Holyhead Breakwater Country 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 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 very familiar to me,

so I'll be enlisting the help of local people

with knowledge to share.

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

Holyhead Breakwater Country Park is in Anglesey on the edge

of the busiest port in Wales.

This is Holyhead breakwater, built to provide safe haven

for the ships coming in to harbour.

It's a mile and three quarters in length -

that's over 2km, and it was built using seven million

tonnes of stone and they came from Holyhead mountain over there.

The structure took 28 years and more than 1,000 men to build but the

quarries they left behind provide an impressive backdrop to the park.

As it's my first visit,

local historian John Cave has agreed to show me the sights.

Well, well, John! That's what I call a view.

-That's lovely, isn't it?

-It's beautiful.

A bit of a climb but well worth coming up here - the breakwater,

the harbour, Holyhead - you can see everything from here.

You couldn't wish for a nicer place, could you?

No, you couldn't. Especially in this weather, too.

Now this is the park but where exactly is the boundary now then?

It more or less stretches to the beginning of the breakwater.

So all the way along, all of these fields are within the park?

Most of those fields belong to the park.

And the old buildings we see there, that would all have been

-part of this quarrying system?

-Most of them, yes.

The one with the green flag on and then the building where

there's a red car, the building in front of that and the building with

the chimney - that's where they used to bake bricks for the steelworks.

A little steam engine used to take the bricks down to a quay

and the ships used to come in from Liverpool

with coal for the quarry and they used to take the bricks out.

Well, I didn't know that, and then you've got quite a large

pond down there. Is that artificial or natural?

It's man-made. When the council took the quarry and this area over,

they decided to develop it and they actually built the lake,

we call it, or the pond, and it's used actually by the fishermen and

the model boat people.

They come here about twice or three times a week.

I tell you what, it's a fantastic resource, really,

for the people of Holyhead, isn't it? Right on the edge of town.

And it's used quite a lot, actually, throughout the year.

Not only through summer but through winter as well.

I'm excited to start exploring this park

with all the different habitats that are here.

It's March, so I'm not surprised that on my way to start my first

task, I bump into an amphibian just out of hibernation.

Look at this.

A toad crawling across the track here.

First toad of the year for me

and it's just about the time now -

it's late winter, early spring when they'll be emerging from the vegetation

and there's lots of it here, lots of cover for them where the temperature

is constant and it's moist as well and then now it's just getting a

little bit warmer. They'll all start emerging and they'll be making their

way down to the big pond for the mating season.

You've got a long way to go, old girl.

Good luck to you. I'd better let her get on, I think.

This male, already down near the pond,

has attached itself to the back of another migrating female,

and effectively gets a piggy-back the last bit of the way.

Once in the water, they'll start to mate.

It's actually another group of cold-blooded creatures

I was on my way to start tracking down.

I've had quite a few people getting in touch to let me know

that the park here is a fantastic place for reptiles,

so what I've done is brought some what they call refugia -

bits of corrugated iron they are, really, cos these'll get warm

in the sun and you find that adders, slowworms, lizards, they'll shelter

underneath so you've only got to lift them up to get some idea of

just how rich this place is -

-and Will the warden, who's here - Will, hiya, boy!

-Hello.

-You're going to show me around.

-Happy to do so.

Because what I'm looking for,

I want to put these down but I want to put them down out of the way.

-I would suggest we just walk around and there's a path going over that way.

-Cracking.

-Well, it's pretty much off the beaten track here, Will, isn't it?

-It is.

Here's a good spot here, Will, I think.

See it in here?

What - there in particular?

Yeah, just in there. It's got everything you need, really.

It's got a bit of cover, it's got this up above,

it's got fairly dense vegetation over there. It'll catch the sun.

If we stick that there.

Put it down a little bit as well.

There's another one here, Will.

-You've got an eye for the good spots.

-Well, I like adders.

-Do you?

Not many people like them.

They're venomous and people say, "Oh, they're dangerous".

They're not. If you leave them alone, they're fascinating.

I notice that you're tamping it down.

There's a reason for that, of course, is there?

