Bute Park Iolo's Great Welsh Parks

'Wales has many wonderful estates created with the wealth

'from landowning and industrial families.

'Once privately owned, most of these beautiful parklands

'are now open for all of us to enjoy.'

In this series, I'm uncovering another side to four of these parks,

a side that often goes unnoticed by those who visit.

'I'm meeting people with inside knowledge to share,'

exploring less visited corners

and finding night-time creatures.

I'm discovering just how great these parks are for wildlife.

'The first of my four great Welsh parks

'sits right in the middle of Cardiff.'

Industrial giants the Bute family owned Cardiff Castle

from 1766 until 1947.

The fifth Marquess of Bute gifted what was the castle's back garden

to the people of Cardiff.

The council purchased additional parts of the Bute Estate

to create an extensive 59-hectare park

right in the heart of the city.

Tell you what, it's nice when you step into Bute Park

because you leave all the hustle and the bustle,

the noise of Cardiff behind you

and it's like an instant step from the city

into the middle of the countryside.

The park receives over one million visits a year.

Sports fields, woodland walks and a cycle way along the River Taff

make it a busy place.

But there are quiet corners to be found...

lawns for relaxing in the sun

and beautiful flower beds to admire.

'An early morning is my favourite time to visit.

'With only a few people around, the wildlife is at its best.

'A bird has caught my attention with its familiar call.

'So I'm heading into the woodlands to track it down.'

CHIRPING

Hear that? It's a green woodpecker.

There are two holes up there and it's the male

and he's been calling out of his nest hole.

And every now and again, he'll stick his head out

and go, "Yik, yik, yik, yik, yik, yik, yik."

And that's why I couldn't see him. I just couldn't see him anywhere.

Fantastic. And you can tell it's the male

because he's got this red moustache here.

The female's moustache is black but it's...

Oh. Cracking.

BIRD CALLS

There is a squirrel up there. Let's hope that squirrel...

The hole might be big enough,

actually, for a squirrel to squeeze in. I hope not.

That's, I think, the nearest I've ever come to a green woodpecker.

That's brilliant and really unexpected too.

Great spotted woodpeckers are found here too.

They feed on insect grubs buried under the bark of trees.

'My good friend Steve Roberts has also noticed

'the number of woodpeckers

'in the park and their benefit to other birds.'

There's several holes in there. These green woodpeckers have been using

that same tree for years, I suspect.

This is what I think is the current woodpecker here, look.

Same tree as the other holes. That looks fresher.

And if you look down here, Iol. See the fresh chippings?

Have a look. You get the thorns in your hand, that'll suit me fine!

-See?

-It's all fresh, isn't it?

-That's all fresh out of there.

And that's a big hole, so that's going to be a green woodpecker.

Green woodpecker, yeah.

Yeah, earlier on today, Iol, I found a great tit down here

feeding young 'uns.

You've got to go alongside the river a bit.

There, look. That hole up there.

Oh, I've got you. Yeah, I see it.

And you say that it's feeding chicks?

He had big caterpillars, so I would have thought

it's fair-sized chicks in there.

That's another old woodpecker hole again.

I bet woodpeckers are responsible for...

The vast majority of the nests in this wood.

So much other stuff in here.

If it wasn't for the woodpeckers making all the holes,

a lot of these things would be struggling to find somewhere

-to have a nest.

-Yeah, they would. They would.

Lots of food with the caterpillars but just not enough nesting.

Not enough tidy nesting places. Well, you know, normally,

a great tit wouldn't go in a hole like that. It's too big.

A squirrel can get half in there and pull the chicks out.

Or a jay could shove his head in. But needs must.

Woodland makes up an extensive part of Bute Park.

The 2,000 plus trees are a mixture of native and ornamental.

Since 1947, the council have planted rare and exotic species

within the grounds.

The collection adds a splash of colour throughout the year.

-Am I all right to come in here, John?

-You are, Iolo. Come on in.

'I'm joining a team from Cardiff Council led by John Watts

'to find out more.

'It's their job to look after the trees.'

So what's the work then today? What have we got on?

Well, we're going to take this poplar tree down.

Unfortunately, through the storms earlier in the year,

-a large limb came out that way...

-Oh, yeah.

-..and one went that way.

How do you feel when you've got to fell a big old thing like this?

