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00:04The rivers of Wales are among its greatest natural treasures, shaping breathtaking landscapes for
00:12centuries. In this series I'm going to be traveling along four of Wales's longest river valleys.
00:22The Ask, the Tawi, the Tivey and the Dee, heading from tidal shores to mountain streams.
00:37I'll get to see the fascinating wildlife living there.
00:42All four are rich in stories and surrounded by epic scenery.
00:47So join me through the seasons as I uncover the wonders of four great river valleys.
01:05The Dee is North Wales's longest river and its wide estuary marks the boundary with England.
01:13I'm starting my journey on the Welsh side at Flint and it'll take me 70 miles up to its
01:20source on a ddiall mountain in the Erruri National Park.
01:28I can't walk the River Dee without stopping off here at Flint.
01:32Flint Castle behind me was, it was the first of the big castles built during the reign of
01:38Edward I in an attempt to subdue the Welsh and it was finished in 1284.
01:44But I'm not here to enjoy the castle, I'm actually here to have a look at the birds.
01:48This part of Flint is a brilliant place for all kinds of wading birds and wildfowl as well.
01:55It's unusual in a way because I'm surrounded by houses.
01:59You've got flint behind me, you've got factories, you've got a power station in the distance over
02:03there as well and yet because of the estuary it's a real paradise for birds.
02:09Every winter they get over 120,000 waders and wildfowl here.
02:15There's a good mix, it's been a high tide this morning, really high tide, pushed the birds in.
02:20It's receding now so the mud is becoming exposed and this mud is rich in all kinds of invertebrates.
02:27There's shell duck, flocks of black-tailed godwits and curlew.
02:33There's lapwing coming into land as well, all starting to join in this feast.
02:39Now it's been a real dull, wet start to the day but it is due to get much, much brighter.
02:48The crew and I head to the English side of the estuary to see a few other species that are
02:54showing well.
02:57The river's shifted a lot over hundreds of years and over 100 years ago it was just here.
03:04This is an old quay side you can see here so boats would have moored up.
03:09Now it's shifted and it's two miles over onto the Welsh side over there.
03:14But what it means is that you've got a vast area of salt marsh here.
03:18It's a brilliant place for all kinds of small birds, small mammals, wading birds and birds of prey.
03:25It's one of the best places I know to come and see birds of prey.
03:28We've got a marsh area, it's a great place for marsh areas.
03:32It's a young male this one, got a dark bird.
03:36It's got the white panels in the wings you know so.
03:39See the way they hunt, they always hunt into the wind.
03:41The wind is coming from the north so they're hunting from left to right here.
03:50Shortyed owl just above the horizon.
03:53Yeah, you got him?
03:54Well done, nice one.
03:56We've got two shortyed owls.
03:59One's quite aggressive chasing the other one away.
04:03She's gone right into the sun almost, hasn't she now?
04:07These owls, they don't breed here.
04:10They breed in Wales but they tend to breed up on the moorlands and mainly up in Scotland, north of
04:16England.
04:17But they spend the winter months here just because there's so much prey.
04:21Small birds and small mammals here for them.
04:25These will have come from maybe Scotland or the north of England or even Scandinavia.
04:30They come across to avoid the harsh winters over there.
04:34Incredibly buoyant flight.
04:36And when they come towards you, you see these big, beautiful lemon eyes that they've got.
04:42Amazing birds.
04:46A number of people I've had say, oh, you know, it's not that good, is it?
04:50You know, it's just a load of old grassland here, mud on the other side.
04:54But it's so rich, it's so important for all kinds of wildlife, especially birds.
05:01And I'd go as far as to say that it's one of the most important sites, not just in Wales,
05:07Wales and England, but in the whole of the UK.
05:10It's a fantastic place.
05:19The dee flows through a huge lowland floodplain
05:22that lies to the east of Wrexham and it's prized for its farmland.
05:26Hidden in this landscape is a rare habitat that really comes into its own in summer.
05:32And I've been granted special permission to see it.
05:36This is old Pulford Brooks Nature Reserve.
05:40And it's like stepping back in time a couple of hundred years.
05:44It's an old flood meadow.
05:46There are three fields here and fields, I guess, would have covered much of the lower dee going way back.
05:54Because the river would have broken its banks every winter.
05:58It would have flooded all the fields around here.
06:01It would have deposited what they call alluvial soil, rich soils carried down in the water.
06:07That would have made the soil here quite valuable.
06:10Brilliant for wildlife, of course, but also valuable for the farmers too.