It's a bit like us going to bed, you know - you want the duvet

and you want it tucked in tight.

You don't want it up there,

so it's exactly the same for them, you know - they just want to get in there.

-So you're thinking like a snake, almost!

-Yeah, yes, yeah!

This is nice, Will. There's a wall here and they love walls.

-I'm to think like a snake again!

-You think like a snake now.

'Will and I shall be checking on these over the coming months

'to see what we find.'

Right, thank you, Will. Thanks for your help. That's brilliant.

My next visit to the park is at the start of spring.

I'm up early and it's a beautiful April dawn.

I love being out first thing in the morning like this.

It's the best time of day for wildlife

and you never know, you might catch some of these crepuscular species.

These are the ones that are active at dawn and dusk

and you might just catch a nocturnal animal that's

on its way back home after a night's hunting as well and best of all,

maybe, there's no-one else around. It's the best time of day to be out.

There are plenty of birds singing and because it's so quiet,

their songs carry a long way.

Lots of rabbits out grazing as well.

They feel safest feeding at the edges of the fields, where they

can easily dash into the vegetation at the first sign of danger.

But rabbits aren't the only mammal around this morning.

IOLO MAKES SQUEAKING NOISE

There's um, there's a weasel, just come bounding up the path.

It saw me, took fright and it's gone in here.

I'm not sure if it'll come out again now.

HE SQUEAKS

That worked - fantastic little animals,

brilliant little animals.

They hunt mainly mice and voles. They'll take small birds as well.

And very inquisitive and if you make funny, weird little noises,

it nearly always brings them out.

HE SQUEAKS

Weasels are our smallest carnivore and although

they're actually widespread in Britain, a glimpse is normally

all you'll get as they dash about in the undergrowth looking for prey.

Next, I'm back with Will to check on our reptile mats.

We have to focus our minds, Will, to try and remember where we left them.

We get an encouraging sign that adders are using them.

-Oh, look at this! I tell you what, there's a skin here, a sloughed skin.

-Hey!

See it there?

They come out of brummation - hibernation type of thing -

and they'll slough their skin very soon afterwards.

Look, you can see the zigzag pattern down the back.

Approximately how long would it take for a snake to shed its skin?

Not very long, really. In a week, couple of weeks, something like that.

You see the eyes going all grey and they look a bit dead, you know.

And then, you know, oh, they're going to slough their skin

any time now

and then when they do, they look beautiful.

Unfortunately, all the mats were empty

but Will and I won't be giving up yet.

We'll have another try later in the summer.

Early spring is a wonderful time to go bird watching,

as they are busily trying to attract mates, making them easier to spot.

When you come to somewhere quite new like this, it helps to have

insider information, so I'm going to meet somebody who knows this

place like the back of his hand.

Local man Ken Croft is known as Anglesey Birdman

and he's found some really special birds here.

He suggests we head for one of the quarry faces near Pwll Ffynnon.

Looking up here, Ken, it looks ideal for, I would say, what -

kestrel, peregrine, raven?

Exactly. Peregrines will quite often be perched up here.

They've never actually nested in the park but they're regularly seen.

What makes this park so special for birds, then, do you think, Ken?

Well, obviously the coastal habitat's quite close.

It's perfectly positioned for migrants to drop in.

And it's a good place for fairly common birds as well, isn't it?

Cos I'm listening behind me now - I can hear chiff-chaffs going,

wrens going - willow warbler, as well.

Black caps are in now, as well.

And whitethroats, sedge warblers.

It's a nice mix, then,

because you've got a whole different habitats

just in one small area here.

Exactly, and we've got finches, we've got greenfinches -

still breeding in good numbers here.

Sparrowhawk, Ken. That's nice.

Just gliding along the face of the quarry.

Oh, they're nice birds, aren't they?

They really are nice birds. Look at that.

Do you know, even though they are quite common, I don't see them

that often, really.

They've been increasing here.

Why here, though? I suppose all the small birds...?

The migrant birds. Yes, indeed, yeah.

Oh, that's why they're here now, is it? Because you've got all these migrant birds passing through.

-Yeah, the birds will come down and there's a steady supply of food for them, yeah.

