A delicate feast

It’s a return to RSPB Conwy today. G has decided to admit defeat in terms of his Heath Robinson type squirrel defences: apparently it’s time to splash out on the ridiculously expensive ‘Squirrel Buster Plus’. Hopefully it will live up to its name. 

I leave G making his purchases and walk the reserve’s circuit. The light is pretty awful today  though at least it’s dry, and distinguishing one species of bird from another is nigh on impossible. So I’m delighted to come across some ponies grazing by the estuary, thick winter coats shaggy and damp from the earlier rain. It seems they’ve taken a liking to the gorse bushes growing here, munching carefully on the seemingly uninviting spines - like giraffes on spiny arcacia trees in Africa. There’s so much grass for them to eat it does seem strange to subject themselves to what can hardly be a comfortable experience! 

Disappearing down the rabbit hole of research that often accompanies these journal musings, I discover that gorse was once a valued winter food for horses with 80% of Welsh farmers using it in the mid C19 - though the spikes were crushed or bruised to make them edible. Clearly these Carneddau are far too tough to need such mollycoddling! 

https://www.plant-lore.com/plantofthemonth/gorse-as-cattle-fodder/#:~:text=Gorse%20(Ulex%20europaeus)%20was%20formerly,large%20scale%27%20for%20this%20purpose.

I’ve added an extra of this pony taking a bite, but prefer the composition of the main.