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There are over 30 country parks in Wales. | 0:00:07 | 0:00:11 | |
Thousands of people visit them every year. | 0:00:11 | 0:00:15 | |
Some are old estates of wealthy landlords. | 0:00:15 | 0:00:18 | |
Some are old industrial sites. | 0:00:19 | 0:00:22 | |
The parks are usually close to towns and that's because they've been | 0:00:22 | 0:00:26 | |
set aside for us to enjoy on our doorstep. | 0:00:26 | 0:00:29 | |
But what I like about them most is that | 0:00:29 | 0:00:32 | |
they're great places for wildlife. | 0:00:32 | 0:00:34 | |
If you keep your eyes open, you'll see some great sights. | 0:00:35 | 0:00:38 | |
There can't be many country parks that have a tramway | 0:01:08 | 0:01:11 | |
running right through them, but this is one of the old trams | 0:01:11 | 0:01:14 | |
that takes you right up to the summit of the Great Orme. | 0:01:14 | 0:01:18 | |
This is the way to travel. | 0:01:18 | 0:01:19 | |
The Great Orme is a magnificent limestone headland above Llandudno | 0:01:21 | 0:01:25 | |
on the north Wales coast. | 0:01:25 | 0:01:26 | |
It's been a popular tourist location since Victorian times. | 0:01:28 | 0:01:32 | |
Today, it has over 500,000 visitors each year. | 0:01:32 | 0:01:35 | |
In addition to the tramway, | 0:01:39 | 0:01:40 | |
you can get to the summit by road and cable car. | 0:01:40 | 0:01:44 | |
If you're feeling fit, you could also walk to the summit. | 0:01:44 | 0:01:47 | |
Whatever route you'll take, you'll see fantastic views of Llandudno, | 0:01:49 | 0:01:53 | |
the Conwy estuary and the north Wales coast. | 0:01:53 | 0:01:56 | |
The Orme is open, exposed land, | 0:02:06 | 0:02:09 | |
and on a casual walk, you could quite easily miss that this | 0:02:09 | 0:02:13 | |
is a special place for both its landscape and wildlife. | 0:02:13 | 0:02:16 | |
There are lots of paths going up and down and crisscrossing the Orme | 0:02:21 | 0:02:25 | |
and hundreds if not thousands of people | 0:02:25 | 0:02:28 | |
walk on them every year and the vast majority of people just don't know | 0:02:28 | 0:02:32 | |
what they're missing out on, | 0:02:32 | 0:02:34 | |
because you walk this area in the middle of June | 0:02:34 | 0:02:36 | |
and there's a little gem - a Great Orme speciality - here. | 0:02:36 | 0:02:40 | |
And here's one just down here - | 0:02:40 | 0:02:42 | |
this lovely little blue butterfly here. | 0:02:42 | 0:02:45 | |
It's called a Silver-studded Blue. | 0:02:45 | 0:02:47 | |
It's quite scarce, | 0:02:47 | 0:02:48 | |
but what's fantastic about this is that on the Great Orme, | 0:02:48 | 0:02:52 | |
there's a unique race of Silver-studded Blue. | 0:02:52 | 0:02:56 | |
They're just a little bit different to all the other ones in the whole | 0:02:56 | 0:02:59 | |
of the UK and on a really good, still day, | 0:02:59 | 0:03:02 | |
you can see them everywhere - | 0:03:02 | 0:03:04 | |
clouds of them. There he goes, fluttering about. | 0:03:04 | 0:03:07 | |
But now, because of the wind, they're staying tucked down out of the way. | 0:03:07 | 0:03:11 | |
And they're just beautiful. If he lands again... Go on. | 0:03:11 | 0:03:14 | |
They've got this lovely deep purply-blue on top of the wings, | 0:03:14 | 0:03:17 | |
then underneath, this pattern of orange dots and black dots | 0:03:17 | 0:03:22 | |
and bits of silver. It is a cracking little butterfly. | 0:03:22 | 0:03:25 | |
Most of the Great Orme is a special area of conservation | 0:03:32 | 0:03:36 | |
because it contains habitats and species like the Silver-studded Blue | 0:03:36 | 0:03:39 | |
that are rare. | 0:03:39 | 0:03:40 | |
It's also an important historical site. | 0:03:44 | 0:03:47 | |
People have been living on the headland since the Stone Age. | 0:03:48 | 0:03:51 | |
They've been mining copper here since the Bronze Age. | 0:03:54 | 0:03:57 | |
It's actually thought to be the | 0:03:59 | 0:04:01 | |
largest prehistoric mine so far discovered in the world. | 0:04:01 | 0:04:04 | |
Some of the mines were dug in caves formed in the limestone headland. | 0:04:09 | 0:04:12 | |
Archaeologist Sian Jones is taking me inside one of them. | 0:04:14 | 0:04:18 | |