06:14What's happened since, of course, agriculture has modernised, they've ploughed, they've fertilised,
06:20they've reseeded nearly all of these fields.
06:24And we've lost about 95% of them now.
06:27And these three fields represent probably the best examples of floodplain meadows in the whole of Wales.
06:36Traditional ditch systems on these fields regulate water levels,
06:40providing ideal conditions for these tufted vetch to thrive.
06:45Their purple flowers are crucial stops for pollinators like bees and butterflies,
06:50between other key plants.
06:53Just look at the density and the variety of plants here.
07:00Meadowsweet are just about the most common.
07:02These creamy white ones, they're absolutely everywhere.
07:06But the real jewel in the crown of this place is this.
07:10This is great burnet.
07:12Not a common plant, you know, lovely to see.
07:15And where you get a variety of flowers like we've got here,
07:18all kinds of invertebrates.
07:20There was a lot of here, hoverflies.
07:22And we overlook hoverflies, but they're really important pollinators.
07:26They're up there with the bees, really.
07:28So a lot of different types of those.
07:30There's aphids as well.
07:31These meadowsweet are covered in aphids.
07:34And because of that, it's really good for ladybirds.
07:37There's a lot of them around here today.
07:40Don't see many places like this left in the whole of Wales these days.
07:50Next, I'm heading west.
07:51Following the river as it flows through the lower end of the vale of Llangollen.
07:56This section is dominated by Pont Cysyllthe Aqueduct,
08:00the first great masterpiece of civil engineer Thomas Telford.
08:05Built to carry the Llangollen Canal, it became a vital transport link during the Industrial Revolution,
08:12moving coal, iron and slate from Wales into the English Midlands.
08:16It's name comes from the Welsh Cysyllthe, meaning to connect.
08:21And more than 220 years later, this World Heritage Site is still doing exactly that.
08:28And still very much in use today.
08:32It's 106 feet high.
08:34That makes it the highest navigable aqueduct in the whole world.
08:39And it's a thousand and seven feet long.
08:43It is massive.
08:44And if you're into your longboats or your kayaks, it's one of those things you've got to take off.
08:50And on a day like today, I tell you, it's very, very busy.
08:56There's one hell of a drop on that far side.
08:58I wouldn't want a kayak across here.
09:01All right, Laz.
09:03Where are you off to?
09:04We are off to Cherk.
09:06Oh, to Cherk.
09:07Well done.
09:07Keep going.
09:08Keep going.
09:09Nice one.
09:13Hello.
09:15Hiya.
09:16It's a nice dog.
09:28Llangollen sits in one of the most beautiful stretches of the Dee Valley, surrounded by dramatic hills.
09:35And overlooking the town is Castelldynas Bran, which translates to the Castle of Crows.
09:43But in the 1500s, the chronicler John Leyland recorded a far more formidable resident, the Golden Eagle.
09:50This site was one of the last known breeding grounds for the species in Wales.
09:57These days, one of the most striking birds in the valley is best seen along the river,
10:02the mandarin duck, originally from the Far East.
10:07And they're non-native.
10:09They're introduced.
10:10They've been breeding in the wild in the UK for about 200-odd years now.
10:14But they're really smart.
10:16They're ridiculous-looking ducks, to be honest with you.
10:18The colours on them, they've got these orange sails in the middle of their backs, the males.
10:23And they're originally from China and Japan, but they're not doing well.
10:28Numbers are declining over there.
10:29But in the UK, they're actually doing really well.
10:31But the best place to see them by a long way is here, right in the middle of Llangollen.
10:36They're used to people, so you can get close-up views of them.
10:40Usually, they're quite shy.
10:42Yeah, they're introduced.
10:43They're not impinging on any of our native wildlife.
10:46And I quite like seeing them as well.
10:57The vast swathes of heather moorland above the valley is home to one of our most threatened
11:03upland birds, the black grouse.
11:06The best time to witness their amazing courtship display is early spring, right at the crack of dawn.
11:14So the crew and I make our way up onto the moor, joining Anja Vichkovsky from the RSPB,
11:21who's carrying out a survey.
11:25We need to stay well hidden, so we stick up the camo netting and then wait.
11:41Oh, I can see them now, Anja.
11:45Yeah.
11:46You can see the white tails, can you?
11:48When they've found out, I love that.
11:50Yeah, and there's quite a few more jumping up from the heather when they're doing their display.
11:59So this moor above the Dee Valley has got to be one of the best moors in the whole of
12:05Wales now,
12:06is it?
12:06Oh, 100%, yeah.
12:08Probably on this little area here, we have about 45 males.
