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00:03Rivers have carved the face of Wales, and many flow through breathtaking valleys.
00:14Their beautiful landscapes make them popular places to visit.
00:19In this series I'm going to be exploring four river valleys.
00:23The Clwyd, the Conwy, the Dovey and the Rhaidol, going all the way from sea to source.
00:38Now all four of them are stunning, and I'm going to be seeing some of Wales' best wildlife,
00:45including some very special species.
00:50Join me as I explore the hidden stories and natural wonders of these remarkable Welsh river valleys throughout the year.
01:09The Conwy Valley has a mix of landscapes, and it's got to be one of the prettiest areas in Wales.
01:17This 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,
01:32where 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 by Edward I
01:47in the late 13th century to try and conquer the Welsh.
01:51It's visited these days, of course, by tens of thousands of people every year.
01:57The Conwy Valley naturally separates north-east and north-west Wales, and I'll be heading up its 34-mile course
02:05to Llyn Conwy, upon the Mignet Moor.
02:15It's a couple of hours off low tide, and it's not the best time to come looking for birds on
02:21the estuary.
02:21That's the winter's by far the best time, but there's a nice collection here.
02:26Oyster catches feeding on the mud here. There's great crested grebe offshore there.
02:31I tell you the best thing here, there's this little bird down here.
02:35It looks like a small curlew. It's called a whimbrel.
02:39It's like a cousin of the curlew really, and they don't stop here.
02:44They're passing through from their wintering grounds in Africa all the way up to the far north, where they'll breed.
02:50But this one is quite tame, and you can get fairly close to it.
02:53It'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,
03:07making the Conway Estuary a vital feeding area for so many shorebirds.
03:22The western side of the valley borders the Erruri National Park,
03:27and 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.
03:43Lead you from the Conway Valley all the way up to a Roman encampment at Seegontium in Carnarvon.
03:53Look at this, an old cromlech, an old burial chamber called Maen y Barth, or the Bardstone.
04:08Now this, believe it or not, is about five and a half thousand years old.
04:14Three and a half thousand BC this was built, and it would have had a whole mound of cairns over
04:21it,
04:21the size of that stone.
04:24Look at that, you can still go in there, and actually, many years ago when I was up here,
04:29surveying 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.
04:38And the view that you've got from here, you can see why they built it here.
04:42The view you've got is magnificent, just look at that.
04:44See, all the way up towards the estuary over there, and then down the valley, and you see the Dolgarog
04:50reed beds.
04:52Great place to be buried.
04:55Right onward.
05:01This rugged upland offers plenty of nesting spots for a host of small birds, including linets and stone chats.
05:10But the real star is the male redstart, a colourful summer visitor from Africa,
05:16which marks its territory with a beautiful song made up of high-pitched notes.
05:24They nest in holes or cavities, and there's a good chance this one will choose to nest within some
05:30of the stone walls here, which took hundreds of man hours to build, I'm sure.
05:41Next, I'm heading down to the valley floor, where the landscape tells a different story.
05:49Hundreds of years ago, the farmland we see today was marshland.
05:56From above, you can see traces of the old watercourses, and until late spring,
06:02the fields remain wet enough for birds like shell ducks to feed, which also nest along the edges.
06:11But today, it's a striking white bird along the river that's caught my eye.
06:16Oh, hang on. Got a little egret flying over the trees. Oh, hang on.
06:23Ah, there's a colony. And a heron as well.
06:27I knew there was a heronry in Scots pine over there on the other side of the river.
06:34Last time I walked along this path was about, god, 1990. But there were no little egrets nesting here then.
06:43And there must be, how many are there? Got to be maybe eight or more nests. Some I can see,
06:48some are quite visible, but others aren't.
06:51And every now and again, they drop down and come up with a stick. One's just handed a stick over
06:57to its partner there now.
07:01Another one flying off. They do this, they're weird birds. They'll just fly around and then land again.
07:11And they've got these beautiful plumes now as well in spring, full breeding plumage.
07:17There are these long plumes at the back of the head and down the back here. They're lovely birds, really
07:23smart birds.
07:25And they'll always nest in amongst a heronry. And that's because of protection. I think the herons are much bigger,
07:32bigger birds, you know,
07:32so they can have to defend those nests against ravens or crows or large gulls. And the herons are early
07:40nesters,
07:41so they will go on eggs late February, early March. And by now they'll have big chicks, whereas the little
07:47egrets should be just about incubating now.
07:52First nest I saw, the first breeding pair I saw was probably late 1990s. And now, you know, they're here
08:00up the Conway. They're in most parts of Wales.
08:04It's nice to see some birds doing well. Really nice to see.
08:14I'm moving from the valley bottom to the wooded sides a few miles up river.
