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CDh6
  • 5/13/2025
Iolo's River Valleys episode 3

Category

🐳
Animals
Transcript
00:00Rivers have carved the face of Wales and many flow through breathtaking valleys.
00:11Their beautiful landscapes make them popular places to visit.
00:18In this series I'm going to be exploring four river valleys.
00:23The Clwyd, the Conwy, the Dovey and the Rhydal, going all the way from sea to source.
00:39Now all four of them are stunning and I'm going to be seeing some of Wales' best wildlife
00:44including some very special species.
00:51Join me as I explore the hidden stories and natural wonders of these remarkable Welsh
00:57river valleys throughout the year.
01:10The Conwy Valley has a mix of landscapes and it's got to be one of the prettiest areas
01:15in Wales.
01:17And this time I'm starting my journey at the mouth of the river Conwy.
01:25The village of De Ganwy is behind me there and the A55, the busy North Wales coast road,
01:32well that disappears into a tunnel going below the river.
01:37And on the opposite shore you see the historic town of Conwy and that imposing castle built
01:46by Edward I in the late 13th century to try and conquer the Welsh, visited these days of
01:53course by tens of thousands of people every year.
01:58The Conwy Valley naturally separates north east and north west Wales and I'll be heading up its 34 mile course to Llyn Conwy upon the Mignet Moor.
02:16It's a couple of hours off low tide and it's not the best time to come looking for birds on the estuary, that's the winter's by far the best time.
02:23But there's a nice collection here, oyster catches feeding on the mud here, there's great crested grebe offshore there.
02:31I'll tell you the best thing here, there's this little bird down here, it looks like a small curlew, it's called a whimbrel, it's like a cousin of the curlew really.
02:42They don't stop here, they're passing through from their wintering grounds in Africa all the way up to the far north where they'll breed.
02:49But this one is quite tame and you can get fairly close to it, it's like a curlew with a really short bill and stripes along its head.
02:57Lovely little bird.
03:03With each tide cycle, the mudflats here are replenished with nutrients, making the Conwy estuary a vital feeding area for so many shorebirds.
03:19The western side of the valley borders the Errori National Park, and whilst very few people visit this hill these days, there was a well-used route here centuries ago.
03:38Climbed up from the bottom of the valley now, actually following an old Roman road.
03:43It leads you from the Conwy Valley all the way up to a Roman encampment at Segontium in Carnavon.
03:54Look at this, an old cromlech, an old burial chamber called Maen y Bardho, the Bardstone.
04:01Now this, believe it or not, is about five and a half thousand years old, three and a half thousand BC this was built, and it would have had a whole mound of cairns over it, the size of that stone.
04:23Look at that, you can still go in there, and actually, many years ago when I was up here surveying for birds up on the tops here, I sheltered in here from a rainstorm.
04:34That's been standing for five and a half thousand years.
04:37And the view that you've got from here, you can see why they built it here, the view you've got is magnificent, just look at that.
04:45See, all the way up towards the estuary over there, and then down the valley, and you see the Dolgarog reed beds.
04:52Great place to be buried.
04:55Right, onward.
04:56This rugged upland offers plenty of nesting spots for a host of small birds, including linets and stone chats.
05:11But the real star is the male redstart, a colourful summer visitor from Africa, which marks its territory with a beautiful song made up of high-pitched notes.
05:22They nest in holes or cavities, and there's a good chance this one will choose to nest within some of the stone walls here, which took hundreds of man hours to build, I'm sure.
05:42Next, I'm heading down to the valley floor, where the landscape tells a different story.
05:47Hundreds of years ago, the farmland we see today was marshland.
05:57From above, you can see traces of the old watercourses, and until late spring, the fields remain wet enough for birds like shell ducks to feed, which also nest along the edges.
06:08But today, it's a striking white bird along the river that's caught my eye.
06:16Oh, hang on.
06:18Got a little egret flying over the trees.
06:21Oh, hang on.
06:23Ah, there's a colony.
06:25And a heron as well.