OK. | 0:04:22 | 0:04:24 | |
How far in does this go? | 0:04:24 | 0:04:25 | |
Quite a few metres beyond where we are going to just show you | 0:04:25 | 0:04:29 | |
where the latest excavations were. | 0:04:29 | 0:04:33 | |
And little William is used to it, is he? | 0:04:33 | 0:04:34 | |
He is, yes. He goes with you everywhere, literally. | 0:04:34 | 0:04:37 | |
He's definitely used to it. | 0:04:37 | 0:04:39 | |
He's a little cave baby. | 0:04:39 | 0:04:41 | |
Good boy. | 0:04:41 | 0:04:43 | |
Would this have housed early people here, or is this a mine? | 0:04:43 | 0:04:48 | |
This is a mine. | 0:04:48 | 0:04:50 | |
Originally, it would have started as a cave overhang | 0:04:50 | 0:04:53 | |
and they've extended it through - | 0:04:53 | 0:04:55 | |
quite traditionally in the prehistoric way of mining is along, | 0:04:55 | 0:04:59 | |
whereas a modern method of mining is shaft mining, | 0:04:59 | 0:05:02 | |
where they go straight down. | 0:05:02 | 0:05:03 | |
And all of this is to mine malachite, | 0:05:03 | 0:05:06 | |
so a beautiful green copper, | 0:05:06 | 0:05:08 | |
or possibly using it for pigment, maybe 5,000 years ago. | 0:05:08 | 0:05:12 | |
So 5,000 years ago, | 0:05:12 | 0:05:13 | |
that actually goes back before the time when they knew how to make | 0:05:13 | 0:05:18 | |
copper, what it was used for. | 0:05:18 | 0:05:19 | |
Yes, before the metal ages. Yeah. | 0:05:19 | 0:05:21 | |
We've got evidence of people living on the Great Orme, | 0:05:21 | 0:05:24 | |
being buried on the Great Orme, going back 14,000 years. | 0:05:24 | 0:05:27 | |
Now, you've asked me to bring these in. | 0:05:27 | 0:05:29 | |
What exactly are these two here? | 0:05:29 | 0:05:31 | |
These are beautiful green bone tools | 0:05:31 | 0:05:35 | |
that were found in the Great Orme mine, OK? | 0:05:35 | 0:05:39 | |
See - William's holding it the right way. These are digging tools. | 0:05:39 | 0:05:41 | |
These are cattle bones. | 0:05:41 | 0:05:43 | |
These ones are only about 4,000 years old. Right. | 0:05:43 | 0:05:45 | |
So that's right at the beginning of the Bronze Age? | 0:05:45 | 0:05:48 | |
Yes, but they've taken on this | 0:05:48 | 0:05:49 | |
beautiful green hue from the malachite. | 0:05:49 | 0:05:52 | |
It's leached into the bone itself. | 0:05:52 | 0:05:55 | |
And this, then - is that a rib? | 0:05:55 | 0:05:57 | |
That's a rib bone, again of a cattle, | 0:05:57 | 0:05:59 | |
and this is similar to the one that would have been discovered in here, | 0:05:59 | 0:06:03 | |
in Badger's Cave. | 0:06:03 | 0:06:05 | |
We have one that has two slices on it. | 0:06:05 | 0:06:09 | |
It may have been actually used when it was butchered but some people | 0:06:09 | 0:06:11 | |
are suggesting maybe it's a tally of some sort. | 0:06:11 | 0:06:15 | |
I tell you what's really lovely as well - I saw them on the way in - | 0:06:15 | 0:06:18 | |
we've got herald moths in here. | 0:06:18 | 0:06:19 | |
See, there's one just above your head? | 0:06:19 | 0:06:21 | |
And there are two more here. | 0:06:21 | 0:06:23 | |
And these will come in in the autumn. | 0:06:23 | 0:06:25 | |
They'll spend the winter here, and then go back out in spring. | 0:06:25 | 0:06:29 | |
They'll overwinter...one has even got some drops of dew on it. | 0:06:29 | 0:06:33 | |
They're a beautiful sort of rusty colour. | 0:06:33 | 0:06:35 | |
They are, sort of burnished orange in colour. Yeah. | 0:06:35 | 0:06:38 | |
Do you know, I've come in here many, many times | 0:06:38 | 0:06:40 | |
and I've never noticed them before. | 0:06:40 | 0:06:41 | |
That's because you're looking for different things. | 0:06:41 | 0:06:43 | |
You're looking at all the archaeology and what's here. | 0:06:43 | 0:06:46 | |
I've got not a clue with that. | 0:06:46 | 0:06:47 | |
I'm looking for the wildlife and finding herald moths. | 0:06:47 | 0:06:51 | |
Yes. There's something here for everyone really. Absolutely, yeah. | 0:06:51 | 0:06:55 | |
During spring, the Great Orme is an important stopover point | 0:07:00 | 0:07:04 | |
for migrating birds, so it's worthwhile getting up at dawn to | 0:07:04 | 0:07:07 | |
