Wepre Park Iolo's Great Welsh Parks

In Wales, most towns and cities have a park -

an area of green space for people to escape the hustle and bustle

of modern life, but that's not all they're good for.

In this series, I'm going to be taking a look at four urban parks.

Some are old family estates, others were once industrial sites,

but all are now places for communities to enjoy.

None are familiar to me,

so I'm going to be enlisting the help of local people with knowledge

to share.

Together, I'm hoping we'll uncover their wilder side.

Today I'm in the industrial northeast of Wales.

The Deeside towns of Connah's Quay

and Shotton benefit from a 160-acre green space called Wepre Park.

Once a large estate owned over the years by several different

families, it was purchased by the local district council in 1943.

It's now looked after by Flintshire County Council's

Countryside Service.

Now, I have been to Wepre Park before

but that was nearly 20 years ago

and it's changed quite a bit since then

but, luckily for me, I'm going to meet one of the friends of the park,

Pip Perry, who's going to show me around.

With plenty of places to explore, we head out from the visitor centre

to see the variety of habitats

I can return to and look for wildlife on my future visits.

Tell you, it's a lovely woodland, Pip, isn't it?

Yes, I think we're very lucky to have it.

It's a bit of semi-natural ancient woodland remaining from

what would have originally been Ewloe Forest.

That would have been far more extensive, would it?

Oh, yes, it stretched considerably.

I tell you, it's a nice little stream, this. Which one is it?

This is Wepre Brook, yes.

Wepre Brook. I think I heard a grey wagtail.

-Yes, and we do get dippers.

-Oh, that's nice.

-Yes.

And this, Pip, has got to be one of the most famous sites in the park.

I would say so, yes. I think people love to come

and stand here on the bridge.

-It is beautiful, isn't it?

-It is. One little story, a local story...

-Oh, right.

-..about the waterfall. Not that I've ever witnessed this

but there is supposed to be a ghost of Nora the Nun

who is supposed to stand at the top of the waterfall.

Maybe I should keep an eye open for Nora the Nun

-when I come back to the park.

-I think you'll have to come out

-at night.

-Right, OK.

If I see her, I'll be straight on the phone to you, Pip.

-THEY LAUGH

-Let you know.

-Yes.

And the path going on up here, where does that lead?

-That carries on up to what we call Taylors Wood.

-Right.

This wood has the more important great crested newt ponds in

just on the edge of the wood.

And this whole area is really important for those newts, isn't it?

It is, yes. It is.

Local people call this the fairy bridge

but I'm not really quite sure why,

and it's hard to believe that there was a road planned

to go right through here.

-It's madness, isn't it?

-All this peace,

this tranquillity of this little area would have been lost.

It's surprising how many people visited and valued the park...

and it got removed from the planning.

-Excellent.

-Strength of local feeling, yeah.

-Yes.

-Wonderful.

Pip also went on to show me Rosie Pool, a small fishing lake.

Often it's a good place for bats?

It's a wonderful place to bring people to learn about bats.

And a large, open space that used to be a golf course.

It's a nice area for people to enjoy the views

over the industrial Deeside.

Looking down over the estuary and everything.

At the back of us, yes.

So I now have a good idea of where to explore over the coming months.

Wepre Old Hall was a Georgian house built by Edward Jones in 1788

with money made from lead found on his land in nearby Holywell.

The house was eventually pulled down in 1960 by the district council.

This is where the big house would have been

just where the visitor centre is there now,

and they obviously planted these giant redwood trees.

It's really thick, spongy bark because in California

where they're originally from, you get forest fires coming through

and the thick bark means that the fire will burn

but it won't kill the tree,

so it's a really good adaptation that's helped a lot of our birds.

And what some of our small birds do in winter is they'll dig holes

in here and they'll roost here overnight.

And if we look around, we might be able to see some holes.

And what you've got to look for

is whitewash, where the birds have been overnight they'll poo

and you see marks on the trees like here.

There's another one over here. Let's go and have a look at this one.

See which one's the best one, cos my intention is to come back here

after dark with a torch, see if we can find some of the birds

that are actually roosting in here.

Now, this is a good one. This is even better, look.

See - natural crevice up here, lots of them, really deep

and I saw a hole.

Oh, look at this one.

This looks like the best one here. Look at this.

It's a natural one that's been dug out a bit

and there's lots of poo in there.

I'm pretty confident that we should be able to find something in here.

These giant redwoods were only part of the landscaping

around the old hall.

There were also walled gardens, greenhouses and ornamental features.

Sadly, these were left to become overgrown as the estate declined

but the council is now undertaking a project of restoration.