06:27I knew there was a heronry in Scots pine over there on the other side of the river.
06:33Last time I walked along this path was about, God, 1990.
06:39But there were no little egrets nesting here then.
06:42And there must be, how many are there?
06:45Got to be maybe eight or more nests.
06:47Some I can see, some are quite visible, but others aren't.
06:49And every now and again, they drop down and come up with a stick.
06:55One's just handed a stick over to its partner there now.
07:01Another one flying off.
07:03They do this, they're weird birds.
07:05They'll just fly around and then land again.
07:09And they've got these beautiful plumes now as well in spring.
07:16Full breeding plumage.
07:18These long plumes at the back of the head.
07:20And down the back here, they're lovely birds.
07:23Really smart birds.
07:25And they'll always nest in amongst a heronry.
07:29And that's because of protection, I think.
07:31The herons are much bigger, bigger birds.
07:32You know, so they can have to defend those nests against ravens or crows or large gulls.
07:39And the herons are early nesters.
07:41So they will go on eggs late February, early March.
07:44And by now, they'll have big chicks.
07:47Whereas the little egrets should be just about incubating now.
07:52First nest I saw, the first breeding pair I saw, was probably late 1990s.
07:58And now, you know, they're here up the Conway.
08:01They're in most parts of Wales.
08:03It's nice to see some birds doing well.
08:06Really nice to see.
08:14I'm moving from the valley bottom to the wooded sides a few miles up river.
08:19And a habitat not often found in this part of Wales is the beech wood at Coet Dolgarog National Nature Reserve.
08:32It's a beautiful place to wander around, especially during the autumn.
08:36You see the Avon Thee here, tributary of the Conway, runs down a narrow gorge.
08:49So it's a whole series of waterfalls.
08:51And that means that there's a lot of moisture in the air here.
08:54And that is the reason why you find the rocks and all the fallen trees covered in mosses and liverworts and lichens and ferns.
09:05It's brilliant for them all year round.
09:07This is cool. It's a buff-tipped moth caterpillar.
09:19Now, the addled looks like a sort of small broken twig.
09:24It blends in.
09:25And this caterpillar, at the beginning of the autumn like this, just looking for somewhere soft soil in the leaf litter where it'll pupate.
09:35It'll build a small little cocoon around itself.
09:39Then it'll emerge again as the adult next spring.
09:44You see those long guard hairs all over its body.
09:47That's to prevent it being eaten by any bird.
09:50It would choke any bird that would try to eat it.
09:53It's a cool little thing though.
09:55Let's go.
10:19Tell you what, I've hit a real fungus hot spot here.
10:22There's got to be, what, 12 to 15 species that even I recognise and I'm no expert.
10:28This one here, this is called King Alfred's Cakes.
10:32And it's because King Alfred, of course, the old Saxon king is said to have burnt his cakes.
10:38And I nearly always find it growing on ash, dead and dying ash.
10:42And in the olden days they would use it to start a fire.
10:45It acts like charcoal, so you can carry it and then blow on it and then put some grass.
10:53You've got a fire going.
10:55Watch where you put your feet because there's fungus everywhere here.
11:00Oh, look at this.
11:02An amethyst deceiver.
11:04Amethyst because when they're young and they're fresh, they're sort of a bluey, purpley colour.
11:13Deceivers because as they get old, when they dry out, they change colour.
11:18So they can deceive you.
11:20And another one that's just caught my eye.
11:23Look at this.
11:25Yellow blobs here.
11:26These are called jelly babies.
11:28What a cool name that is.
11:30They're not edible despite that name.
11:33And all of these fungi will have mycelia, like kind of a specialist root system, branching out everywhere, breaking down the leaves, the branches, the twigs, the stumps into organic matter, into soil.
11:48And what they found recently is that they can communicate with each other.
11:53They can send upwards of 50 messages to each other.
11:58And the other thing that emphasises just how important these are is that not a single one of these trees would be growing here if they weren't growing in association with different fungi.
12:10That is how important these fungi are.
12:13Amazing things.