scan the headland for any visitors that may have landed. | 0:07:07 | 0:07:11 | |
Alan Davies lives in Llandudno, just below the Orme, | 0:07:12 | 0:07:16 | |
and regularly comes up here to see what's dropped in. | 0:07:16 | 0:07:20 | |
Nice morning, anyway, Alan. | 0:07:20 | 0:07:22 | |
It's a perfect morning. These are the sort of mornings you want on the Orme. | 0:07:22 | 0:07:25 | |
It's calm, a little bit of light breeze from the east, | 0:07:25 | 0:07:27 | |
and that anticipation is what it's all about at this time of year. | 0:07:27 | 0:07:30 | |
Coming out this morning, you see the wheatear on the wall down there now | 0:07:30 | 0:07:33 | |
and that's a really good sign. | 0:07:33 | 0:07:35 | |
You see a wheatear drop in and you think, if the wheatear's here, | 0:07:35 | 0:07:37 | |
maybe there's going to be something else as well. | 0:07:37 | 0:07:39 | |
There's quite a few wheatear, I think. | 0:07:39 | 0:07:41 | |
Over there on the edge of the limestone over there. | 0:07:41 | 0:07:43 | |
So all of those will be passing through on their way further north, | 0:07:43 | 0:07:46 | |
will they, all these? That's the great thing about these birds, | 0:07:46 | 0:07:49 | |
they just drop in. You never know how long they're going to stay. | 0:07:49 | 0:07:51 | |
They might stay an hour, they might stay a week. | 0:07:51 | 0:07:53 | |
Perhaps some of these birds are even going to go as far north as Greenland. | 0:07:53 | 0:07:56 | |
To think that a wheatear can fly from Africa to Greenland, | 0:07:56 | 0:07:58 | |
stopping off here in north Wales to feed, | 0:07:58 | 0:08:01 | |
it's just mind-boggling, really. | 0:08:01 | 0:08:03 | |
That's the most exciting thing about this time of year. | 0:08:03 | 0:08:06 | |
Why here? Because it's a really well-known spot for birders to come, | 0:08:06 | 0:08:10 | |
because it does attract so many migrants. | 0:08:10 | 0:08:13 | |
Yeah. It's the geography really. | 0:08:13 | 0:08:14 | |
You've seen how the Great Orme sticks out into the Irish Sea - | 0:08:14 | 0:08:17 | |
you've got the coast on both sides. | 0:08:17 | 0:08:18 | |
Imagine you're a migrant flying over and you see that land sticking out | 0:08:18 | 0:08:21 | |
into the sea and you think - "This is my chance! | 0:08:21 | 0:08:23 | |
"Do I stop now and rest, or do I carry on over that Irish Sea?" | 0:08:23 | 0:08:27 | |
A lot of birds think, "Let's drop down, have a rest, have a feed," | 0:08:27 | 0:08:31 | |
before they continue their migration further north again. | 0:08:31 | 0:08:33 | |
I've come over to the eastern side of the park now | 0:08:56 | 0:08:58 | |
and this is St Tudno's Church | 0:08:58 | 0:09:00 | |
and it's from here that Llandudno gets its name. | 0:09:00 | 0:09:03 | |
And the original church here dates back nearly 1,500 years | 0:09:03 | 0:09:08 | |
and it's a lovely place to come because it's really quiet, really peaceful. | 0:09:08 | 0:09:12 | |
It's also pretty good for migrant birds. | 0:09:12 | 0:09:13 | |
Quite a few migrant birds stop for a rest here and I've been told | 0:09:13 | 0:09:17 | |
by a local birder that just up here there's a mistle thrush's nest, | 0:09:17 | 0:09:20 | |
so I'll go and have a look at that, I think. | 0:09:20 | 0:09:22 | |
The mistle thrush nest is just in that bush by the wall, | 0:09:30 | 0:09:33 | |
the other side of those graves. | 0:09:33 | 0:09:35 | |
I have to say, unusual for a mistle thrush, | 0:09:35 | 0:09:37 | |
because every other nest I've ever seen has been quite high up | 0:09:37 | 0:09:41 | |
in a tall tree but here, there aren't many tall trees so needs must | 0:09:41 | 0:09:45 | |
and she's sitting really happily on eggs there while he's off. | 0:09:45 | 0:09:49 | |
He'll be defending the nest if anything comes past, | 0:09:49 | 0:09:52 | |
but at the moment, it's just a picture of serenity. | 0:09:52 | 0:09:55 | |
The male has returned. | 0:10:03 | 0:10:05 | |
It will attack any intruder that | 0:10:05 | 0:10:06 | |
enters his territory, including people. | 0:10:06 | 0:10:09 | |
This pair will stay together through the seasons | 0:10:13 | 0:10:16 | |
and may well use this tree every year. | 0:10:16 | 0:10:18 | |