12:14We had our peak in 2015, when we had a really good number, but unfortunately since then they've just
12:22been continually declining. We used to have them across south in mid Wales, and now you can probably
12:28fit the whole of the black grouse range on 1OS map. So it's quite scary stuff really,
12:34they're just really being pushed into a few suitable areas.
12:38What's happened then, Anja? Do we know?
12:40It's probably a combination of things, of the climate change, the lack of food,
12:46it's really that loss of suitable habitat, because they like a nice mosaic of heights,
12:51so you need lots of short heather for them to let them move around in. But you also need the
12:55longer, older heather for them to nest in. The other thing they need is sort of the blanket
13:00bob, because the cotton grass is really important for the females to get them to condition for breeding.
13:06So, because they need such a range of habitats, obviously that does make them more susceptible
13:10to habitat loss. They really are like a species on the edge.
13:20There's a couple on the right to the leg, having a right humding in there, isn't there?
13:24Yeah.
13:25Just on the right core of each other. I love all the sort of dancing they do, you know,
13:30back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
13:32Definitely. I think it kind of reminds me of flamenco dancing, sort of very, lots of tension
13:38in there and, you know, with these beautiful blurry shaped feathers on the tail, it's amazing.
13:44Yeah, they are beautiful, but when you see them close up and the light hits them,
13:48you'll call them black roves, but they're not really, are they?
13:51No.
13:51They're sort of purpley, bluey, kind of green sheeny, sort of all these colors and the red
13:59wattle above the eye.
14:00Oh yeah, it's so striking.
14:02I reckon you've got the best job in the RSBB.
14:05I do almost do.
14:06Yeah, it's pretty special.
14:15Oh, my bottom is on the stone, I've got to watch.
14:20Oh, that's better.
14:28Oh, the sun's come up a little bit more now and there's quite a lot of light.
14:32You can see the nice iridescent feathers of the grouse now.
14:36Yeah.
14:37And I tell you what, the white's standing out even more, isn't it, with the sunlight hitting it.
14:42Yeah.
14:50Looks like the last one's just flown.
14:53Do you know what?
14:54I've had a brilliant morning.
14:55It took me back to, you know, my old RSBB days just sitting there watching them.
15:00Yeah.
15:00I hope we still have that black-rouse tradition of going off having a cup of tea and breakfast.
15:05Yeah, definitely.
15:07I think that's the next stop.
15:07I tell you what, it's been a brilliant morning.
15:09I'll buy, I'll buy.
15:11How's that?
15:11Thank you very much.
15:12That's all right, pleasure.
15:13No, it's been a great morning.
15:15Come on, we'll head off.
15:16Nice one, aren't you?
15:21As we enter the upper reaches of the Dee Valley near Bala, the river feeds into Wales'
15:27largest natural lake, Llyntegid.
15:32You really see Llyntegid, this flat calm.
15:36There's no wind at all.
15:38It's a lovely, lovely morning.
15:40And from here, you can see the length.
15:42It's almost four miles long, half a mile wide.
15:45It's quite deep as well.
15:46It's over 40 meters deep.
15:48And in the distance on the left, you can see Aram Fawdwy and Aram Benllin, two big peaks there.
15:55Then in the far distance, Cader Idris.
15:58Beautiful, lovely to see.
16:04The nearby Avon Trewerin flows into the river Dee and is a crucial stronghold for an ancient species
16:11that's disappeared from most Welsh rivers, the freshwater pearl mussel.
16:16They're so scarce you need a special license to look for them.
16:20So I'm meeting Gethin Morris from Natural Resources Wales, who's taking me to see these
16:28remarkable creatures for myself.
16:31We'll just walk up slowly along the margins.
16:34That's where they usually are.
16:36If you just follow me.
16:37Yeah.
16:37They should be quite easy to spot in this light today.
16:42You've got some in there, Geth?
16:44Yeah.
16:44If you just come in, I've served it there.
16:46It's clear to come in this way.
16:47Yeah, absolutely clear.
16:48Okay.
16:49Yeah.
16:50So there's an individual here.
16:51Oh, I can see it.
16:52Yeah, I can see it.
16:53I've got to be honest, Gethin, I would have put my foot on that.
16:57I'll tell you what.
16:57I'll put this in very carefully downstream and try and get some footage of it.
17:05I'd say that individual is probably about between 60 and 80 years old.
17:09Is it that old?
17:10Yeah, it's that old.
17:11They live to well over a hundred.
17:13You know, if you're lodged in the river for that number of years,
17:16you're going to be bashed about a bit.
