Episode 2 Rugged Wales

'My name is Iolo Williams.

'I'm on a tour of the rugged countryside of Wales.

'Parts formed by nature...'

Wow! Look at that!

'..and parts created by man.'

Incredible. Absolutely amazing place.

'It's my choice of some of the best wild

'and industrial landscapes of Wales and the wildlife that lives in them.

'I'll be meeting people who live, work and play in this spectacular scenery.

'I'll be finding out why they love it so much.'

It's a national treasure, really. You've got everything here.

'I'll be exploring the sea,

'I'll also be finding out how the Welsh landscape is being used today

'and discovering some surprising wildlife right amongst this dramatic activity.

'Wales has terrific landscape and it's been enjoyed

'and exploited for centuries.

'It's been shaped by nature and by man.

'In this part of my journey, I am exploring Wales's lowland,

'including the magnificent woodland.

'I'm visiting some real choice locations on the coast

and I'm venturing underwater.

'I'll also be heading to the hills and mountains,

'where I'll be meeting people who share my love of these stunning landscapes.

'I'll be discovering history.'

It looks like a crown of thorns.

-'I'll be joining the Army.'

-Fire.

-GUNFIRE

'I'll be felling a forest.'

It's like working a T-Rex down there!

'It's my pick of the best landscape and wildlife in upland

'and lowland Wales.

'First, I'm taking you to what I think is Wales's best green lane.

'It's found near the village of Chwilog,

'halfway between Cricieth and Pwllheli in north-west Wales.

'It's a man-made nature reserve, created by accident

'because there was a need for a transport route in the past.'

Look at the shape of this tree here.

It's an old oak tree, and the branches,

they just curl around each other.

It reminds me of one of the trees

that I used to read about in fairy-tales as a kid, you know,

one that changes into a witch.

This is Lon Goed, a famous old Welsh route.

And it would have been at one time the main entry and exit point into the Llyn Peninsula.

People would have come along here, they'd have walked, they'd be on horseback.

And I'm quite envious of those days because they would have had

a lot more time to just look around and listen.

And the birdsong here is just incredible

because the whole route for miles is lined with these old oaks,

and you've got bluebells and stitchwort growing all around you.

It's a great place to come and enjoy wildlife.

During the spring, the trees are full of nesting birds.

CHAFFINCH SONG

This is a male chaffinch singing to claim his territory.

This great tit is chattering away, probably alarmed

that I'm walking underneath its nest.

But these two are not bothered at all, they're far too busy.

There's a pair of blue tits right up amongst the uppermost branches of this oak tree here.

And they're frantically looking around for food,

they're investigating every single bud, every leaf,

even tearing the buds apart just to get at the eggs,

the larvae of these insects.

And they're expending a phenomenal amount of energy,

but when you think that some of these mature oak trees

have got over 750 different species of insects growing on them,

there must be, what, tens of thousands of eggs and larvae there,

and those are packed full of energy, so it's well worth it

because the food they get, they replace all that energy and more

because they'll be egg laying now,

they're going to be feeding young later on.

And they'll go along every single branch of these oaks.

Lon Goed in English means Wood Lane,

and it's a valuable piece of woodland nature reserve amongst farmland.

Ancient oak woodlands are hard to come by these days,

as most of the landscape has been developed for farming.

But a few have survived,

and quite often because the terrain was far too difficult to farm,

or they were set aside in the past as woodland

for the production of wood for tools and other implements.

This one is called Coed Crafnant

and it's a little gem set in a great location

on a hillside next to farmland near Harlech in north Wales.

The woodland floor is full of moss-covered rocks,

only good enough for rough grazing if you're a farmer,

but the owners of the wood, the North Wales Wildlife Trust,

rarely allow that, they prefer a rich wildlife habitat to develop.

And Coed Crafnant has one of the biggest selections of

nesting woodland birds in the whole of Britain.

And because the woodland is on a slope,

the views of birds are particularly good,

'especially high up on the hillside.'

There's a male wood warbler singing here to attract a mate.

He's not long back in from Africa

so the first thing he does is establish his territory.

And he's got this, that call now, hear it?

Di-di-di-di-di-rrrr.

Fantastic, that tells you every time, no matter where you are, wood warbler.

WARBLER SONG

And we're very lucky to see this because it usually takes place

right up in the uppermost branches of a wood

but, because we've climbed up, we're looking down on all this.

And every now and again he'll do this little song flight.

Slow wing beats, sing, going from branch to branch like that.