She will do most of the incubating | 0:10:19 | 0:10:21 | |
and with no present threat to his patch, | 0:10:21 | 0:10:24 | |
what else do you do on a sunny day | 0:10:24 | 0:10:25 | |
other than give yourself a good clean? | 0:10:25 | 0:10:28 | |
The Great Orme is home to cashmere goats. | 0:10:34 | 0:10:37 | |
The herd, which has roamed the Orme | 0:10:37 | 0:10:39 | |
since the middle of the 19th century, | 0:10:39 | 0:10:41 | |
is apparently descended from a pair of goats that were presented by the | 0:10:41 | 0:10:45 | |
Shah of Persia to Queen Victoria shortly after her coronation. | 0:10:45 | 0:10:49 | |
They are lovely creatures but they become a nuisance if their numbers | 0:10:51 | 0:10:54 | |
become too high, so - believe it or not - they're taking contraceptives. | 0:10:54 | 0:10:59 | |
Sally, the country park warden, is supplying them with a birth control. | 0:10:59 | 0:11:04 | |
I make it, is it ten? | 0:11:04 | 0:11:06 | |
Yes, I think there are, yes. | 0:11:06 | 0:11:08 | |
With just the one little one? | 0:11:08 | 0:11:10 | |
That's right, yes. And she's with a nanny that isn't vaccinated with the | 0:11:10 | 0:11:15 | |
contraceptive vaccine. | 0:11:15 | 0:11:16 | |
I'd know if she was vaccinated - | 0:11:16 | 0:11:17 | |
she'd be wearing ear tags in both ears. | 0:11:17 | 0:11:20 | |
So you vaccinate some of these goats now just to control them, | 0:11:20 | 0:11:23 | |
to make sure they're not producing any more young? | 0:11:23 | 0:11:25 | |
Yes, that's the way we've adopted to manage the goat numbers. | 0:11:25 | 0:11:30 | |
That's a good way to do it, isn't it? | 0:11:30 | 0:11:32 | |
So we've got ten here. How many have you got on the whole of the Orme? | 0:11:32 | 0:11:36 | |
The total population at the last count, including this year's kids, | 0:11:36 | 0:11:40 | |
was 112. | 0:11:40 | 0:11:42 | |
Is that ideal for what you want, or | 0:11:42 | 0:11:44 | |
would you want a few more or a few less? | 0:11:44 | 0:11:47 | |
Well, we've reached what we think is our ideal. | 0:11:47 | 0:11:50 | |
We've reduced the population down from 220 - | 0:11:50 | 0:11:53 | |
that was the highest number on the Orme back in the year 2000. | 0:11:53 | 0:11:56 | |
It's gone down a lot, then. | 0:11:56 | 0:11:57 | |
Yeah. We've done that with a combination of contraceptive control | 0:11:57 | 0:12:01 | |
and also relocating a few goats in small herds to other nature reserves | 0:12:01 | 0:12:06 | |
for conservation grazing. | 0:12:06 | 0:12:08 | |
Well done, you. With the combination of the two, we've managed gradually, | 0:12:08 | 0:12:11 | |
over the years, to bring it down | 0:12:11 | 0:12:13 | |
to...around 100 is what we were aiming for. | 0:12:13 | 0:12:16 | |
And one thing that's really obvious to me is that these goats here - | 0:12:16 | 0:12:19 | |
they're very, very different, different looking goats, | 0:12:19 | 0:12:22 | |
to the ones you get in the high mountains of north Wales. | 0:12:22 | 0:12:25 | |
Yeah, these are cashmere goats, | 0:12:25 | 0:12:27 | |
so they're completely different to the goats of Snowdonia. | 0:12:27 | 0:12:30 | |
Mostly pure white and introduced in the sort of late 1800s, we think, | 0:12:30 | 0:12:37 | |
although there's no exact date for when they were introduced. | 0:12:37 | 0:12:40 | |
And they have that lovely beard as well. | 0:12:40 | 0:12:43 | |
Yeah, yeah - nannies as well as... Even the women! | 0:12:43 | 0:12:45 | |
..the billies, yeah! | 0:12:45 | 0:12:47 | |
So these are all nannies, you say? | 0:12:47 | 0:12:49 | |
They'll be in a herd together now. Yes. And the billies will be where? | 0:12:49 | 0:12:53 | |
The billies will be in groups together in various places | 0:12:53 | 0:12:56 | |
around the headland. I tell you the other big difference - | 0:12:56 | 0:12:59 | |
the horns on these are nowhere near | 0:12:59 | 0:13:01 | |
as big as the ones up in the high mountains. No, they are different. | 0:13:01 | 0:13:04 | |
These are nanny goats, so they're always shorter. | 0:13:04 | 0:13:07 | |
But a billy goat has quite impressive horns. | 0:13:07 | 0:13:11 | |
Look at that! That's a horn from an eight-year-old billy. | 0:13:11 | 0:13:14 | |