Oh, it's heart-wrenching, isn't it? It's a lovely park

and it's surprising how tall these trees are.

This park is known... It's got over 45 champion trees.

Champion meaning what? Massively big, tall ones?

Not necessarily, no. But for their species,

they're either the tallest or the greatest girth.

Well, well, well. I didn't know that

because it's a real mixture of native trees

and exotics brought from all over the world.

Absolutely, yes. We're very fortunate.

We're reaping the work of many, many years ago, aren't we?

Right. The boys are going up now.

What's going to be the first thing they do up there?

What we're going to do is tie the rope on. He's got it through a fork.

He'll be able to cut that and just lower it gently to the ground.

So we'd save the ground as well. Don't have any holes.

Here it comes, look. Controlled. Look at that.

It's brushing down the other trees, but that's fine. Excellent.

What happens to all of the wood afterwards then?

Obviously, the branch wood gets put through the chipper

and that will go to allotments or some of it will go on beds.

And then the timber, if it's useable, it will get milled.

-Oh, right.

-This finger post here is actually from timber

we've taken down and we do make whatever use we can of the timber.

-It will all get recycled.

-Well done.

We can take this other limb from the ground

-and that tree's a lot safer than it was this afternoon.

-Yeah. Yeah.

Sometimes the team leaves the odd tree trunk standing

because they're a fantastic resource for the park's wildlife.

This one's completely dead. It's probably, I would think,

an old horse chestnut, an old conker tree.

It's got these enormous bracket fungi.

Just look at these amazing things, really solid things as well.

'Course, the bulk of the fungi is inside there,

specialised roots called hyphae breaking this down.

If I was to come back in maybe 20, 30-odd years,

this would be no more than a pile of soil.

Keeping the park looking great takes a lot of hard work.

There's grass to be cut,

lines to be painted...

..and the flower beds only look this good because of a team of gardeners.

Behind these walls lies the council's nursery

where 750,000 plants are grown each year

for the city's parks and floral displays.

It's an area off limits to the public.

But with a few gaps in the fence, animals can easily get in and out.

'I reckon it's a great place to start looking

'for some of the nocturnal wildlife in the park.

Fox poo here. Look. See that? Old fox poo by my boot here.

I'm just going round now looking for evidence of foxes

or any real paths that they use or tracks

or anything at all.

and the good thing with foxes is that if they use

somewhere regularly, they give off this pungent smell.

They mark their territory. And usually, when you walk through,

you can smell that immediately.

I tell you what...

I talked about a pungent fox smell...

I've just walked into a bit here.

Strong, strong fox smell here.

Oh. This will explain why.

Very, very fresh.

'The staff tell me they used to regularly see foxes.

'So I decide to put a night-vision camera-trap

'in the last spot they were seen.'

This is where the workers think the fox is denning.

They used to see it a lot more than they do now.

But they haven't seen it for a while so they're just wondering

whether it's still here or not.

looks like there might be one or two fox prints here.

I will tell you what, I'm going to set this trap probably...

in that corner over there.

Make sure that it's facing the right direction.

'Fingers crossed, if we leave it for a few nights,

'we'll get something.'

It's May and 5.30am.

Lucky for me, it's another beautiful morning.

The landmarks of Cardiff peek above the trees in the dawn light.

It's the perfect time of day to begin my investigation

along the River Taff.

I've come out at first light this morning before all the joggers

and walkers are here to Blackweir Bridge

because it's a great place for all kinds of water birds.

It's a fantastic place. I've only been here five, ten minutes tops.

There's a grey wagtail right underneath me here,

walking along the edge of the water, feeding.

There's a heron on the far shore over there, patiently waiting

for anything to come within a beak's length, a fish, or a frog,

or a vole, virtually anything.

But the reason why this area is so good, or one of the reasons,

is because the water is churned up.

That puts a lot more oxygen into that water.

That's great for the insects.

If it's good for insects, of course, it's good for fish.

If it's good for fish, it's good for fish-eating birds

like herons, cormorants.

'A few people are out and about now.

'But a bird has caught my eye on the opposite side

'so I'm going to take a closer look.'

I've come over on to this side to watch the dippers.

They've been feeding over on the far shore over there,

flying across the water and then literally diving in,

getting all kinds of insect larvae,

and carrying it across over here

and into this fish pass

because the nest is in there, hidden out of the way, really safe.