17:17So they do look a bit eroded and ragged at times.
17:21It looks like a stone, doesn't it?
17:23Totally.
17:24They're like these dark stones.
17:25That's an indicator that the riverbed is really stable.
17:28Right.
17:29So when you get a big flood, this bed here is not scoured.
17:33So they're pretty safe in this kind of habitat.
17:36So it's kind of leaning into the flow.
17:40Yeah.
17:40And just filtering.
17:41Is it filtering particles out of the water?
17:44It is, yeah.
17:44You can see that the top edge of the mussel is open by a few millimetres.
17:48So I'll be taking water in through the siphon there and then feeding on, you know, tiny organic particles.
17:55Why are these so scarce?
17:59Erm, it's many factors really.
18:03Basically down to man, we've dredged rivers, we've altered rivers.
18:09The numbers of fish are decreasing, pollution.
18:12Their life cycle involves fish, doesn't it?
18:15It does.
18:16Basically, they release the larva.
18:19It's like a small packman in a way.
18:21They release millions at a time.
18:23And they've got to find a host.
18:25And that host is either a juvenile salmon, sea trout, or brown trout.
18:29And they attach onto the gills.
18:31And they'll feed on the gills until the following early summer when they drop off.
18:36And they'll bury themselves as juveniles into this gravel.
18:40And then the cycle starts again.
18:42So what are you doing to try and help them?
18:45Is there much we can do?
18:46Or are we watching a species go to become extinct in the end?
18:51They're in trouble.
18:52No doubt about it.
18:53They're in trouble.
18:54But what we're doing under the life deed of a project
18:57is we've removed some individuals to a captive rearing unit.
19:01So hopefully within a few years, we're going to have a few hundred muscles to reintroduce
19:06in another section of the decachment.
19:09We're improving the habitat.
19:10We're removing structures in river structures.
19:14We're also introducing gravel below the reservoirs, which will feed down to this area.
19:20That improves the habitats.
19:21We're working with landowners, with industry, you know, to improve water quality.
19:27We're doing what we can and hopefully, you know, within time, we'll see the benefits.
19:33And it'd be nice to think that, you know, we'd come back one day and see them back as they
19:38used to be.
19:38Hundreds of them all up the river here.
19:40Oh, it'd be fantastic to see.
19:42Yeah, it'd be lovely.
19:43But what an amazing creature.
19:45Amazing creature.
19:52As the seasons shift, the Dee Valley can offer different spectacles.
19:57And every so often, weather conditions align.
20:00When cold air becomes trapped in the valley bottom,
20:03it forms a cloud inversion that blankets the landscape in fog.
20:08As summer gives way to autumn, damp woodlands along Llyn Tegit come alive with fungi.
20:16And to see something special, I'm heading out at night.
20:23Here we go.
20:25This is the one I've been looking for.
20:28This one here.
20:30This is called a Sulphur Tuft.
20:33Or the old name.
20:34I much prefer the old name.
20:36It's called Clustered Wood Lover.
20:39If you see, it grows in a real tight cluster here, always on dead wood.
20:45And it's an exceptional year for them this year.
20:47They're doing really, really well.
20:49Now, you might be wondering why you've come out after dark to look for fungi.
20:55Well, let me go and get Graham and Zach, the camera team, with a special lens and a UV light.
21:00And I'll show you.
21:14How does that look through the lens, Gray?
21:17That's a really interesting way to see fungi, that's for sure.
21:20Yeah, it's lighting up anyway, isn't it?
21:22Amazing stuff.
21:24Zach and I have got ultraviolet torches.
21:27Graham has got his probe lens on.
21:30And you'll see that the Sulphur Tuft are lighting up.
21:34And this is called biofluorescence.
21:38And there'll be fungi all over this wood that will light up in this way.
21:43The chemicals in these fungi soak up UV rays and release them as visible light,
21:49giving them that amazing natural glow.
21:52Cool, isn't it?
21:53Really cool.
22:00Every autumn, sea trout, also known as siwin, make their way up to the upper tributaries of the Dee Valley.
22:07It's an amazing journey just to get to these streams.
22:12Then they still need to overcome numerous rapids before reaching their spawning grounds.
22:20To stand the best chance of spotting sea trout, I've waited until dark.
22:26I've had a tip-off from one of the local fishermen,
22:29that this is a really good area for sea trout spawning.
22:33It's just getting dark now, so they'll get a torch out.
22:37And this is the best time to watch them without disturbing them.
22:42To keep our disturbance to a minimum, we're using a pole camera.