Wow! | 0:13:14 | 0:13:15 | |
That is massive. And that's eight years old, you say? | 0:13:15 | 0:13:19 | |
Yeah. They say you can count. Is that one to there? | 0:13:19 | 0:13:21 | |
Yeah. Two, three, four, five, six, | 0:13:21 | 0:13:27 | |
seven, and then eight to the base, is it? | 0:13:27 | 0:13:29 | |
That's right, yeah. Coming into its ninth year, this one? Yes. Wow! | 0:13:29 | 0:13:33 | |
I know a lot of people like coming up here and seeing the goats. | 0:13:33 | 0:13:35 | |
Look at them now. Beautiful weather, beautiful day, | 0:13:35 | 0:13:39 | |
and what a fabulous backdrop - the whole of Llandudno behind them. | 0:13:39 | 0:13:42 | |
Yeah. Typical goats, they're right on the edge. | 0:13:42 | 0:13:45 | |
Right on the edge, especially nanny goats. They love being on the edge. | 0:13:45 | 0:13:48 | |
It's where they can escape to and take their kids to safety | 0:13:48 | 0:13:52 | |
if anything comes along. Dogs, people. | 0:13:52 | 0:13:55 | |
That's fantastic. Lovely looking things. | 0:13:55 | 0:13:57 | |
This is a very different part of the Great Orme. | 0:14:12 | 0:14:14 | |
It's got a different feel to it. | 0:14:14 | 0:14:16 | |
Looking down over the bay and the pier and the Little Orme | 0:14:16 | 0:14:19 | |
and the town itself over there and you've got this - | 0:14:19 | 0:14:21 | |
this is the old Druid Circle from the 1963 National Eisteddfod. | 0:14:21 | 0:14:26 | |
It's called the Happy Valley and it's a beautiful place. | 0:14:26 | 0:14:29 | |
You've got woodland and you've got the gardens as well. | 0:14:29 | 0:14:32 | |
It's a great place to come. | 0:14:32 | 0:14:33 | |
The gardens are very different to | 0:14:38 | 0:14:40 | |
the exposed open spaces on the summit. | 0:14:40 | 0:14:43 | |
And Shirley is one of the gardeners | 0:14:43 | 0:14:45 | |
who's responsible for keeping the Valley in check. | 0:14:45 | 0:14:48 | |
Hello there. Oh, hello. | 0:14:55 | 0:14:57 | |
How are you? All right? I'm fine, thank you, Iolo. | 0:14:57 | 0:14:59 | |
Tell you what - you've got the best job in the world in this weather! | 0:14:59 | 0:15:03 | |
I have got the best job and I'm working | 0:15:03 | 0:15:05 | |
in the best office, aren't I? | 0:15:05 | 0:15:07 | |
The best office to come to in the morning. | 0:15:07 | 0:15:09 | |
You are indeed. It's a really, | 0:15:09 | 0:15:11 | |
really nice mix and it looks cracking. | 0:15:11 | 0:15:14 | |
It's the best time of year with all these flowers and the bees | 0:15:14 | 0:15:16 | |
are everywhere as well. Now, the park itself, | 0:15:16 | 0:15:19 | |
I saw a picture when I was in town a few years ago. | 0:15:19 | 0:15:23 | |
I remember seeing a picture of some kind of event here in Victorian times, | 0:15:23 | 0:15:27 | |
and there were thousands here. | 0:15:27 | 0:15:29 | |
Yes. So they must have held, what, | 0:15:29 | 0:15:31 | |
open-air concerts and all kinds of things here? | 0:15:31 | 0:15:33 | |
They did. As you come up to as is now the cafe, | 0:15:33 | 0:15:37 | |
just on the bottom of the hill here, that used to be the theatre. | 0:15:37 | 0:15:41 | |
And it forms a natural amphitheatre shape and they would have had all | 0:15:41 | 0:15:45 | |
sorts of acts that we might laugh at now | 0:15:45 | 0:15:49 | |
but back then it was really, really popular. Really popular. | 0:15:49 | 0:15:54 | |
Today, the old theatre site has been transformed into these beautiful | 0:15:54 | 0:15:58 | |
gardens but the relationship between Happy Valley and the Great Orme's | 0:15:58 | 0:16:01 | |
famous goats is a bit testing. | 0:16:01 | 0:16:04 | |
We've got a goat issue and the goats seem to like quite a lot of what | 0:16:04 | 0:16:10 | |
we're planting. People either love or they hate the goats, don't they? | 0:16:10 | 0:16:14 | |
In general, the public love them and they are cute. | 0:16:14 | 0:16:17 | |
They come down with the babies but they do walk through and this is | 0:16:17 | 0:16:21 | |
like a smorgasbord for them. This is their dinner table. | 0:16:21 | 0:16:25 | |
So they will come down off the | 0:16:25 | 0:16:27 | |
Great Orme in the night and they just help themselves. | 0:16:27 | 0:16:31 | |
