A glorious presence suddenly surfaces – a drake goosander

Llanfairfechan, Gwynedd In their usual river habitat, these magnificent, large, hole-nesting ducks are shy and rightly soTraeth Lafan’s wide expanse of sand is a landscape that draws you in, like the Elenydd moors or the high Arctic, through its abstraction. Nothing’s solid here; all’s sketched and coloured in shifting tones of water and light. Even history has become ambiguous, uncertain. These are drowned lands, their legends tide-steeped, wind-honed. I come here for the bird