Graham, Lisa, hello there.

-Hello there. Hello, Iolo.

-How are you?

-Nice to meet you.

'I'm meeting two of the volunteers - Lisa Reeves and Graham Blythe -

'to find out more.'

So you're part of a team now then, Lisa, that's just going to uncover

everything and try and get it back more or less as it was, is it?

Yeah, yeah, we're stripping back the ivy

and...cos this would have been a rockery at one time,

so that's how you can see the stones at the bottom.

So it's just a case of stripping it all out and then going from there.

-So you are unearthing history now.

-That's right.

And then wildlife-wise, do you see much as you work here?

I think we usually get the odd robin as we're raking, you know.

They like scratting around and we've seen signs of badgers and that, so...

I saw a nuthatch the other day.

And buzzards, there's quite a few buzzards flying above.

Yeah, I've seen the buzzards. Especially in this weather,

they love a bit of sun. Badgers, you say, any tracks?

Because that's one of the animals I'd like to film

while I'm here if at all possible.

-Yeah, yeah. We found a track today down this way.

-Oh, have you?

-Yeah.

-Just by... Go and have a look down here.

-Just down here.

-Just here.

-Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They always leave it almost bare, don't they?

Cos they've got such short legs

the belly will scrape along the floor.

You know, it looks like someone's gone there with a broom,

so they're obviously going from A to B.

Have you got other signs anywhere else?

Yes, I know where there are signs. I can take you there if you like.

OK, excellent. Brilliant.

Oh, yeah, badger trail. It's well used too, isn't it?

Oh, yeah, it's very well used. Yeah.

See here? I'll tell you what I think this is,

you can see bluebells coming up.

I think they've been digging to try and get at the bulbs

cos when there's not much food in late-late winter, early spring,

they'll dig up the bulbs.

And they'll eat worms and things like that.

Yeah, they'll eat virtually anything. They'll eat seeds,

they'll eat berries, they'll eat anything dead,

they'll eat a mouse and a vole and eggs, they'll eat chicks.

-Oh, wow.

-You know, virtually anything that they can find

they will eat.

I think we've got more stuff down there if we go

and have a look as well. Look.

-Oh, I tell you what's interesting - see these here?

-Oh, yeah.

These are badger latrines.

They're exceptionally clean animals, and what they'll do is

they'll dig holes, sometimes not too far away from the set,

but often as well, far away on the edge of territories

and they use these latrines and it means that

they're not soiling the set itself

but also it acts as a deterrent for other badgers,

a scent warning, if you like.

And you can see there's some fairly fresh poo in there.

I wouldn't mind putting a couple of cameras along this trail here

to see how active it is and also to see what else we'll get.

-Yeah.

-You might get something else, who knows?

I'll catch up with Lisa again later in the year

when we'll hopefully have some footage to show her.

As night falls, I head back to the visitor centre to see

if any birds have decided to roost.

There's a nice, clear sky and a chill in the air,

so we should be in luck.

-HE WHISPERS:

-No.

No, I thought that was a good one in the day as well.

Let's go around the tree a little bit.

Where are we?

Oh, yes, yes, yes. Come here, come here, come here.

It's a great tit.

All I can see is a bundle of feathers.

It's stuffed itself right in and fluffed itself out

so it's hidden right out of the way.

But what it's found is the perfect place to spend the night because

in there it's going to be probably two degrees warmer

than it is outside.

That can mean the difference between life and death.

It's now early spring

and a beautiful morning to have a walk around and see

what the birds are up to.

They're very busy at this time of the year.

I've come to Ewloe Forest, a part of the park

that's one of my favourite habitats, especially in spring.

This ancient woodland has been witness to historical battles

between Welsh and English forces.

Prince Llywelyn ap Gruffydd built a castle in these woods

in around 1257 to stake the claim of the Welsh to the area.

Today, however, it's the birds staking their claim

to all the cracks, crevices and holes in these gnarled old trees.

Much of the activity this morning has been blue tits and the odd

great tit, one or two other birds as well.

And they've been prospecting looking for nesting holes.

One's been going in and out of a big old woodpecker hole

over there and it's looking at it like a new homeowner,

looking at it thinking,

"Wow, do we really need a five-bedroom bungalow?"

Cos it's massive.

And others have been going into little nooks and crannies

carrying moss, building nests.

And then, every now and again, they'll have a break.

The buds are emerging, the new leaves, there'll be

invertebrates on there, whether it be caterpillars or eggs

and you can see them going along and delicately picking these off

as well. It's been a real hive of activity.