But we found out especially what we're planting, | 0:16:31 | 0:16:33 | |
we're putting it in and they're coming in at night and they're | 0:16:33 | 0:16:35 | |
defoliating quite a lot of it. | 0:16:35 | 0:16:37 | |
So I'm having to take these hebes out because they're not going to do | 0:16:37 | 0:16:40 | |
anything now for the summertime. | 0:16:40 | 0:16:43 | |
These should be a lot of foliage, looking really good by now. | 0:16:43 | 0:16:46 | |
So that's what's happened here? | 0:16:46 | 0:16:48 | |
This is exactly what's happened here. Oh, wow! | 0:16:48 | 0:16:51 | |
The plants have been completely chewed down. | 0:16:51 | 0:16:54 | |
They chew the bark, they chew the foliage. | 0:16:54 | 0:16:57 | |
So we've just got to go with it and find something they don't like. | 0:16:57 | 0:17:00 | |
That's what we're aiming to do as well, I think, next time. | 0:17:00 | 0:17:03 | |
This is interesting. I've come right up to the top end of Happy Valley | 0:17:22 | 0:17:26 | |
and there's quite a few mature trees here | 0:17:26 | 0:17:29 | |
and a pair of great spotted woodpeckers has bred in here | 0:17:29 | 0:17:32 | |
somewhere but the chicks are out of the nest. | 0:17:32 | 0:17:34 | |
I think they've got three chicks in all and what they're doing is, | 0:17:34 | 0:17:37 | |
they've led them onto this rocky slope here and the adult is teaching | 0:17:37 | 0:17:41 | |
the youngsters how to dig around in the soil for invertebrates. | 0:17:41 | 0:17:46 | |
That's something you usually see in a bird like a green woodpecker. | 0:17:46 | 0:17:49 | |
That will spend a lot of time on the floor. | 0:17:49 | 0:17:51 | |
But great spotted woodpeckers spend nearly all of their time high up | 0:17:51 | 0:17:55 | |
in trees and looking for grubs in dead branches, rotting wood, | 0:17:55 | 0:17:59 | |
that kind of thing. | 0:17:59 | 0:18:00 | |
But this parent has led the youngsters and is showing them, | 0:18:00 | 0:18:03 | |
basically, how to find food in here. | 0:18:03 | 0:18:06 | |
They're cracking little birds because they've got | 0:18:07 | 0:18:09 | |
these bright red caps. They're lovely little things. | 0:18:09 | 0:18:12 | |
They'll spend the next few weeks with the adults, learning. | 0:18:12 | 0:18:15 | |
Here we are. There's one moved up onto the rocks higher up, I think. | 0:18:15 | 0:18:18 | |
They'll spend the next few weeks learning as much as they can | 0:18:18 | 0:18:21 | |
from these adults - where to find food, where to look for food. | 0:18:21 | 0:18:23 | |
And then they'll be kicked out after that. | 0:18:23 | 0:18:26 | |
Sea birds nest on the steep cliffs of the Great Orme but they're very | 0:18:40 | 0:18:45 | |
difficult to see from the headland itself. | 0:18:45 | 0:18:47 | |
The best way of seeing them is from a boat. | 0:18:49 | 0:18:52 | |
Every year, there's an annual bird count by a team | 0:18:52 | 0:18:55 | |
from the country park and I've joined them on this trip. | 0:18:55 | 0:18:58 | |
The amazing thing is, you can't see much of this from the road | 0:19:06 | 0:19:09 | |
or from the Orme itself - you've got to come onto the sea, | 0:19:09 | 0:19:12 | |
and there are hundreds, hundreds of sea birds here. | 0:19:12 | 0:19:15 | |
Mainly guillemots, you've got razorbills, you've got kittiwakes, | 0:19:15 | 0:19:18 | |
you've got cormorants as well, a few fulmars, | 0:19:18 | 0:19:21 | |
and all just packed onto these sheer cliffs. | 0:19:21 | 0:19:24 | |
You see from here just how tall some of these cliffs are. | 0:19:24 | 0:19:26 | |
They've got to be about 250, 300 foot tall. | 0:19:26 | 0:19:29 | |
These birds will probably start nesting on the cliffs here | 0:19:33 | 0:19:36 | |
April time, mid-April maybe, | 0:19:36 | 0:19:39 | |
and the last chicks will leave probably early to mid-July, | 0:19:39 | 0:19:44 | |
so if you were to come here late July, August, it'll be dead. | 0:19:44 | 0:19:48 | |
There will be hardly anything here at all. | 0:19:48 | 0:19:50 | |
Maybe the odd gull and that's it. | 0:19:50 | 0:19:51 | |
And I always love the way that nature divides things up. | 0:19:51 | 0:19:56 | |
You've got one cliff and you've got maybe 1,000 birds on there but | 0:19:56 | 0:20:00 | |