I can't get at it. No humans can.

Of course, the pass wasn't intended for dippers, but rather to help

salmon and trout migrate upstream over the weir.

In October, you can still see some fish jumping the weir itself.

But there was a time when you wouldn't have found salmon

or dippers here.

The river was too polluted.

No-one knows more about the changing conditions of the river

than Michael Roberts.

Ooops.

I need a net.

'I'm joining him whilst he's doing what he loves best...

'fishing.'

-Any luck there, Mike?

-Well, I've had one and...

..put him back. Had a grayling.

They are beautiful fish, you know.

-How long have you been fishing this bit of river, then?

-45 years.

-Have you? That long?

-45 years, yeah.

And in that time, what's the biggest change you've seen?

Clarity of the water. I mean, 40 years ago,

all that was coming down was coal dust from the washeries.

The sewers were all on an overflow system.

Of course, if it didn't kill the fish, it killed all the insect life,

everything the fish fed on.

Nearly all of that has been tidied up.

Oh. Here we are! I'll go and get the net. Well done, Mike.

I'll keep him out there for a bit and hope he doesn't come off.

It's come off!

Has it come off?

MIKE LAUGHS

I'm a jinx, I am. Right. I'll come back.

I'll sprint next time.

The thing which has of course improved is the salmon

and sea-trout fishing.

But there is a problem. By making the water clean,

you've opened it up to every visual predator under the sun.

You don't like the cormorants, do you? You don't like the cormorants.

-We don't like the cormorants.

-I like cormorants, see.

And I think whenever fishermen complain about cormorants,

it's envy.

-Did you get a bite then?

-Yes.

Here we go.

-He's got it!

-Hey, hey, hey! Here we go. Yay!

A lovely grayling.

I'll show you this big, dorsal fin the grayling have got. Look at that.

See that? Lovely, great big dorsal fin.

Whoop. OK. I'd better stick him back in.

But that's a grayling. Lovely fish.

Well done. Well done.

I'm heading back up river to the stretch near Blackweir Bridge

as there's still another animal I'd love to find.

The one animal I was really hoping to see here is the otter.

Now, I haven't got much chance, I know, but I've heard

one or two people have seen them,

one or two people have seen signs here. I've never seen any myself,

but I'm going to meet Eleanor Keane from Cardiff University

who I know has been out and has found otter signs.

So I'm going to have a chat and see what she's got.

-Hi, Eleanor.

-Hello.

-You all right?

-Yeah. Good, thanks. You?

-Yeah, not bad at all. Have you seen anything today?

-Not yet, no.

But you have been out, I know, over the past few weeks,

and you have, actually, found signs of otter.

That's right, yeah. I've been out on the river

and found some otter spraints. So they're definitely using

this section of the river.

Is that just using it for fishing, do you think?

Or is it a possibility they might have a holt,

they might have young here somewhere?

I haven't seen any evidence of a holt or young.

But it's not impossible. There's some quite good vegetation

in here that might have a resting place.

I would imagine here they must be strictly nocturnal, are they?

I would imagine they are.

And I'd have thought, if they're coming out in the day,

people would be seeing them and we'd be hearing a lot more about them.

-Right. OK. Let's go and have a look. If you lead on...

-OK.

'So our only option during the day is to look for otter spraint,

'a sign they leave behind to communicate to other otters.'

They tend to like elevated areas cos that means their smell

will be carried over a longer distance.

-Yeah. They look good over there, don't they?

-Ooh, yeah.

On those rocks.

-See anything?

-Yeah, just on the edge of this one here.

-I got you, yeah.

-Oh, yeah. This looks like it.

-Yeah?

-Oh, that's definitely otter.

-Is it?

-Yeah.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

People say jasmine tea and all this type of stuff...

It doesn't smell anything like jasmine tea.

It smells like fish gone off to me.

-It's not a bad smell, though.

-No, it's not.

If you imagine what you would think poo would smell like...

Are those bits of fish bones in it or what?

There are some bits of fish bone.

-Erm, this bit looks like a fish scale.

-Oh, yeah. It does.

Oh, good. Well, there's the evidence.

The otters are definitely here.

'Given that Eleanor had previously found otter signs along the river,

'we'd left a camera out overnight,

'so we're curious to see the results.'

