.

The Bay was buzzing with Sand martins – I must’ve seen at least 20, perhaps more, at various times during my wander, and it was a joy to watch their aerial antics.

Though it’s now several weeks since the big floods pushed a ton of rubbish into the Bay, the huge accumulations have still not been cleared. In fact, most of the rubbish slicks have seen no clearance action taken at all. The ONLY positive thing about this is that the Goldfinches and Linnets seem to be finding plenty of food amongst the garbage.

I simply had to include this male House sparrow, as today is World Sparrow Day.

This lovely female Stonechat was dotting back and forth across the footpath through the wetlands reserve, and let me get quite close for photos. There was no sign of the male today though.