they've all got their little niche, | 0:20:00 | 0:20:02 | |
they've all got their different little place. | 0:20:02 | 0:20:04 | |
The guillemots, they'll be on the long ledges, | 0:20:04 | 0:20:07 | |
maybe no more than the width of my hand, | 0:20:07 | 0:20:09 | |
and you'll have them packed on there. | 0:20:09 | 0:20:10 | |
Dozens, sometimes hundreds. | 0:20:10 | 0:20:12 | |
Kittiwakes, then, they'll build a nest - | 0:20:12 | 0:20:15 | |
they'll build a nest on the little knob or a | 0:20:15 | 0:20:18 | |
little bit of rock jutting out. | 0:20:18 | 0:20:20 | |
They'll stick the nest on there. | 0:20:20 | 0:20:22 | |
And then cormorants - they need a little bit more space, | 0:20:22 | 0:20:24 | |
they need wider ledges. | 0:20:24 | 0:20:26 | |
So even though it looks like they're all packed on there, | 0:20:26 | 0:20:29 | |
they've all got their own individual little place within that one cliff. | 0:20:29 | 0:20:33 | |
I've come right over to the western edge of the Orme now. | 0:21:06 | 0:21:09 | |
You're looking out over the sea and the high mountains in the distance | 0:21:09 | 0:21:12 | |
over there and this was a Coast Artillery School. | 0:21:12 | 0:21:16 | |
You can see this is where the guns were pointing out to sea and the | 0:21:16 | 0:21:19 | |
habitat here is very different from anywhere else on the Orme. | 0:21:19 | 0:21:22 | |
A lot of cover, a lot of shrubs, a lot of bracken, a lot of gorse here. | 0:21:22 | 0:21:26 | |
It's really good for rabbits. | 0:21:26 | 0:21:27 | |
Signs of rabbits - I've seen a few walking down here, rabbit droppings, | 0:21:27 | 0:21:31 | |
rabbit holes everywhere, and it's also a great place for stoats. | 0:21:31 | 0:21:34 | |
I've been told that a stoat has been seen here regularly | 0:21:34 | 0:21:37 | |
for the last few days so what I'm thinking of doing is, | 0:21:37 | 0:21:40 | |
I'm going to sit myself down on this green bank over here - | 0:21:40 | 0:21:44 | |
I'll sit there and I'll watch, | 0:21:44 | 0:21:46 | |
because I'll have a view of all of this and the weather's perfect. | 0:21:46 | 0:21:49 | |
The wind will be in my face, the sun is out, | 0:21:49 | 0:21:51 | |
and I'll be able to see, hopefully, if anything moves here. | 0:21:51 | 0:21:54 | |
So I'll sit, I'll watch and I'll wait. | 0:21:54 | 0:21:56 | |
The old site of the Second World War Artillery School | 0:22:01 | 0:22:04 | |
is also a perfect place to see kestrels. | 0:22:04 | 0:22:09 | |
They like to launch off the cliffs | 0:22:09 | 0:22:10 | |
and hover in search of mice and lizards. | 0:22:10 | 0:22:13 | |
It's quite amazing to see how their heads stay perfectly still, | 0:22:13 | 0:22:16 | |
irrespective of other body movements. | 0:22:16 | 0:22:18 | |
There he is, there he is, there he is - on the wall, on the wall! | 0:22:38 | 0:22:41 | |
He's just gone up on the wall with a bit of rabbit. | 0:22:41 | 0:22:42 | |
He's just gone off. Wow, they're fast movers! | 0:22:44 | 0:22:47 | |
It's brilliant. | 0:22:47 | 0:22:49 | |
They're such cracking animals. They're not rare. | 0:22:49 | 0:22:52 | |
They're quite widespread. | 0:22:52 | 0:22:54 | |
But I don't see stoats that often and when you do, I tell you what, | 0:22:54 | 0:22:58 | |
it really makes your day. | 0:22:58 | 0:23:00 | |
I think what's happened - I'm not 100% sure - | 0:23:00 | 0:23:02 | |
she's obviously killed recently - I think she killed yesterday - | 0:23:02 | 0:23:05 | |
and she's got a cache somewhere, she's hidden it somewhere, | 0:23:05 | 0:23:08 | |
and she's coming to retrieve food from that cache. | 0:23:08 | 0:23:11 | |
I suspect the cache might be in this little bush over here because she | 0:23:11 | 0:23:15 | |
makes her way across the road and up onto that little wall and uses this | 0:23:15 | 0:23:19 | |
cover here. What's interesting, I can track where she is, | 0:23:19 | 0:23:22 | |
not because I can see her but because I can hear the small birds' | 0:23:22 | 0:23:26 | |
alarm calling as she goes. | 0:23:26 | 0:23:28 | |
But like a little clockwork toy, like a wind-up toy, | 0:23:29 | 0:23:32 | |