-Yeah.

There's one other special bird I would like to show you, Iolo,

while you're here - is a little owl.

Oh, wow! I haven't seen a little owl for a long time, Ken.

Ken shows me the rock face in one of the quarries

where the little owls are usually found.

And they've been nesting in there

for perhaps the last ten years or so.

Just my luck - they're not here today.

A recent small rock fall might be to blame.

Ken will let me know if they return.

With the park being on the coast, it means you've got a good

chance of watching a very charismatic bird.

In Welsh, it's known as Bran Goesgoch, because of its red legs.

That's a chough. That's a really rare crow.

And this has got to be one of the few parks where you can come

and see choughs and it's been coming in this field.

It's actually tucking tight in against the wall there where

there's some old bramble and this field now is full of lambs, full

of sheep and they've been going in there and losing their wool onto the

thorns and the choughs know this. They're building a nest, so they're

coming in and they're gathering wool and then when it leaves, which it

will do in a bit, it will leave with a beak full of wool. It's fantastic!

Having said all that, it's feeding now.

Choughs love fields like this, ones that haven't been improved

so much as well-grazed ones,

because their beak is about 4cm long,

so they need to be able to get at the soil

and if you've got tall vegetation,

they can't do that but this is ideal chough feeding ground.

It's gone back now. It's obviously fed enough. It's gone back to

ripping wool off the bramble over there.

It should be coming up any minute now with a beak full of wool, hopefully.

Here he goes. Coming round here now. Here he goes, look.

Typical chough-like flight with little fingers at the end of the wings.

There he goes. He'll float along and the nest will be

in one of the cliffs way round the corner over there.

My next visit isn't until June and the park has changed a lot.

Everywhere is lush and green and these pretty bee orchids have

sprung up along the edges of the paths.

The coastline around Anglesey is a real hot spot for dolphins

and harbour porpoise.

In the past, I've seen Risso's dolphins at the RSPB reserve

South Stack, which is just around the headland

from the Breakwater Country Park.

Recording sightings of these mammals, if you see them,

is extremely important, as the information can

help our understanding of their distribution and can give

valuable knowledge about the health of the marine habitat.

Today I'm heading to the country park's rocky coast

to help Seawatch Foundation with a monitoring survey

being carried out by Kathy James.

-Have you seen anything?

-Not just yet.

I'm just sorting out our forms that record the environmental details.

And what's this area like? What's the park like? Is it a good spot?

Yeah, definitely, so I know this park well

because I used to live down the road there in Holyhead.

Personally, here, I've seen harbour porpoise.

Last night I saw a mother harbour porpoise and her calf.

Oh, wow! OK.

And we've seen Risso's dolphins and bottlenose dolphins, all from here.

-Oh, OK.

-So in this quite relatively small section of sea, there's three species.

Ah, right, OK.

There's a bird going, right.

Do you record birds - we look out for birds as well?

Um, on a personal level, yes, I love birds

but we record associated sea birds, so if it's associated with

a sighting or it's particularly unusual, we'll record it then.

And how long will you wait for?

You can wait all day, if you like.

The minimum time that we try and recommend people to do is an hour.

However, if you just happen to be walking your dog

in the breakwater park and you see a dolphin,

you can let us know about it. We do collect casual sightings.

So all records. Right, that's enough talking by me now. Let's scan and look.

If I see something, I'll shout.

Absolutely. Go for it.

We do get a very distant sighting of a porpoise

but it's pretty far out in the bay, but just because it isn't

the best sighting for us doesn't mean it's not a useful record.

There's a grey seal, Iolo - just to the right of that orange buoy.

And of course, along here, you'll just have grey seals.

You won't have common seals, will you, here?

No. There'd be the odd record of sightings of common seals

but it's grey seals.

The odd heron coming in now.

Odd seeing a great big bird like a heron coming in from the sea.

There's obviously plenty of food here for both sea mammals and birds.

This shag struggles with a huge fish

before eventually swallowing it whole.

The rocky coastal heath from where we are viewing is also

fabulous for birds, including stonechat and rock pipit.