And when he sings, when he comes down, rrrr, like that,

he puts so much effort into him, you can see his whole body shake.

Fantastic little birds, they're lovely little birds.

'Coed Crafnant is also an important woodland for pied flycatchers.'

It's a migratory bird that's very special in Wales

as most of the UK population of pied flycatchers migrate here.

The North Wales Wildlife Trust monitor the birds carefully

and have set up nesting boxes in the woodland

to supplement their natural tree hole sites.

Just sat here quietly watching a pair of pied flycatchers,

they've got a nest in a nest box on an oak tree here.

They're hole nesters but they will take to nest boxes.

She's on a full clutch, I think,

she'll have eggs in there

but she's not sitting comfortably if you like, at the moment,

for a day or two now she'll be quite jumpy,

she'll move around a bit,

she'll feed up a bit and then, eventually,

once she sits on those eggs, she'll settle down.

That's nice, the male's coming in now, he's coming in with food.

He's just fed her, she's come off the nest and he's just fed her.

The female is a fairly drab bird, brown and not quite white

but pale cream if you like, but the male is stunning.

Black, and I mean sheer black, and bright white as well.

He's a handsome, handsome bird

and that's quite unusual in woodland birds

because the canopy here is incredibly dense,

there are leaves everywhere,

you can't see much, and most of these woodland birds

rely on song to be heard, whereas the male pied flycatcher,

yes, he's got a song, it's not a fantastic song,

but he's an incredibly bright bird as well

so he must be quite visible in amongst this canopy.

And one of the wonderful things

is that people have been ringing these birds for many years now

and what they've found is that the chicks and the adults

will come back often not just to the same area,

not just to the same wood,

but to the same hole in the same tree.

That's after flying all the way down to Africa and back,

and that's phenomenal.

While oak woodlands are important for songbirds during the spring,

it's the estuaries that are important for wading birds during the winter.

The Dee Estuary, sandwiched between Flint and the Wirral,

is one of the most important feeding areas for waders,

ducks and geese in the UK,

if not the whole of Europe, it's a real gem of an estuary.

During the winter the population of birds reaches over 100,000

as shorebirds birds from all over Europe come here

to escape the colder continent

to find guaranteed food on the mudflats.

The mud and sea is full of a fantastic range of worms,

molluscs, and other invertebrates.

I've watched these birds from the shore,

but I've never explored the estuary from the sea

or indeed considered the relationship

between the Dee fishing community and the wildlife.

Keith Marland has been fishing on the Dee for over 30 years,

he mainly fishes for cockles on the mudflats,

which of course is one of the main food items of the birds,

particularly oystercatchers.

Is there a season now, then, for the cockles?

The season as it stands

is July to the end of December.

Last year the quota was 300 kilos per day.

-300 kilos per day per person.

-Yeah.

There's 50 licences with an option to have four apprentice cocklers.

And there's enough cockles on here, you say, for the birds,

for the people and for next year?

Yeah. Rule of thumb is a third for the birds,

a third for the cockle fishermen and a third for stock.

And the boats, why do you use the boats then for cockling?

Well, you are basically working on an island, you know,

so you come early on in the tide, put the boat,

dry it out on the top of the bank and then cockle,

load the boat and then wait for the tide to come back in.

-So you work between tides really?

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

Should see some birds on these banks as well, should we?

Oystercatchers and a few redshank maybe.

I'll take you to this Little Salisbury and let's have a look.

Yeah, see what's there.

There's usually oystercatchers feeding on the mussels there.

Spending much of his time on the estuary,

Keith knows the favourite locations of the birds,

and he also wants to show me another wildlife attraction.

The Dee Estuary is one of the few places on the Welsh coast

that grey seals haul up on sand banks.

Seals are usually wary of people,

and move quickly to water if anyone ventures too close,

but these seals are used to fishermen and their boats.

Nevertheless, we'll keep our distance to avoid any disturbance.

-Fascinating creatures.

-They are, they are.

-Some in the water as well, see their heads bobbing up and down.

-Yeah.

Do you reckon, there is a lady doing some research on them,

and they reckon some of these may well come from Pembrokeshire.

All the way around the Welsh coast

they come here just to haul up, to mature, I suppose, and to feed.

Well, as you can see, they're not starving.

No, no. What have we got here, there's got to be 60 or 70 here.

-In the summer they increase.

-Is it?

400 or 500 they reckon in the...

-It's a good number, isn't it?

-Yeah, in the summer.

When do you get peak time, then, when do you get most here?

July and August?

It's a coincidence, it's when you get the biggest run of salmon.