Another task for today is to put out the remote cameras

at the badger trail to see exactly what animals are using it.

We'll leave them out periodically over the following few months.

My next visit to the park is in May.

It's late afternoon and I've got a little experiment I want to try.

Right by the visitor's centre and the cafe here now.

I was here the other day, I saw a little vole.

Came out of one of these holes and scurried along the wall

and then into another one.

It was too fast. I put money on it being a bank vole

but I'm not 100% sure, so what I'm going to do is

I've got some seeds here and I'm going to put them

here and there, along the wall and see if we can entice the vole out.

'It's not long before I'm treated to a view of the vole

'and it's a bank vole.

'You can tell because it's got a little rounded nose,

'small eyes and small ears.'

'But there are others here with their eye on the seed as well.'

The saga of the wall has just become very, very interesting.

I saw a bit of movement behind me

and there's a wood mouse come out to feed.

Without catching them in a trap, I don't think I've ever been

this close to a wood mouse before, but he obviously doesn't care.

And wood mice are lovely things, very different to a bank vole -

big, very obvious ears, big bulging eyes

because they're mainly nocturnal, and a pointy nose,

and a long, almost bare tail as well.

I reckon there might be three or four animals here.

At least two bank voles and one, maybe two, wood mice as well.

I'm what...12 meters away from where hundreds of people come to eat,

have a cup of tea?

And you've got a little wildlife show in a wall like this.

It's fascinating to watch these little characters.

I could sit here all evening.

But by 9.30, I'm heading back to the park's ancient woodland

to an area known as Taylors Wood.

'I'm on the hunt for great crested newts, which are nocturnal,

'so I'm joining Tom Woodall and Sarah Slater

'from the council's Countryside Service

'as they carry out a survey of the park's ponds.'

So you just shine it on the water and look for them,

-do you, basically?

-We've got...on these torches a very high beam.

Northeast Wales is a stronghold for these large newts

but they're in decline across Britain and are protected species.

Tom and Sarah have a special licence to carry out their important work.

We've got records going back now 20 years, I suppose.

The population here is quite low but quite stable.

The work that we do here as a countryside service

is mainly geared around the habitat improvement,

making the ponds healthy.

So, this is our main pond for this area called Taylors Pond.

-How many ponds have you got in all in the park?

-21.

-21?!

-21, yeah.

-And newts in all of them?

All newts, the smooth and the palmate certainly in all of them,

but cresties are a bit hit and miss sometimes.

What do you do? You look for movement more than anything else?

Usually, yes.

I suppose if you see a great crested, the males are so big.

What are they, ten centimetres long?

-Uh, bigger than that.

-Are they?

-Yeah, yeah.

-It's amazing, isn't it?

The smooth and palmates will grow to about ten centimetres.

-Some female cresties could be as much as 18 centimetres.

-Wow.

But they're also quite long lived. They can live up to about 14 years.

That's incredible for a newt, isn't it?

Tonight, this particular pond only had smooth and palmate newts in.

-Right, next pond?

-Yeah.

-OK.

So we're hoping the third pond will have good numbers of the

great crested newt, and we're in luck.

-We've got a lovely male there.

-He's very light coloured, isn't he?

He is, yeah. There's a female.

Female, yeah.

-God they are big newts too, aren't they?

-Yeah.

Oh, you can see the lovely orange belly there as she came up for air.

Oh, wow.

And this is a busy time for them now?

Yep. This is when the males are setting up territory

and they'll defend that territory against other males.

So they more or less divide the pond up.

As he's displaying, he sort of flicks his tail and rocks and leans

and all of that.

Wafts pheromones towards the female as well.

Oh, wow. A bit like aftershave.

THEY CHUCKLE

Never worked for me.

It's a funny life, isn't it, being a newt?

And what's the final total then for this pond?

We've had six males - great cresteds, and six females,

and 19 smooth palmates in total.

That's pretty cool. That's pretty good numbers.

That's good numbers for us, yeah.

Wepre Brook flows through the whole length of the park.

I've been meaning to take a walk along it since meeting with Pip

on my first visit.

There's a grey wagtail near the waterfall.

He's probably got a nest here somewhere.

May's the right time of year.

But it's actually a very unassuming area of water alongside

the boardwalk that catches my eye, a sort of puddle that I think

was perhaps an old course of the main brook.

This particular section of it is full of sticklebacks,

absolutely full of them.

Just underneath my nose now is a male

and at this time of year they get very territorial.

They're not quite into the full swing of it yet,

that will be a few more weeks.