Do you know, what's been nice is just having the time to just sit

and look and listen.

-It's lovely, isn't it?

-It is. It's an added benefit.

And while we've been sat here, we've had a flock of linnets

coming behind us every now and again,

obviously feeding on the seeds, you know - lots of seeds here

-and that's another bird you don't see as often as you used to now - linnets.

-No.

I'm skiving off now for a bit.

I've left Kathy over there because this part of the park,

this coastal section, is home to quite a scarce butterfly

and a beautiful one as well - it's called the silver-studded blue

and they should be flying about now, so I'm going to go and have a look.

I've got one, two, three perched up here.

There's one with its wings closed like this

and you can see why they get the name silver-studded blue,

because when the wings open,

they're a beautiful blue colour

and when they close you get these spots -

silver and black and orange as well.

They are one of our most beautiful butterflies, I think.

Here in Wales, the majority of silver-studded blue sites are in the north,

and across the UK, they are scarce and confined to isolated colonies.

They especially like heathland that isn't too overgrown, so the

ponies that have been brought in by the council to graze this section of

the coast help to keep the habitat just as the butterflies like it.

The next day, my attention is turned back towards birds,

with some good news from Ken that the little owls were here yesterday.

Hello, Ken. How are you - all right?

Oh, yeah, good.

Right. Little owl - is it back?

It is back but there's no sign of it so far this morning.

That blackbird's been alarm-calling for a while now, Ken.

It's obviously upset by something

and yesterday, it was mobbing the little owl continuously.

I'm fairly sure the owl is down there -

maybe sat in a gorse bush just below us out of sight.

They don't do very much, do they?

They perch up and then that's it.

That is it exactly, yeah.

With that in mind, Ken and I decide to leave it for a while,

which proves to be a very good idea.

In my experience,

things always happen when you stop and have a cup of tea.

We were just having a break over there. We heard a call...

Oh, watch out - there's a car coming.

We heard a call and Ken went to investigate

and what's there - pair of little owls.

We've been looking over there for a couple of hours this morning -

nothing at all. And they turn up just over here,

just by the cafe. We could have been in the cafe all morning.

-There's one sitting there now.

-You got it?

-Just to the right.

Oh, lovely! Looking straight at us, isn't he?

Yeah. So cryptic as well, against that background, aren't they?

I love the white eyebrows, you know - the white eyebrows

and then these lovely lemony eyes they have underneath.

Nice to see them and nice to see that you've got a pair here

and well, almost certainly a breeding pair,

because the one's gone now - probably back on to the nest, I would imagine.

Hopefully it will have gone back on to the nest, yes.

It's a pleasure to see them and to know that they're here and looking happy.

This is great news for the park, because Ken and I were pretty sure

there was one hiding in the gorse over in the other quarry,

so there could well be a couple of pairs here.

It's July now and a beautiful sunny day,

which means the park is full of colour.

The lake is a popular spot with visitors who come to watch

the ducks or while away the time with their model boats.

But it's one of the smaller ponds nearby that's caught my eye.

There's a whole series of ponds in the park here.

This one was built for the brick works

and it's quite a deep one but since it's been abandoned,

all the vegetation has come back and it's a brilliant place to come

and watch dragonflies.

There's two really obvious ones here.

One of them is the common darter.

The male is beautiful - quite small but bright red,

with big red eyes as well.

What the male will do is - he's got these claspers

that he grabs the female at the back of the head and they'll fly

around the pond together and she flicks her abdomen in, laying eggs.

But the boss of the pond, if you like, is a big, big one called the

emperor and it's the male.

It's bright, bright blue with black pattern along the back

and big bulky head and he's patrolling back and fore,

chasing things away, trying to catch insects as well.

It's a brilliant place to come and watch them,

because they come and fly right past.

The warm sunny day and plenty of the right habitat

here in the country park means there's another summer insect

to find but it might take a bit of practice to get a good close-up view.

I have had the most fantastic couple of hours and it has taken me

back to my childhood growing up in mid-Wales,

because I've been looking at and trying to catch grasshoppers.

