south stack

Furthest west with birds and scenery to match

the sea cliffs extending for two miles at this, the most westerly point in Anglesey, are some of the most spectacular in the whole of North Wales, rising to 360ft at Gogarth Bay, while behind you Holyhead Mountain, at 720ft, just like the cliff coast, gradually descends southwards. South Stack lighthouse, built in 1809, is reached by some 400 steps to the footbridge separating the Stack from the mainland. For those unable to make the journey, head to the nearby Ellin’s Tower – a superb

vantage point and seawatch centre, which must not be missed. Conveniently close by Ellen’s Tower are the Holyhead Mountain hut circles, or the Irishmen’s Huts, one of the best preserved hut groups in Wales. Perhaps dating from Neolithic times, and certainly from the Iron Age, some huts have now been skillfully reconstructed. The colonies of Guillemots, at least 3,500 in 2018, and Razorbills in May and June will be in full voice, a crescendo of sound rippling backwards and forwards never to be stilled, then, if you listen hard in June and into July, the plaintive piping calls of chicks. Chicks when just three weeks or so of age, and barely a third the size of their parents, flutter down at dusk and swim away, accompanied by their fathers, out into St Georges Channel. If you are planning a visit, the ledges will quickly empty throughout July, the white splashes of guano the only evidence of their boisterous occupants. The South Stack hinterland throughout the year has an impressive list of passage migrants and rare visitors, really rare in the case of a Snowy Owl in March and again in July 2018. The first Grey Catbird for Great Britain was here in October 2001 while, two years later the second Black Lark for Great Britain, not surprisingly, lured a large body of admirers.