We seem to have a lot of... a lot of seals.

-They know, don't they?

-Course they do.

You know, they know when's best to come,

they know when's good fishing.

They probably know you by now.

Yeah, I should imagine, yeah....

They are a lovely, lovely animal but it's a pity they eat too many fish.

-Yeah, you don't like them eating your fish.

-No, no, no.

'I must confess, I'm envious of Keith.

'He's got a front seat view of the Dee's wildlife

'pretty much on a daily basis and is part of the estuary's make-up.'

Well, it's just one of those things you take for granted.

It's a national treasure really. You've got everything here.

I'm walking, early May,

on Malltraeth Cob on the western coast of Anglesey.

The Cob is a mile-long embankment built during the early 1800s

to protect the low-lying land from flooding,

but it not only caused a change in the landscape,

it also affected the wildlife.

This is the Cefni Estuary,

one of the lesser-known estuaries of Wales

but a wonderful place for birds.

And especially in the winter for waders and wildfowl.

But can you imagine, before this Malltraeth Cob,

this sea wall was built several centuries ago now, what it would have looked like?

Because at that time the estuary would have extended half way across Anglesey.

A whole series of creeks and lovely wetland area,

must have been a great place for breeding waders,

red shank and lapwing.

And although the land now behind the Cob

has been improved for agriculture, much of it dried out,

it has actually created a very different habitat

and a habitat which in parts is just as good as the estuary itself.

The Cefni Marsh at Malltraeth

was in fact originally drained for coal mining

and the building of the A5 turnpike road to Holyhead.

And over the past two centuries this reclaimed lowland

has also been used for farming.

Today much of it is owned by the RSPB,

and is one of its main wildlife reserves in Wales.

It has a great mix of habitats.

There are wetland pools and reeds,

which attract waterfowl like these shovelers.

There's farmland pasture, which attracts greylag geese,

and it's an important nesting site for lapwings.

There are shrubs and hedges for butterflies.

This is a male orange-tip, it's one of the first butterflies

to emerge during the spring.

When the RSPB first bought this bit of land here, Malltraeth Marsh,

one of the target birds was to get marsh harriers back into Wales nesting.

And there's a female marsh harrier flying around

just hunting over the reeds and up in the air and then back.

Very leisurely, slow flight back and fore,

trying to flush moor hens or coots or a teal,

or if it sees a water vole, it will plunge down.

And it's an odd bird because in other parts of the UK,

in England, they're now quite common.

In East Anglia they're nesting in corn fields,

in Scotland they're nesting as far north as Insh Marshes in Speyside

and even beyond that.

But for some reason they haven't nested in Wales

for the best part of 35 years now.

And why they don't come back,

especially an area like Malltraeth Marsh, which is huge,

it's got plenty of food,

we just don't understand but we've got a female here now.

All we want is a male, will it happen? I don't know, I don't know.

There's not much I can say to add to that, is there?

'Soon I'll be exploring the coast of Wales, above and below the sea.'

This place is just covered in dead man's fingers.

'Later, I'll be heading to Snowdonia.

'I'll also be looking at an extraordinary Bronze Age monument

'on the Ardudwy uplands.'

We once ruled the world, Francis, we once ruled the world.

And I'll be watching nesting ravens in the Brecon Beacons.

And it's a typical raven's nest, isn't it? Big pile of sticks.

But first I'm going to another outstanding wetland.

Amongst the low-lying farmland,

you'll find the occasional patch of rough ground.

These are areas that are either too wet to farm,

or have for one reason or another not been drained for farming.

This area of marshy ground on the Llyn Peninsula in north-west Wales

is called Cors Geirch and is another lowland jewel of mine.

It's a national nature reserve,

and during spring it's full of plants and insects.

This is a broad bodied chaser,

a common dragonfly of ponds and natural pools.

The four dark brown patches on the wing bases

instantly identifies the species.

One of the big attractions for me,

coming to a wetland area like this in spring,

is to see the bogbean flowers,

they're absolutely beautiful.

Great for insects as well, all kinds of insects here, especially bees,

bumble bees and honey bees flying here, there and everywhere.

And many people extol the virtues of flowers like orchids for example,

and quite rightly so, I suppose,

but you look in detail at the flowers of a bogbean

and it's every bit as intricate,

every bit as beautiful.

If not more so, I think.

Not only is Cors Geirch alive with the sound of insects during spring,

it's also full of birds singing and calling on their territories.