12:18Once a hub for the wool trade and harp making, the village of Llanroost is now a popular tourist spot.
12:37Before the 17th century bridge was built, people would have crossed the River Conwy at a ford.
12:43Pond Fawr, as it's known in Welsh, is a pretty attraction.
12:48And the cafe next to it is covered in Virginia Creepa, making it one of the most photographed buildings in the country when the leaves turn red.
13:02But I wonder how many people stopped to scan the riverbanks on either side, as there's often something interesting along the shingle bank.
13:13Dippers are timid birds and usually take off when spotted.
13:19But not this one.
13:21They mainly eat aquatic insects and search for them under rocks.
13:27What's amazing is that their well-oiled plumage traps thousands of air bubbles underwater, which acts as a wetsuit.
13:34This stretch of the Conwy River is one of the best spots to see these fascinating little songbirds.
13:43A few miles south, on the outskirts of Betoesachoyd, is one of those stunning woodlands I love to visit during spring.
13:59Listen to that.
14:05Hear that bird sound?
14:08A lovely ship about an hour after dawn.
14:11I'm in a wood called Coyd Havod.
14:13It's owned by the Errori National Park.
14:16And it's on a steep hillside opposite sort of Betoesachoyd area.
14:21It's not a well-known woodland, but it's one of my favourites here because they fenced it out.
14:26It's not grazed.
14:27And look at the vegetation.
14:29Look at the bilberry.
14:30You've got young trees.
14:31You've got holly coming up everywhere.
14:33And it's a great place for birds and you can hear the birdsong.
14:38This is how I think.
14:40Going back in time 4,000 years, this is what the woods would have looked like covering most of Wales.
14:47That's what I've got in my mind anyway.
14:49A very wild, very prehistoric looking wood.
14:53Great thing here is to leave all this dead and dying wood around.
15:07And with that and the old oaks, you know, it's full of holes.
15:11Full of holes for tree nesting birds, common birds like blue tits and great tits.
15:16But also some of the migrant birds just back from Africa.
15:19And I could hear a pied flycatcher down here somewhere singing like a five-note song.
15:27But he's gone a little bit quiet.
15:29But obviously what he's done is he's come back, established a territory.
15:33By now he should have attracted a female.
15:35They should be nest building or even on eggs by now.
15:40We'll just wait and see.
15:46There we are.
15:47He's here somewhere.
15:49There he is.
15:50He's quite high up.
15:52He's quite high up there, flicking his tail.
15:58So we're not far from his nest site if he's doing that.
16:00He's just flicking his tail, warning to other males.
16:03And he'll sing to ward off other males.
16:05Here's the female.
16:08Oh, she's got nesting material.
16:11Straight in.
16:12Straight in.
16:13Come down here.
16:14She's gone in the...
16:15Oh, there we are.
16:16There's a hole in the tree.
16:17Mossy tree there.
16:20And she's straight back out again.
16:21Straight in, straight out.
16:23There you go.
16:24The nest building.
16:25They'll be back about...
16:26What are we now?
16:27Sort of mid, late April.
16:28So they've been back ten days, two weeks maybe.
16:31They're nest building now like mad.
16:33She'll be laying in no time at all.
16:36Isn't that lovely?
16:37And I'll tell you what amazes me with these birds.
16:40They weigh...
16:41Ah, what about 13 grams?
16:4313, 14 grams?
16:45That's about the weight of one and a half pound coins.
16:49Now you put two pound coins in the palm of your hand and weigh that.
16:53That is more than the weight of that bird and yet makes it all the way down to Sub-Saharan Africa, below the Sahara and all the way back up.
17:03Not just to this wood, but to the same hole in the same tree.
17:08I just find that incredible.
17:20Look at this place.
17:21I love it when you come across the ruin in the middle of a wood that's been abandoned for well over a hundred years.
17:28Maybe a couple of hundred years.
17:34Look at that.
17:36Substantial spacing is the old hearth here.
17:40And this wood is called Coet Havod.