08:21And a habitat not often found in this part of Wales is the beech wood at Coet Dolgarog National Nature
08:28Reserve.
08:31It's a beautiful place to wander around, especially during the autumn.
08:43You see the Abondie here, tributary of the Conway, runs down a narrow gorge, so it's a whole series of
08:50waterfalls.
08:51And that means that there's a lot of moisture in the air here. And that is the reason why you
08:56find the rocks and all the fallen trees covered in mosses and liverworts and lichens and ferns.
09:04It's brilliant for them all year round.
09:13This is cool.
09:14It's a buff tip moth caterpillar. Now, the adult looks like a sort of small broken twig. It blends in.
09:24And this caterpillar, at the beginning of the autumn like this, just looking for somewhere soft soil in the leaf
09:33litter where it'll pupate.
09:34It'll build a small little cocoon around itself. Then it'll emerge again as the adult next spring.
09:43You see those long guard hairs all over its body. That's to prevent it being eaten by any bird.
09:49It would choke any bird that would try to eat it.
09:53It's a cool little thing though.
10:19It's a cool little thing though.
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.
10:27This 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.
10:37And 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.
10:46It 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.
11:06Amethyst because when they're young and they're fresh, they're sort of a bluey, purpley colour.
11:13They deceive us because as they get old, when they dry out, they change colour so they can deceive you.
11:20And another one that's just caught my eye, look at this, yellow blobs here.
11:26These are called jelly babies.
11:28What a cool name that is.
11:30They're not edible despite that name.
11:32And all of these fungi will have mycelia, like kind of a specialist root system branching out
11:40everywhere, 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.
11:52They can send upwards of 50 messages to each other.
11:57And the other thing that emphasises just how important these are is that not a single one
12:03of 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.
12:27Once a hub for the wool trade and harp making, the village of Llanroost is now a popular tourist spot.
12:36Before 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
12:53buildings in the country when the leaves turn red.
13:02But I wonder how many people stop to scan the river banks on either side,
13:07as there's often something interesting along the shingle bank.
13:15Dippers are timid birds and usually take off when spotted, but not this one.
13:22They 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,
13:33which acts as a wetsuit.
13:37This stretch of the Conwy River is one of the best spots to see these fascinating little songbirds.
13:52A few miles south, on the outskirts of Betousa Coed, is one of those stunning woodlands I love to visit
13:59during spring.
14:05Listen to that.
14:07Hear that bird song?
14:08That lovely ship about an hour after dawn.
14:11I mean, a wood called Coed Havod, shown by the Rurie National Park.
14:16And it's on a steep hillside opposite sort of Betousa Coed area.
14:21It's not a well-known woodland, but it's one of my favourites here.
14:25Because they fenced it out, it's not grazed.
14:28And look at the vegetation.
14:29You've got the bilberry, you've got young trees, you've got holly coming up everywhere.
14:33And it's a great place for birds, and you can hear the bird song.
14:38This is how I think, going back in time 4,000 years,
14:43this 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.
15:02Great 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.
15:25Like a five-note song, but 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, they should be nest building or even on eggs by now.
15:40We'll just wait and see.
15:45There we are, there we are, he's here somewhere.
15:49There he is, he'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.
16:01He's just flicking his tail, warning to other males and he'll sing to ward off other males.
16:05He is the female.
16:08Oh, she's got nesting material.
16:11Straight in, straight in.
16:13Come down here.
16:14She's gone in the, oh, there we are.
16:16There's a hole in the tree, mossy tree there.
16:20And she's straight back out again.
16:22Straight in, straight out.
16:24There you go.
16:24The nest building.
16:25They'll be back about, what are we now, sort of mid-late April.
16:29So they've been back 10 days, two weeks maybe.
16:32They're nest building now like mad.
16:34She'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, ah, what about 13 grams, 13, 14 grams.
16:45That's about the weight of one and a half pound coins.
16:50Now, you put two pound coins in the palm of your hand and weigh that.
16:53That is more than the weight of that bird.
16:55And yet, makes it all the way down to sub-Saharan Africa, below the Sahara.
17:02And all the way back up, not just to this wood, but to the same hole in the same tree.
17:09I just find that incredible.
17:20Look at this place.
17:22I love it when you come across the ruin in the middle of a wood that's been abandoned,
17:26you know, for well over a hundred years, maybe a couple of hundred years.
17:34Look at that.
17:37Substantial spaces, the whole 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
17:51their 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.
18:05And the size of the walls, this was built to last.
18:07This was, oh, 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'd 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.
18:43Yeah, fascinating.
18:54In early May, bluebells are in full bloom.
18:58It's a beautiful sight, and that's not the only thing that's caught my attention.
19:05There'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.
19:15But this one is sunbathing.
19:19Almost looks like he's going to fall asleep.