CHIRRUPING

When you come to a marsh or a fen like this,

you really need to use your ears as much as your eyes

because a lot of the birds, especially some of these warblers

that have just come back from Africa,

your reed warblers and sedge warblers, they're skulking birds.

They don't come out into the open,

they'll be in the middle of all this mass of vegetation,

singing away like mad.

And if they do pop up, they pop up invariably for a couple of seconds,

you get the binocs out and they've gone back down.

But very lucky at the moment because there's a sedge warbler,

male sedge warbler up on the edge of the alder,

singing away like mad in this sun, showing himself.

And I've had some of the best views I think I've ever had of this bird.

Lovely bird, you can see the black eye band here and dark cap as well.

It's a lovely bird, really nice bird.

And incredibly rambling song,

scratchy and then a little bit tuneful then scratchy again,

just goes on and on and on and on.

Much of what's good about lowland Wales is along its coast.

And if you measure every portion of every beach,

bay and rugged cliff, including Anglesey's coast,

as the Ordnance Survey have done,

you'd total an amazing coastal length of nearly 1,700 miles.

Just look at this.

There's not much I can say to add to that, is there? Incredible.

And we're so lucky in Wales, not just to have landscape like this

but the fact that these days

you can walk almost all the way around the Welsh coast.

And some of those paths are well established and well known,

Pembrokeshire coast path maybe being the best one.

But this one was only opened a few years ago.

This is the Ceredigion coast path

and it stretches from beyond Aberystwyth in the north,

all the way down to the south side of Cardigan down there.

And the section I'm walking, this is Cwmtydu down here.

I've climbed up and I'll be following the coast around,

only for about 4.5 to 5 miles maybe,

but I think this is probably the best section of all.

I'm heading south in the direction of Llangrannog,

with the headland of Ynys Lochtyn and Aberporth in the distance.

The path follows a route along the cliff tops high above the sea,

and you walk at eye level with the coastal birds.

On the cliffs themselves, peregrines are nesting.

'Cliffs are great vantage points for peregrines to look out for prey.'

They hunt and catch birds as they fly.

There are also kestrels about.

There are a few things you do in life

where time passes and you don't really notice it.

One is watching waves on a shore,

another one is looking into an open fire, but for me,

it's watching hunting kestrels.

There's a male and a female kestrel hunting up here now.

They're not hovering, they're actually using the wind just to stay up in the air.

She's just gone down. Erm...

No, she's come back maybe with a beetle

and a talon full of grass, I think, there.

In fact, the kestrel has caught a lizard.

It's body shape can clearly be seen hanging from the kestrel's talons.

They don't always eat on the wing. These two are now,

because they're catching mainly beetles, a few lizards,

but if they catch something bigger, if they catch a vole,

they'll land on one of these posts and feed there.

But you can watch kestrels, I find anyway,

for hours and hours and time will just pass.

'The Ceredigion coastal path also passes through pasture,'

and its in those habitats that you'll find

this magnificent red-legged, red-beaked crow.

One of the really special birds along this section of coast

is the chough.

Very scarce, very much a western bird.

I think Wales has something like two thirds of the UK population of them.

And there's a pair here feeding away on an old bank,

and that's ideal for them, because that long, sickle-like beak,

they dig up grubs, particularly ants,

they love ant eggs, ant grubs as well.

And this bank has been warmed by the sun,

so it will be full of invertebrates for them.

They don't like the sections

that are covered in gorse and heather and bracken,

they like these well-grazed but unimproved parts of the coast.

And they're lovely birds to watch.

To call them a member of the crow family isn't really fair,

because when you look at them close up,

you see that the feathers aren't black,

they've got this lovely purplish-green sheen to them.

And then when you add the bright red bill, the bright red legs,

they're actually quite stunning birds.

On a sunny spring day, there aren't many better walks in the whole of Britain

than this stretch of coast overlooking Ceredigion Bay,

and the variety of birds that you'll see,

from stonechats along the path to nesting fulmars on the cliffs,

makes it even more worthwhile.

In common with the rest of Britain,

Wales has sections of sand dune formations all along its coast.

But these sand dunes at Oxwich on the Gower Peninsula in South Wales

have particular interest,

'particularly between March and April.'

A familiar looking plant here, this one.

Now, I'm not a great botanist, but these are pussy willows.

The willows are a little bit different,

the pussy willows are more yellowy

than the ones you see in hedgerows and woodlands.

And it's creeping willow,

it's a willow that lives in dunes like this,

especially in dune slacks, and those are the wetter parts of the dune.