Here we are. Look, it is dark.

What was that? Was there something there?

No, just something floating in the water.

I've never, ever seen an otter on the Taff here.

What's triggering this camera then, if it's going off?

-It looks like there's something crawling around.

-Yeah.

-I'll be gutted if it's just nothing at all...

-Just flies.

Oh!

Hang on. Hang on.

-Oh! It's an otter! Well, well, well, well.

-No mistaking that.

Absolutely no mistaking.

-I thought it was a rock. I thought "What's that rock doing? That wasn't there last time."

-Yeah.

I tell you what, let's play that again. That's fantastic.

You can just see, it sprainted as well.

It did! Yeah, yeah, yeah. Puts its back end right down,

spraints and then just leapt off.

-Hey, that's pretty nifty!

-Yeah, really good. That's fantastic.

Well, well, well.

-So, otters in Bute Park.

-Yeah, yeah. Fantastic.

Thank you very much, otter. Thank you very much.

I'm staying alongside the river to look for my next mammal.

James and Alex from Cardiff Bat Group are going to introduce me

to an unusual method of looking for bats

using the park's cycle route.

-Right, James. Bats and bikes...

-Yes.

-What's it all about?

Well, it's a unique survey technique

that we've developed in the Cardiff Bat Group and the Valleys Bat Group

where we can cover large tracks of land,

get a lot of information about where the bats are,

where they're foraging and what species of bat it is as well.

Alex, you've got all kinds of contraptions

coming out of your rucksack

and something on top there. What's that?

I've got a bat detector in the rucksack

which is attached to a GPS unit as well. So the GPS will

tell the bat detector where the bats are

and keep a record of what bats we're seeing along the route.

Right. OK. Don't leave me behind. Here we go.

And how many different species are there?

Seven, eight species in Bute Park. That's almost half the UK species.

That's good going.

So, the bats... Oh, hello. That's on your bat detector, is it?

Yeah. That's picking up echo location

of some pipistrelle bats that are foraging around here.

-Ah, wow.

-This is a great spot for bats

and there's loads of insects,

so there'd be great foraging potential for them.

If you've got a pipistrelle bat, which is the smallest bat in the UK,

weighs the same as a two-pence piece, can fit inside a matchbox...

And a small colony, say a hundred, over a summer will actually eat

-27 million insects.

-3,000 midges a night, I heard, is it?

One pipistrelle will eat 3,000 midges a night

-in the breeding season.

-And those bats foraging in Bute Park,

would they be roosting here as well?

Yeah, they'd be roosting in some of the old trees that have got knots

and cracks and holes in them,

but also in some of the buildings nearby as well.

Oh, here we are, look. Pretty active bats. Hang on, hang on, hang on.

Is that pipistrelles again?

Yes, that sounds like pipistrelles.

They're flying really slow too, aren't they, now?

They're very manoeuvrable. They're more manoeuvrable than birds.

Yeah, you see them twist back and forth.

I suppose, it's along the edges of these mature trees

-that they'll get the most insects.

-Yeah.

But also the river as well. The river is just one big insect highway.

It's excellent to think there are so many bats in Bute Park,

right in the middle of Cardiff. And what a great way to carry out

a bat survey. It's brilliant. It really is brilliant.

-Right. Shall we carry on?

-Let's go.

-Come on, then.

So the next time you're out

for an evening walk or cycle along the Taff,

remember that figure, 3,000 midges a night,

and be thankful for the bats whizzing over your head.

'Unfortunately for us, it rains a lot in Wales.

'On days like this, there are certainly fewer people in the park.

'But for the wildlife, it's business as usual.'

I've been watching a pair of jays.

Look, there's one up in the tree here.

They're building a nest at the moment

-and what's fascinating...

-SIREN WAILS

Police going over there. What's fascinating is that

they're also going down by the edge of the river,

where the water level's been high, washed away much of the soil

and it's exposed the roots.

And what they're doing is digging out the finer roots.

They're getting hold of it and yanking it off

and you see the birds leave with a beak full of roots

and it looks like a big moustache.

And then they head up to the nest

and they're obviously using that then to line the cup.

It's fascinating to watch and they're beautiful birds,

stunning birds.

Bute Park is the best place I know in Wales to see jays.