But he's chasing everything away and, in time,

what he's going to do is he'll build a little domed nest,

like a tunnel, and he'll attract the female in, she'll lay her eggs

in there and he will then guard those eggs until they hatch out.

I've got a special underwater camera and I'm going to try and put it

in the water to show you these close up

cos they're such beautiful things.

Whether it'll work or not, I'm not sure

cos there's a lot of mud in here but I am going to give it a go.

Oh, oh, oh. There's a female right in front of the lens now.

There she goes.

They're like little missiles just zooming past shot

every now and again,

and I'm pretty sure these are three-spined sticklebacks.

You can get three-spined, you get five-spined.

At the moment, this male is chasing absolutely everything away

but there'll come a time, before long now,

when he's in full colour that he'll be attracting a female

but, for now, he just doesn't want anything in his territory at all,

male or female.

By late June and the height of summer,

everything is very lush and green.

Today I'm exploring the old golf course.

Now, this might not look like the most interesting bit of ground.

It's not exactly a hay meadow with

thousands of orchids but it's still a really valuable wildlife

habitat and it's nice to see places like this being left in this day

when we're obsessed with tidiness and everywhere looking like a lawn.

You've got a variety of grasses and buttercups and sorrel here,

and it's actually a really good place for all kinds of wildlife.

If you look closely, there are all sorts of tiny inhabitants

living here.

Both the larvae and adults of hundreds of species are eating the

leaves of the grasses and nettles and feeding on flower nectar.

This is an interesting little spot here, it's an old bunker.

And the coarse grasses can't grow,

so the flowers are much more accessible.

You can see the white clover, you can see buttercups here as well.

It's got a really nice little butterfly.

Here it comes back in again.

It's the large skipper.

It's a small, orange one.

It's a male, it's got a dark line across the wing.

And he perches up waiting for the females

to pass over and, when they do, he'll go after them

he'll try and woo them

so they can mate and she will then go and lay her eggs

on some of the grasses nearby.

It's clearly an important ecosystem for Wepre Park

and a great place to come and look for insects when the sun is shining.

Just as I'm leaving for the afternoon, we get a real bonus.

Park staff have been chopping logs throughout the day

and earlier they found an insect I haven't seen for many years,

so I can't resist the opportunity to go and have a look.

Lo and behold, just below my finger here is a giant...

what they call a horntail or a wood wasp.

And she looks fierce, this is a big insect.

It's about, oh, probably 2.5 inches. What's that, 5-6cm long.

But what she's got is...

The horntail is like a spike and then she's got an ovipositor.

She uses that to lay her eggs in the wood

and eventually a big old larvae develops out of that

and that will develop into another horntail.

When I was a kid growing up in Mid Wales, we used to see them

on these log piles all the time and they really like larch.

And when she's egg laying like this,

she's so focused on it you can go right up to her.

By September, the park is starting to look autumnal.

The morning is cool but bright

and the trees are heavily laden with berries.

It's a good time to spot late-flying butterflies,

especially the intricately-shaped Comma butterfly.

With its ragged edges and autumnal orange and brown colours,

it can blend in with the dead leaves amongst which it hibernates.

Now, on my first visit here, I met up with Lisa Reeves

and we went up into the woods to look for signs of badgers.

And if you remember, I put out some camera traps.

Well, I've come back to meet Lisa

to show her exactly what those camera traps filmed.

A rabbit.

-I bet there's lots of rabbits here.

-There are, yeah, there are lots.

I mean, we had lots and lots of rabbit shots on here.

This is quite an interesting one, this one here.

Badger, and it's digging around, getting at food

and I would reckon it's probably bluebell bulbs.

-Oh, right!

-Cos you see these? These are all bluebells here

and he's been digging around here and he moves on,

has a bit of a shake and then walks out.

This is a nice one.

You see him there now?

Squirrel digging around and a woodpecker...

-A woodpecker.

-..on a post at the back.

A male woodpecker.

See the little red at the back of the head of the nape there?

Yeah. And that's how you can tell it's male?

Yes. Yeah, it's got the little bit of red at the back there.

Digging away probably for grubs in that dead wood there.

Oh, this is quite a nice one as well.

Watch this one now.

A badger again.

Coming right in.

They're really quite big, quite chunky, quite strong animals

aren't they?

Off he goes and he comes back around and has a good look

because, of course, the camera is a new thing in its territory.

-Look.

-SHE LAUGHS

Has a good old sniff and then, once he's happy, off he goes.

And can you tell the difference between male and female

with the face?

The male has got a broad head.

If you were watching badgers, you can compare them.

You can say, "Well, that's a male, that's a female."