19:23And 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?
19:46Amazing.
19:47That is incredible.
19:49Oh, what a cracking little bird.
19:58Better Sequoia is known as the gateway to Irary 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.
20:16But it's the upland area to the south that's my next stop.
20:22A spativan 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.
20:51But despite efforts like predator control, habitat creation, and radio tagging,
20:56many of the chicks struggle to survive.
20:59These birds are in crisis.
21:03So you've got eight pairs in here. How many chicks?
21:07None.
21:08Honestly?
21:09Yeah.
21:09Not a single chick?
21:10Yeah, there's a lot of chicks we've just found dead with no sign of an injury at all.
21:16They've just succumbed to the weather. It's been 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.
21:29Poor things.
21:30Yeah.
21:31You 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.
21:56I'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. Oh yeah, here we are. Look at this. Look at this.
22:09How old do you reckon this is?
22:11This 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? Talking about, what, 20-plus years, some of them?
22:22That's one of the reasons why their population has crashed so suddenly,
22:26because 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,
22:35because 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.
22:42And so we might see, I don't know, in 5, 10, 15 years' time,
22:47the Welsh curlew population just disappear overnight almost.
22:51There's risk of extinction of breeding curlew in Wales by 2033,
22:56which is so depressing.
22:59To me, you know, coming up here and hearing the curlews, this is a sound I grew up with.
23:07To lose that from the Welsh hills is just as important to me as losing the Welsh language,
23:13the Welsh culture is 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
23:22they are that they still see and hear curlew every summer, whereas in large parts of Wales,
23:28that call's just gone silent years ago.
23:31It's incredibly sad, really sad.
23:35I'll tell you what's lovely about this as well, is seeing all of you here, the researchers,
23:39and seeing the farmers, everybody coming together, because everybody's passionate about the curlew,
23:45aren't they? Everybody, you know?
23:47So... Yeah, 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?
23:54Yeah, pretty much.
24:17It's just mixed emotions, real mixed emotions. Lovely to see a curlew chick in the hand,
24:23you know, and growing, obviously, a healthy chick, but just so sad to learn that eight pairs at the
24:29other side and not a single chick. Over the next ten years, we're going to do everything we possibly
24:37can to get the curlew to rear young. Now, whether that is habitat management, habitat management is
24:44absolutely key. It's vital for the long-term future of our curlew. But on top of that, you know,
24:51you take out what you can legally, you put an electric fence around, that keeps out the foxes,
24:56the badgers, but then you've got the crows coming in, you've got the buzzards coming in,
25:01you've got the kites coming in, you know? It'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,
25:14everybody coming together to do their utmost to help this, probably one of the most iconic
25:20farmland birds we've got.
25:34The final leg of my journey takes me up to the Mignint Moor,
25:38along the upper course of the Conway River.
25:44It's the biggest area of blanket bog in Wales, and you can walk miles in either direction and not see
25:50another soul. To some people, it may seem barren, but there's always something to see.
26:01And it's worth keeping an eye out for a really special bird of prey.
26:08I've come off the track because I saw a male hen harrier in the distance. Try and catch up with
26:14it if I can.
26:15Get up onto this bank here. Oh, stop, stop. Hold on. Hold on. There he is.
26:24Yeah, there he is.
26:29Oh, you beauty. Look at that.
26:33The little wind that there is. He's just hunting into the wind, head down, just looking down,
26:39ghostly gray with those black, black wingtips, just flying slowly. And he really stands out
26:45against a heather over there as well. Beautiful, beautiful bird. We're getting quite late in the
26:50season. I don't know if he's passing through or he might have a late brood somewhere. Oh, what a
26:58cracking bird. And again, you know, a rare bird. What have we got in Wales? About 50 pairs, something
27:04like that in Wales. So to see one of these really is quite special. Oh, that is brilliant. That is
27:12absolutely brilliant. Right. Onto the lake. Happy with that. Very happy.
27:28This is Llyn Conwy. It's the source of the River Conwy. And I've thoroughly
27:34enjoyed walking the River Conwy. The estuary is superb. A real mix of habitats holding wildlife.
27:43The deciduous woodland across the upland farmland, so important now for our declining curlews.
27:49And the vast moorland here, the mignite. I've been coming up to this lake for five decades now,
27:59usually in spring and summer to help monitor some of the birds up here. But sometimes I'll come up in
28:06winter. Not much wildlife here then, but I come up for for peace and for tranquility,
28:12which to me is just as important.
28:23Next time, I'm in the Vale of Cluid, where I'll have a close encounter with a raven.
28:30I'll also search for one of our rarest butterflies. And I head to Clocaenock Forest to look for red
28:38squiggles.
28:55And I'll see you next time.
28:58Bye.
28:58Bye.
28:59Bye.
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