They are the most difficult things to get hold of

and one of the reasons for that is because they've got five eyes.

They've got two compound eyes, very efficient compound eyes,

and they've got three primitive eyes as well.

And this is a really good patch for them,

because you've got this mixture of bare earth which warms up

and it's got to be hot for them to be active and you've got a lot

of vegetation here and grasshoppers, unlike crickets, eat plants.

They're fantastic things

because they've got these huge hind legs, of course, and they can jump

and they say that if humans were the equivalent of grasshoppers, then we

could jump the length of a football pitch and more. How amazing is that!

Now I've got a couple of them here.

This is a typical meadow grasshopper - green body

and maybe you can't see it there

but it's got a little bit of a brown stripe

down the back as well.

And the noise that they make - it's called stridulation.

They have a series of pegs on their

back legs that they rub against the hard front edge of the wing.

This is the field grasshopper.

Can you see that it's just different shades of brown?

Again, the short antennae and those huge back legs

that allow it to jump

but this one is quite happy on my hand at the moment,

enjoying the sunshine.

The next morning, it's time for me to meet up with Will

and have another check of the reptile mats.

Unfortunately, we don't find any reptiles

but one at least is harbouring a hideaway.

Oh, I tell you what we have got - look at this.

Wow!

Not a reptile but an amphibian.

A toad.

What most people don't realise is that toads actually spend most of their time out of the water,

often tucked underneath things like this. I've got a shed at home

and there's some big fat toads under there.

You know, they don't like direct sunlight.

And the main difference between a frog and a toad

is if you look at the skin,

it's got these warts all over it - very warty skin.

-Can they give you warts, by the way?

-No, they can't, no!

-I've been handling them since I was a little lad and I haven't got any.

-You're wart free.

And see that - there's a big lump behind the eye there?

Well, that's full of toxins. All these warts are full of toxins

and that's a defence mechanism. It's a really good defence mechanism.

How old would you say the toad is?

Well, this is probably a couple of years old, this one,

and it will grow to about four times that size.

What I'll do is I'll get him back in,

because he's getting quite active. Good boy - you stay there, look.

Well, not a reptile but an amphibian so at least we got something.

We know there are adders living here, from visitor sightings,

and we found that skin back in April.

We did see a lizard here, too,

but nowhere near as many as I would have expected.

I'm surprised not to have had any reptiles under our mats

but then there's so much great habitat here for them

to hide in and with good numbers of predators

and people in the park, they're probably pretty shy.

My final visit to the park is in mid-October.

I've decided to walk the rocky coast

from one end of the park to the other.

I seem to have timed my visit with the arrival of the remnants

of Hurricane Gonzalo.

Although that might not make it the best conditions for me,

it can be a good time to go sea watching.

Just tuck myself down out of the wind for a bit, if I can.

It must be gusting at about 60mph now and some birds,

when you get high winds like this,

will hunker down and there's a group of oystercatchers on the rocks

over there doing just that.

They've tucked their beaks into their feathers,

looking thoroughly fed-up and there are good numbers of birds

passing by just offshore as well.

These are usually birds you get much further out to sea.

A good number of kittiwakes - quite nice flocks going by

and feeding as they go

and gannets, too, our biggest sea birds -

even they are having a hard time in this wind, coming right close

in to the shore here.

And you never know when you get strong winds

from the right direction, you just don't know what might get blown in.

Further along the coast towards the quarries, I find a very

inquisitive female grey seal.

She's perfectly at home in all types of sea state

and is especially interested in what I'm up to.

Most years, a pup is born in a small bay along this stretch,

creating a delight for people in the park

but this year, it seems another spot has been found out of view.

There's a male seal here today.

He's been patrolling along this section of coast

and occasionally engaging with a female

in a half-hearted mating scuffle.

Look at that! What a view and what a park.

Which other park can you go to and you can see Britain's rarest crow -

the chough - and little owls, too?

I hardly ever see little owls these days

and I had a magical encounter with a weasel

and offshore, you've got seals aplenty.

And, OK, I looked high and low and failed to find adders

but do you know what? It really doesn't matter

because it gives me the perfect excuse to come back again.