And here at Oxwich, these provide valuable food,

valuable pollen, for a very rare insect.

And this is it, it's called the vernal colletes mining bee,

and it's a real Oxwich speciality.

It's incredibly rare,

it's found in only three sites in the whole of the UK,

two in south Wales and one in the north-west of England.

And this bit of dune here might not look like much to you and me,

but to these bees, it's ideal.

It's south facing and has very little vegetation on it,

so it warms up quickly.

And because they feed on creeping willow,

they appear in April and May, not later on in the year

when it's much, much warmer.

And basically they're a Mediterranean, a Continental,

a warm weather species.

And this is the very edge of their range.

Though they look similar to honey bees,

they're a totally different kind of bee,

and they don't live in a social colony.

Having mated on the dunes, a vernal mining bee

will raise its own young in a burrow dug in the sand.

It'll fill the burrow with willow pollen,

and lay its eggs in it.

When the larvae hatch,

they'll have plenty of food ready for them.

There's one patch of Wales

that's largely untouched by the influence of man.

Wales has got a rich underwater landscape,

and varied sea life all along its coast.

It has kelp forests, sandy beds, and dramatic rocky landscapes.

Even wrecks left here by man are quickly taken over by nature.

I've dived much of the Welsh coastline,

and I've experienced first hand this wonderful hidden landscape.

Today I'm diving with a team of divers

off the north-west coast of Wales.

RADIO: "Forecast sent by channel 33. This is Holyhead Coastguard."

We've come out just off the north coast of the Llyn Peninsula,

this is Yr Eifl, a very well-known landmark there,

and we'll be diving in about 11-12 metres of water.

And the visibility at the moment at the end of spring is excellent,

it's about 15 metres,

which for Welsh waters is virtually unheard of,

so really looking forward to seeing what's down there.

'The seabed is a flat, pebbly landscape,

'on which lurk all sorts of bottom-dwelling fish,

'and other underwater creatures like starfish.'

This place is just absolutely covered in dead man's fingers.

Now, these are not solitary animals,

they're a whole colony of creatures that have come together,

and they filter all the miniscule particles out of the water.

And you can see where they get the name dead man's fingers,

it really does look like a dead man's hand

sticking out of the ground.

Dead man's fingers are soft coral,

which are formed by thousands of tiny animals

which have tentacles to help them feed on minute particles in the sea.

'On a flat seabed like this, they're ideal places for crabs to hide,

'and for attaching mermaid's purses.

'It's a spotted dogfish egg.

'And hiding behind another group of dead man's fingers

'is the dogfish itself.'

One of the biggest creatures you'll see down here

are these, they're spider crabs.

And the fishermen will tell you

that in recent times they've increased remarkably.

And you might think that this is a big one,

but they will grow to be the best part of a metre across,

so this one's just a baby, really.

'I'm now heading to upland Wales.

'It's a vast area of open space,

'which has been exploited by man for thousands of years.

'Later, I'll be meeting a forester...'

-It's just a rough length.

-No, they've got to be perfect.

'A farmer, a historian...'

Wow, this, I have to say,

is one of the most remarkable ancient structures

I think I've ever seen in Wales.

-'And the Army.'

-GUNFIRE

Incredible.

Ill be finding out how this great landscape has been used in the past,

and how it's used today,

and how that use has affected upland life.

This is the Clwydian Range.

And this range of hills is often overlooked, unfairly so.

You see Moel Famau, that's the highest peak in the distance,

and Offa's Dyke path running right along it here.

And it's a succession of hillforts all along.

This one is Moel Arthur, built 2,000 years ago during the Iron Age.

And you can see why they built these forts up here,

because they were easy to defend,

and the views really are magnificent.

The high peaks of Snowdonia in the distance, the Carneddau,

the Gladerau, and even Snowdon itself.

And coming around towards the north, this is Pencloddiau here,

and on there was the biggest hillfort of them all.

Not much left there now, of course, but plenty of wildlife.

Buzzards and ravens and kestrels. It's a great place to come.

It's early April on the Clwydian Hills high above Ruthin,

and a pair of kestrels are pairing up ready for the breeding season.

So too are a pair of buzzards.

The Welsh uplands have been a big attraction for people

since prehistory.

Around 600 hillforts were built in Wales during the Iron Age.

This one at Bryn Caer overlooks the Conwy Valley.

It's perfectly placed for a panoramic view of the lowland.

The most impressive hillfort remains in Wales

are at Tre'r Ceiri on the Llyn Peninsula in North Wales.

It's one of the best-preserved hillforts in Britain.

