Eloise Williams
Mae’r awdur Eloise Williams yn siarad am yr anturiaethau a’r ysbrydoliaeth sy’n aros dafliad carreg o’i chartref ar arfordir Sir Benfro. Mae hi hefyd yn rhannu rhai ffeithiau hynod ddiddorol am y bywyd gwyllt sydd i’w gael yno yn ogystal ag effaith plastig ar ein moroedd.
*Sylwch, oherwydd bod Eloise yn awdur o Gymru sy’n ysgrifennu yn yr iaith Saesneg, mae’r erthygl hon wedi’i chadw yn ei hiaith wreiddiol ac nid yw wedi’i chyfieithu.
Mae Eloise Williams yn awdur o Gymru sydd wrth ei bodd yn dathlu tirwedd, pobl a hanes Cymru. Mae ei nofelau gradd ganol wedi ennill Llyfr y Flwyddyn Pobl Ifanc y Wales Art Review ddwywaith, Gwobr Llyfr YBB, Gwobr Llyfr Plant Wolverhampton ac maent wedi cyrraedd rhestr fer ar gyfer Gwobrau Tir na nOg, Llyfr y Flwyddyn Cymru a Gwobrau Llyfr NE. Yn ei hamser hamdden, mae’n canu, nofio ar y môr, cefnogi natur a bywyd gwyllt, hela ysbrydion a cherdded gyda’i chi Watson Jones ar y traeth.
Hi yw Children’s Laureate Wales 2019-2021.
Llyfrau Eloise
I am always on the lookout for ideas for my stories. Luckily for me. I live in a beautiful part of Wales called Pembrokeshire.
Also, I am owned by a small cairn terrier dog called Watson Jones. Every day, come rain or shine, we go out together and he drags me in the direction of the beach.
I’m happy to go on sunny days when the sea is the brightest blue, and the sky is clear. He has to drag me a little bit harder when rain comes in horizontally and the waves churn, throwing foam inland on a bitterly cold wind. Watson is an intrepid explorer, and the small matter of a hurricane is nothing to him.
While Watson stops to sniff every sandcastle, rock, shell, twig, I scour the beach for ideas and interesting finds. I’ve found beautiful pieces of sea glass, pottery with intricate patterns, frosted marbles, old tiles and a doll’s head made of china. Sadly, I’ve also found lots of plastic bottles and bags, and millions of small broken-up pieces of plastic.
Did you know that a plastic bottle can last up to 450 years in the sea? It will then start to decompose but it will never truly be gone.
While I can see lots of plastic on the beach, only a very small amount is found washed up, floating, or near the surface of the sea. Most of it ends up on the sea floor.
There are so many animals living around the U.K. in and on the sea. We need to protect the environment for these animals. They can become really sick
from mistaking the plastic for food and eating it, or by becoming entangled in it.
Off the coast of Pembrokeshire, we have dolphins, porpoises, jellyfish, seals, turtles, and some species of shark – though I haven’t seen any yet!
Our skies are filled with razorbills, seagulls – which occasionally fly down and steal sandwiches from people’s hands, cormorants, buzzards, kestrels, and a lot of large birds called gannets.
Did you know that gannets have a wingspan of up to six feet and 10% of the world’s population nests just off the Pembrokeshire coast on Grassholm Island? There can be up to 39,000 pairs of gannets nesting there and when you look at the island from a distance it looks white because there are so many!
It was on visits to Pembrokeshire islands that I got the idea for my first book Elen’s Island. The short boat crossings were like being transported to other worlds. The wildlife on the islands was so beautiful and as soon as I met one of our cutest and most comical of birds, the puffin, I knew I had to put one into a story.
To start, I made a map. I imagined I was a bird flying over an island and I drew what I could see from a bird’s eye view. I wanted to include lots of wildlife in my story, so I put in a few of the important places on the island and then sketched the wildlife in. I added in details about them, such as the sounds they make.
Did you know a puffin’s call sounds a bit like a cow mooing, or an electric chainsaw?
Of course, you don’t have to live by the sea to write a story which is chockful of nature and wildlife. As well as using your imagination you can look at what wildlife you have in your local area. Though my books Elen’s Island and Seaglass are set by the sea, Wilde is set inland and has red kites, owls, jackdaws, crows, spiders, foxes and bats. Wherever you are, there will be wildlife close by if you look out for it.
Try going for a silent walk and really paying attention to what is around you. Then when you get back make a list of the things you saw. Or, set a timer and wildlife watch from your window. It’s amazing how much you can spot when you really make an effort to notice.
See if you can identify any potential plastic pollution in your area too. Lots of the plastic in the sea comes from littering inland. Plastic is thrown or washed into rivers and drains, and they carry it out to the sea.
The wild world around us is astonishing and wonderful and we can help to protect it. Plastic is important for some uses but if we all made a change we could look after our wildlife a little bit better.
What you can do to be a Wild World Hero
Reuse and recycle. We can all do our bit to cut down on plastic. There are lots of tips and tricks on the internet which will give you ideas to help the planet. You might already be doing some of these things. For example, you might have a reusable water bottle, or a bamboo toothbrush. If we all made these changes it would have a huge impact on the world we share.
When you’ve found out what you can do to help, why not make a poster or write a story about it? Share your creation with your friends and the adults around you. They might be interested to find out how they can help too.
Why not draw a map of an imaginary island? What wildlife do you think will be there? Draw them in and find out about their habitats. Think about why a clean and safe environment is important for them. You could even make up some animals of your own!
Go for a wildlife walk or nature watch from your window. Remember that wherever you are, wildlife will be around, so see what you can spot. The more we appreciate wildlife in our local area, the more we will want to do to help it. The quieter you are, the more likely they are to show their wings or whiskery faces.
The more we talk about plastic pollution the more we will want to stop it, so be wildly creative and celebrate wildlife.
We can all be wild world heroes! Good luck!