17:43And Havod is the old summer home that farmers used to move to for the summer months to graze their animals up on the hill.
17:52And the Hendre was the old home, the one that they had all year round down on the lower ground.
17:57But this doesn't look like a summer home.
18:00It's a really substantial looking place.
18:03And the size of the walls.
18:06This was built to last, this was.
18:08Oh, it's beautiful.
18:09Look at all the moss growing here.
18:15And yeah, you see here, there's a bigger gap here.
18:18I reckon this would have been for the animals.
18:21And I love thinking, you know, who lived here?
18:23Who were they?
18:24And there would have been a whole family certainly here.
18:28And you think it's always been wooded, but it hasn't.
18:30A lot of these trees are even aged.
18:33So they were obviously harvested.
18:35Wood would have been used for house building, for fencing, whatever it was.
18:38So there would have been a lot more wood pasture in here then.
18:42Yeah, fascinating.
18:44In early May, bluebells are in full bloom.
18:58It's a beautiful sight.
19:00And that's not the only thing that's caught my attention.
19:03It's a little wren, a little wren on a branch over there.
19:10Wrens sing louder than any other bird I know, even though they're small birds.
19:16This one is sunbathing.
19:19Almost looks like he's going to fall asleep.
19:24And then he starts to sing.
19:25He's compelled to sing.
19:27I think he's got to sing to hold on to his territory.
19:30But the poor thing obviously had a rough old night.
19:32He needs a doze.
19:34That's amazing.
19:35I've seen them sunbathe and I've seen them sing.
19:38I've never seen one sunbathe, almost fall asleep and then sing and then fall asleep again.
19:43Singing again.
19:45They're all lungs, aren't they, wrens? Amazing.
19:47That is incredible.
19:49Oh, what a cracking little bird.
19:58Beto Sacoid is known as the gateway to Arari National Park.
20:03For over a century, this place has drawn visitors with its stunning waterfalls and gorges
20:10and was once a hub for artists, writers and poets.
20:17But it's the upland area to the south that's my next stop.
20:23Aspativan is a huge National Trust estate.
20:28It's mostly an improved farmland and one of the last few places left in Wales where curlew still breed.
20:36I'm meeting Lucy Foster, a conservation officer for the RSPB's Curlew Life Project.
20:43She and her team work closely with local farmers to boost the breeding success of curlews in the area.
20:50But despite efforts like predator control, habitat creation and radio tagging, many of the chicks struggle to survive.
20:59These birds are in crisis.
21:01So you've got eight pairs in here. How many chicks?
21:06None.
21:08Honestly? Yeah.
21:09Not a single chick?
21:10Yeah, so a lot of chicks we've just found deads with no sign of an injury at all.
21:15They've just succumbed to the weather. It's been, yeah, so cold up here really.
21:20And the other ones, do you know what's picked off some of the other chicks?
21:23Yeah, so we think it's down to avian predators, probably buzzard, kite or crows.
21:28Poor things, you know, they're battling against loss of habitat now.
21:33They've been confined to these small areas and everything is just picking them off.
21:37Yeah.
21:39Chicks are very vulnerable when they've left the nest and much of their survival comes down to luck.
21:45We head to a nearby site where Lucy's team are radio tracking chicks previously tagged
21:51so they can catch them and monitor their health.
21:54I've not seen a curlew chick in Wales for over 20 years, so I'm really excited.
22:02They found one of the tagged chicks.
22:05Oh yeah, here we are, look at this, look at this.
22:09How old do you reckon this is?
22:11Er, this one's around two weeks old.
22:14It's done well to get this far, hasn't it?
22:17They're long-lived birds, aren't they?
22:20Talking about, what, 20 plus years, some of them?
22:22That's one of the reasons why their population has crashed so suddenly,
22:27because people were still seeing curlew a lot and didn't realise it was a problem.
22:31But the curlew adults that we see are actually the older birds
22:36because they're struggling so much to get their chicks in the air.
22:39So we're not seeing that many young curlews at the moment.