And surrounded by a spring carpet of bluebells and wild garlic,

you'd be forgiven for thinking you were in the countryside

and not in the heart of Cardiff.

That's one of the fantastic things about Bute Park.

There are areas throughout where you feel like

you're miles from the city.

One of these spots lies along the eastern side of the park.

There's a relic from the Industrial Age here,

a canal that's now a wildlife haven.

But keeping it that way takes a lot of hard work.

How are you, boys?

'I'm meeting up with Lynne, Thom and Matt,

'dedicated members of Keep Wales Tidy to find out more.'

You all right? Watch that one. That's a heavy one.

-You've done this before.

-A long time ago, when I was a young man.

So if you were able to get the whole team down here,

-how many people would that be?

-At least 90 plus.

-Is it honestly that many?

-And it's growing all the time.

So if you can get half a dozen at a time...

Regularly, we'll get 16 people. And those people for two hours

can do an awful lot and they do.

I think last time out of here, we had 26 bags of rubbish,

six road cones, lots of metalwork,

car headlamp, two fire extinguishers...

And it's constant, isn't it? Come back in a month

and you probably take the same thing out again and again and again.

Oh, hang on, boys. Scaffold pole here.

There's a lot of it.

Still coming.

Yeah, keep going. Keep going.

There's a bit more to come.

It's got to be the biggest item in here today, I would think.

It's a nice wildlife area though, isn't it? It's like a long pool,

a wildlife oasis, really, in the park.

Oh, here's one of the damselflies,

just gone round behind us.

It's a female. But we should be coming to the bit where...

You see them down there? If you scan the water,

you see quite a few damselflies further down.

The Banded Demoiselle, have you seen those?

We have seen them up here.

Slow moving with, like, a thumb print on the wing.

And then there's a Beautiful Demoiselle.

That's got the lovely, bluey-green wing. They're stunning things.

they're all along the bank here.

So why do they perch on the vegetation? Is that for hunting?

Yeah. What they do is... They've got their little patch,

-like a little territory...

-They're territorial?

..and they'll catch insects going past.

If you watch them, you see them go off, go up, get an insect

and come back down and then eat it.

You can see instantly why they're here. You've got natural vegetation on the left there

and you've got pondweed growing right in the middle

which is great for them.

It's good to add damselflies to the mix of wildlife

we've found in Bute Park.

'I've almost finished my exploration.

'But before I go, I'm returning to the nursery

'to look at the results on the remote camera.'

OK. I've put the flash cards into the laptop here.

Let's have a look and see what we have here. Let's give it a go.

Let's click on one of the first ones here. Double click.

Oh, it's a rabbit. Got a rabbit.

A big rabbit too by the looks of things. Wow.

I wonder if it is a rabbit hole then.

Let's try that one next. See what else we've got here.

Another rabbit.

They are rabbit holes. That rabbit has disappeared down the hole.

He's had a look down the hole. He hasn't actually gone down the hole.

But I would have thought, if there was a fox in there,

a rabbit wouldn't actually hang around the hole like that.

So it almost certainly is a rabbit hole, so no foxes as yet.

See what we've got here.

Ah, look at that. It's a fox!

It's a fox.

Oh, wow. A fox has just come in from the right

sniffing the air...

and off he goes.

See what else we get. Let's try this one. Something different.

Oh! Fox digging.

Now this is interesting.

So he knows that there are rabbits in there.

He's in good nick, this fox, too. Big, bushy tail.

So we've got rabbits here, probably living in there,

and we've got a fox who'll come and visit.

But that's interesting. Without that camera, we wouldn't have a clue

that any of this was going on here.

Bute Park is an incredible place.

It's like a piece of the countryside

dropped right in the heart of Cardiff.

And because there are so many people here, the wildlife get used to them

and it's the best place I know to see really shy birds

and colourful birds too like green woodpeckers and jays. And the otter.

I think that's the first time

an otter's ever been filmed here on the Taff.

And it's an incredible place for wildlife,

especially when you think that it's surrounded by 300,000 people.

Next time, I'll be visiting the ancient parkland of Dinefwr

where I'll find things I haven't seen for decades...

It reminds me of my childhood.

'..Some things in places I haven't seen them before...'

In there is a greylag goose. It's a goose!

'..and get up close to some of the nocturnal wildlife in the park...'

I'll let her go that way.

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