you wind them up, put them down and off they go, busy all the time. | 0:23:32 | 0:23:37 | |
Fantastic animals. | 0:23:37 | 0:23:38 | |
(It's actually rubbing in the moss. | 0:23:54 | 0:23:57 | |
(Really enjoying itself, having a bit of a scratch.) | 0:23:58 | 0:24:01 | |
(Right in front of me!) | 0:24:17 | 0:24:18 | |
And there are so few places I know of in the whole of Wales | 0:24:24 | 0:24:27 | |
where you've got a good chance to sit down and watch stoats like this. | 0:24:27 | 0:24:32 | |
It's such a rare thing. It's a real privilege. | 0:24:32 | 0:24:36 | |
Later, the stoat returned to kill another rabbit. | 0:24:44 | 0:24:48 | |
The rabbit is at least three times the size of the stoat | 0:24:51 | 0:24:54 | |
but that's no problem for this efficient predator. | 0:24:54 | 0:24:57 | |
It's an incredibly strong animal. | 0:25:00 | 0:25:02 | |
It'll hide this catch until it needs it. | 0:25:05 | 0:25:07 | |
And while all this activity is taking place - others, | 0:25:12 | 0:25:15 | |
unaware of the action, are picking blackberries and enjoying the view. | 0:25:15 | 0:25:20 | |
Autumn's a great time up on the Orme. | 0:25:35 | 0:25:37 | |
There's something going on, it doesn't matter where you go now | 0:25:38 | 0:25:41 | |
and I've come right up to the top to look for something | 0:25:41 | 0:25:44 | |
which is pretty unique to here, really. | 0:25:44 | 0:25:46 | |
It's the best place to see it in the whole of Wales - | 0:25:46 | 0:25:49 | |
and that's the goat rut. | 0:25:49 | 0:25:50 | |
There's a group of goats here - actually, they're all around me. | 0:25:50 | 0:25:54 | |
I'm being surrounded by goats at the moment. There's some down here. | 0:25:54 | 0:25:57 | |
But it's this lot here that I'm interested in, | 0:25:57 | 0:25:59 | |
because you've got subordinate males. | 0:25:59 | 0:25:59 | |
You see the heads and the horns there, | 0:25:59 | 0:26:01 | |
there are three subordinate males and they're working out a hierarchy. | 0:26:03 | 0:26:09 | |
Every now and again they'll turn, they'll head-butt | 0:26:09 | 0:26:12 | |
and I'm waiting to see whether we'll get a real, full-on, meaty rut - | 0:26:12 | 0:26:16 | |
because the dominant male, he is down here with a couple of females. | 0:26:16 | 0:26:21 | |
You can see him just over the horizon here. | 0:26:21 | 0:26:25 | |
That's the dominant male down there and he's happy. | 0:26:25 | 0:26:28 | |
He knows that he's not going to be challenged in any way this year, | 0:26:28 | 0:26:32 | |
so he's concentrating on the two females. | 0:26:32 | 0:26:34 | |
They're about to come into season and he's sticking close. | 0:26:34 | 0:26:37 | |
He's quite loving with them, actually. | 0:26:37 | 0:26:39 | |
But the real action is going to be, I suspect, over here. | 0:26:39 | 0:26:43 | |
The subordinate males look as if they're playing a game of | 0:26:47 | 0:26:50 | |
Ring a Ring o' Roses. | 0:26:50 | 0:26:51 | |
The top goat looks on amusingly. | 0:26:54 | 0:26:57 | |
You may think he's having a laugh, | 0:27:02 | 0:27:05 | |
but he's actually sampling the air for pheromones | 0:27:05 | 0:27:08 | |
to see if one of his females is receptive. | 0:27:08 | 0:27:10 | |
Meanwhile, the threesome have had enough of the game. | 0:27:14 | 0:27:18 | |
It's now down to serious business. | 0:27:18 | 0:27:20 | |
From the look of this handbag fight, | 0:27:37 | 0:27:39 | |
it's going to be a long time before they'll be challenging number one. | 0:27:39 | 0:27:43 | |
What a great way to end my visit here to the Great Orme - | 0:27:50 | 0:27:54 | |
in the company of the goats. | 0:27:54 | 0:27:56 | |
They've given up the fighting for now. | 0:27:56 | 0:27:59 | |
They've found an uneasy truce but | 0:27:59 | 0:28:00 | |
I'm sure it will kick-off again soon. | 0:28:00 | 0:28:02 | |
And as a naturalist, I always love coming up here. | 0:28:02 | 0:28:06 | |
The rare butterflies, the migrant birds, | 0:28:06 | 0:28:08 | |
there's always something to see. | 0:28:08 | 0:28:10 | |
But even if you're not into your natural history, | 0:28:10 | 0:28:13 | |
it's still a great place to come. | 0:28:13 | 0:28:16 | |
I'm Hayley Pearce. | 0:29:00 | 0:29:01 | |
I'm Hayley Pearce. | 0:29:01 | 0:29:01 |