22:48About half a metre from the bank under the vegetation.
22:51You see it?
22:52Yeah, got it.
22:54Can you lean that against the bottom?
22:56Yeah.
22:56Perfect.
22:57Hasn't moved, look.
22:59We've got a sea trout.
23:00It's really close to the banks.
23:02Not doing very much, this one.
23:04It's probably waiting for a mate.
23:06Once they've found the perfect place where the gravel is the right size,
23:11where the flow of water is good, providing oxygen.
23:15And they'd use their body to cut a depression, a small depression in there.
23:21And if we had two here, one would be the female.
23:23She would lay her eggs in that small dip.
23:27And then he would sperm on them.
23:30And then they would use their bodies to cover it back up again with gravel.
23:35Now that's what they call the red.
23:37That's the sort of nest, if you like.
23:40Also at this spawning site are brown trout, which have more defined red spots on them
23:46and live in the river all year round.
23:48What's fascinating is that they're genetically the same as sea trout,
23:53and both species can interbreed.
23:56After spawning, some fish will die, but most will head back to the sea.
24:01I'm going to leave them.
24:02I'm going to put my light out now.
24:04I'm going to come back tomorrow morning and see if there's any activity then.
24:14Got a bit of snow overnight.
24:17It's really gone quite cold.
24:19But if anything, this might spur the sea trout on to spawn.
24:22There's a couple of quite large looking fish actually over on the far side over there.
24:28So what I'm going to do, I'm going to back off.
24:30I really don't want to disturb them.
24:31These are scarce fish now.
24:34If we leave it maybe an hour or two, let them get going,
24:37then put up a drone so we don't disturb them and see what we get.
24:44Later that day, we finally started to see some action.
24:48Using the drone, we get a much clearer view of the fish below.
24:53The female turns onto her side and uses her tail to dig a shallow hollow in the riverbed,
24:59the nest where she'll lay her eggs.
25:04Beside her, the dominant male, a little browner and more heavily spotted,
25:10stays close to her and keeps watch, chasing off any rivals that stray too close.
25:20Together, their efforts give the next generation a fighting chance.
25:24A small but welcome bit of hope for a species that badly needs it.
25:40My penultimate stop lies south of Llyntegid, along a disused railway line that once connected Baland Dolgellai.
25:50It opened in 1868 and closed almost a hundred years later in 1965.
25:57And I like this section because I've got the River Dee down below me here.
26:02And then on the right, there's an area of frithe, bracken and gorse and scattered hawthorns.
26:10And this year, the hawthorns are heavy with berries.
26:13These, you can see them red everywhere and they've attracted wintering thrushes.
26:18There are one or two field fairs, not so many this year, and red wings, quite a few red wings
26:24as well.
26:25Those two birds will have come over from Scandinavia to spend the winter with us here.
26:30But the most numerous birds are blackbirds.
26:33Now, these won't be the birds that have nested in our gardens this year.
26:37These will also be birds coming over from the continent to spend the winter here.
26:42And I can see them gorging themselves on the berries.
26:47Nice to see. And I see so much food here for the birds.
26:58High above the valley, the River Dee trickles off the mountain through Penaran forestry.
27:04This whole upland area was once open moorland, but it's changed quite a bit since I was last up here
27:12nearly 40 years ago.
27:14The one thing that stood the test of time is located right next to the river near the base of
27:21the mountain.
27:25Look at this old sheep fall down below me here. Look at that.
27:29It's been built to last and it's solid. Some big, big stones in there.
27:33And I wouldn't mind betting that that dates back probably a couple of hundred years.
27:37You can imagine way back then all the shepherds coming together to sort out the sheep, to shear them by
27:43hand as well.
27:44This has seen some activity in the past, but now I am the only one here for miles.
27:50And this is the River Dee. It meanders on for about half a kilometre and the source is at the
27:57foot hill of the Yall in the distance there.
28:00And I've enjoyed my journey along the Dee Valley. It's an interesting river from its mouth.
28:07The estuary there with its tens of thousands of waders and wildfowl, making it one of the most important estuaries
28:14for birds in the whole of the UK.
28:16And black grouse displaying male black grouse. Beautiful, beautiful birds.
28:23Freshwater pearl mussels too. These ancient shellfish still hanging on in some of the Dee's tributaries.
28:31We've had biofluorescent fungi, migratory fish holding on on the Dee, declining everywhere else.
28:40And I'm pleased that I'm ending my journey here somewhere where I haven't been for over 30 years.
28:47It's perfect.
28:49The end.
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