22:41And so we might see, I don't know, in 5, 10, 15 years' time, the Welsh curlew population just disappear overnight almost.
22:51There's risk of extinction of breeding curlew in Wales by 2033, which is so depressing.
22:58To me, you know, coming up here and hearing the curlews, this is a sound I grew up with.
23:05To lose that from the Welsh hills is just as important to me as losing the Welsh language, the Welsh culture, such an important part of Wales.
23:16Absolutely. And a lot of the farmers here, we've had to sort of explain to them almost how lucky they are that they still see and hear curlew every summer.
23:27Whereas in large parts of Wales, that call's just gone silent years ago.
23:31It's incredibly sad, really sad.
23:34I think what's lovely about this as well is seeing all of you here, the researchers, and seeing the farmers, everybody coming together,
23:43because everybody's passionate about the curlew, aren't they? Everybody, you know, so...
23:48Yeah, it is a species that brings a lot of people together from different walks of life.
23:52All that's left now is to let it go?
23:55Yeah, pretty much.
24:01It's just mixed emotions, real mixed emotions.
24:20Lovely to see a curlew chick in the hand, you know, growing, obviously, a healthy chick.
24:25But you're so sad to learn that the eight pairs at the other side and not a single chick.
24:33Over the next ten years, we're going to do everything we possibly can to get the curlew to rear young.
24:40Now, whether that is habitat management, habitat management is absolutely key.
24:46It's vital for the long-term future of our curlew.
24:48But on top of that, you know, you take out what you can legally, you put an electric fence around, that keeps out the foxes, the badgers.
24:57But then you've got the crows coming in, you've got the buzzards coming in, you've got the kites coming in, you know.
25:02It's, yeah, it's a real dilemma, it's a dilemma for everyone.
25:08But the one positive thing about all this is seeing the conservationists, seeing the farmers, everybody coming together to do their utmost to help this, probably one of the most iconic farmland birds we've got.
25:21The final leg of my journey takes me up to the Mignaint Moor, along the upper coast of the Conway River.
25:40It's the biggest area of blanket bog in Wales, and you can walk miles in either direction and not see another soul.
25:52To some people, it may seem barren, but there's always something to see.
25:59And it's worth keeping an eye out for a really special bird of prey.
26:05Come off the track because I saw a male hen harrier in the distance, try and catch up with it if I can.
26:15Get up onto this bank here.
26:17Oh, stop, stop, hold on, hold on, there he is.
26:23Yeah, there he is.
26:28Oh, you beauty, look at that.
26:31The little wind that there is, he's just hunting into the wind, head down, just looking down, ghostly gray with those black, black wingtips.
26:42Just flying slowly and he really stands out against the heather over there as well.
26:47Beautiful, beautiful bird.
26:49We're getting quite late in the season.
26:52I don't know if he's passing through or he might have a late brood somewhere.
26:55Oh, what a cracking bird.
27:00And again, you know, a rare bird.
27:01What have we got in Wales? About 50 pairs.
27:04Something like that in Wales.
27:06So to see one of these really is quite special.
27:09Oh, that is brilliant.
27:12That is absolutely brilliant.
27:14Right, onto the lake.
27:16Happy with that, very happy.
27:17This is Llyn Conwy.
27:30It's the source of the River Conwy.
27:33And I thoroughly enjoyed walking the River Conwy.
27:36The estuary is superb.
27:40A real mix of habitats holding wildlife.
27:43The deciduous woodland across the upland farmland.
27:46So important now for our declining curlews.
27:49And the vast moorland here, the mignite.
27:54I've been coming up to this lake for five decades now.
27:58Usually in spring and summer to help monitor some of the birds up here.
28:04But sometimes I'll come up in winter.
28:07Not much wildlife here then, but I come up for peace and for tranquillity.
28:12Which to me is just as important.
28:15Next time, I'm in the Vale of Clwyd.
28:26Where I'll have a close encounter with a raven.
28:29I'll also search for one of our rarest butterflies.
28:34And I head to Clokinog Forest to look for red squirrels.
28:38For red squirrels.