When you see one just one-off like that, it's really hard.

Really difficult but, yeah, you can.

This is a lovely one. This is my favourite, I think, this one here.

I said badgers were clean animals, and one of the things they do is

they'll clean out the bedding from their earth, from the den regularly

and then obviously they've got to get clean stuff to take back in.

You watch this now.

A moon-walking badger going backwards.

See it? It's right at the bottom of the frame, but what it's doing...

It's rolling it, yeah.

Carrying leaves, see it?

Big, big pile of leaves.

Isn't that fantastic? Going backwards there.

And what it does it sort of drags it but it's got it

between its front paws and its neck there,

so it's going backwards like that.

So it is like a moon-walking badger.

The next morning, I'm on the hunt for a group of creatures

all of us should be familiar with in our homes and gardens.

For some, they might be terrifying but, for me,

I think they're incredibly fascinating.

Joining me on this perfect autumn morning is Richard Gallon.

He works for the local Biological Records Centre

and is passionate about spiders.

There's one.

-Here, Richard, look. See it?

-You've got two of them there.

-So what you've got here is the female.

-Yeah.

You've got the male guarding and these are Metellina segmentata.

Have they not got a common English name?

Unfortunately not, that's the problem with spiders.

A nice big web as well.

Yeah, the web's are quite distinctive in Metellina.

They've got a hole in the middle.

You can identify a lot of spiders from the webs.

We're lucky - the early morning dew as well.

-That makes them stand out a bit.

-That's true, yeah.

Ah, yes, well spotted.

Ah, that's a garden spider the Araneus diadematus.

Oh, right.

Oh, and she's caught something as well. Look.

-There's a daddy-longlegs.

-There's a daddy-longlegs.

Wrapped him up for later. Still twitching.

So that's what she'll do, she'll just wrap it up and then leave it

there, then when she's hungry, she'll go down and feed on it?

That's it. Almost like a larder, I suppose.

What's she got? She's got a fly as well, has she?

Yeah, she's eating a fly she's caught.

She's wrapped it in silk, delivered the bite to kill the fly

and she's now mushing it up with enzymes to dissolve it

into a mush cos, of course, spiders can't eat solid pieces

of food, they can only take in liquefied food.

And what'll happen to her now, then? Will she live for a long time?

No, essentially a year-long season for this type of spider.

She'll fatten up on autumn flies, and then lay an egg sac

and that'll...over winter.

-So she's going to die now in the next...

-She is.

..probably in the next month or two?

Maybe sooner if a bird finds her.

Here's something interesting.

It looks like a spider tent.

Yeah, that's exactly what it is. She's a nursery web spider.

Nursery web spider, I've heard of those.

She's been carrying an egg sac around for the last few weeks,

and now it's ready to hatch she's put it in this tent

to protect the spiderlings.

It's an amazing structure, really.

So she's giving them a good start in life.

And let me guess - she dies.

Afraid so.

I tell you, it's a sad tale being a spider, really.

Oh, wow.

Right, what's this one, then?

This is a house spider.

You see the tube webs that are coming out of the wall here?

This time of year, September time, autumn,

this is when the males are out looking for females.

So that's why we see them all the time.

And as we speak now, he or she is going to be either in there

-or in there, are they?

-Could well be.

Yeah, we can give it a shot.

We'll try and lure them out and see what we've got.

Go on, then. How are you going to do that?

-We're going to use a tuning fork.

-I hope you've got one cos I haven't.

As luck would have it, I've got one here.

-HE LAUGHS

-Good man.

FORK DINGS

Of course, the web's not sticky really, it's more of a sort of guide

so if insects brush against it, she knows they're there.

And she'll come out and grab them.

From the tuning fork, she's been fooled into thinking

-there's a piece of prey there and out she comes.

-Well, well, well!

The web can be recycled and used again by other spiders

when she dies and moves on.

-Oh, can it?

-It can.

Well, that is brilliant and that's the house spider.

That's the house spider - Tegenaria.

Tegenaria, even I knew that. In Latin.

-Look, how impressive is that?

-Oh, you're learning, Iol.

Well, it looks like I'm going to have to add

tuning fork to the list of things I take wildlife watching from now on.

Who'd have thought that a park like this

right on the edge of Deeside's industries could hold ancient

woodland, an important population of the rare great crested newt?

But, for me, Wepre has been more about the common species,

being able to see spiders close up

and watch a wood mouse come out into the wall and feed,

and maybe that's one of the most important roles

these urban parks have to play

is to provide that first connection with wildlife.

And who knows, it could well lead on to a lifelong love affair.