During the Iron Age, around 100 people lived here,

and by Roman times the population had grown to as many as 400 -

the size of a small village.

The location gave the inhabitants a good vantage point

to protect themselves and their animal stock.

We can only imagine how they lived here in ancient times,

but we can certainly today share their experience

of being in this fabulous location.

'The uplands are my favourite landscape in Wales.

'Especially the high uplands.

'It takes great effort to explore them,'

but once you've reached the hilltops,

the views are magnificent.

'Take Bwlch y Groes, right in the heart of the country.

'It's part of the Cambrian Mountain range,

'which forms the spine of Mid Wales.

In common with the rest of our uplands,

the ancient woodlands that would have stood here in the past

were cut over 4,000 years ago to form open pasture and moorland.

You'll be hard-pushed to find a more dramatic setting anywhere.

Here's another upland jewel - Nant Ffrancon in Snowdonia.

Also known as the Ogwen Valley,

and situated below the mountain of Tryfan

and the Glyderau mountain range.

The landscape is a stunning mixture of open space,

waterfalls and crags.

Upland wildlife here is difficult to see,

but when you do find it, it's often rare.

CHIRRUPING

In Nant Ffrancon, the rarity is a twite -

an insignificant-looking small bird which eats plant seeds.

It's a bird that you'll rarely see anywhere else in Wales.

'They're here largely because of the efforts of farmer Gwyn Thomas.

'During the spring and summer,

'Gwyn puts seed down for them daily to help supplement their feeding.'

Twite has never been common in Wales,

but it's fairly widespread in North Wales,

and there were maybe six or seven locations

where you could find them breeding.

They're now, as far as we know, down to this one area here,

and all of these birds come and feed on Gwyn's farm.

Twite have a great Welsh name that describes them perfectly.

It's "llinos y mynydd", the mountain linnet,

and they do look a lot like linnets,

but they're linnets that breed in the high mountains.

But they've gone into decline in the uplands

because of changes in farming methods.

One of the things that's happened is that in the olden days, of course,

every farmer around here would have had hay meadows, wouldn't they, full of seed?

Yes, yes. All the farms in the valley here would have done hay meadows.

And that's all gone because of silage, because of weather, really.

No, the system of farming has changed, you know, these upland farms now have gone away from cattle

because of the expense and cost of keeping them, they are farming sheep and sheep only,

so this is why the twite have flourished here,

as the system I'm using here is a very old system.

And these birds now, these will be the birds that will nest up on the high tops there.

Just in the heather above us here now, wherever the nests are, they're so tiny,

I don't think anyone has come across the nests so far.

A change of land use has had a big effect on this little bird,

but thanks to Gwyn it's found a haven,

a last refuge, if you like, in one of Wales's most dramatic landscapes.

This is Cwm Twrch,

a fabulous valley below the Black Mountain in south-west Wales,

and in the Brecon Beacons National Park.

It's land that's largely used as pasture.

But Cwm Twrch has an industrial past.

Buildings associated with an old colliery still remain.

Higher up the valley,

you eventually reach an impressive gorge,

and it's a popular site for nesting ravens during early spring.

Local bird watcher Colin Richards

has been recording birds here for many years.

Oh, there we are, Iolo, on the ledge, just there.

-Oh...

-Yeah? The droppings?

-By the top there.

-That's it.

-Oh, it's a nice nest.

Oh, there we are, you can see them now, there's at least three.

Two, three...

-Yeah, it's three, is it? I can see three beaks.

-At least three, yeah.

-Do you think it's four in there or is it just the three?

-You can see them gaping.

-Yeah, it's three, isn't it, three heads now.

-Three.

It's a typical raven nest, a big pile of sticks,

with baler twine and wool in there.

They're probably three weeks old.

-Yeah.

-They'll stay in there until they're about five, five weeks.

-Yeah.

Yeah, they're quite big lumps, God, they're ugly too, aren't they?

-They are!

-I've got to be honest, I do like ravens,

but raven chicks are not the most attractive of birds.

How long has this nest been there, then, Col?

-Oh, at least 20, 25 years.

-Has it?

-At least that.

They're opening their beaks now to cool down.

Pretty warm nest, Col,

-cos it's lined with wool, isn't it?

-Full of wool.

-It's a lovely nest.

I do like ravens, and the adult birds,

-they'll probably be away getting food for them?

-Yeah.

And what I like about them, they're early nesters.

These would have been on eggs, what, late Feb?

Late February, this pair.

And, you know, we're over a thousand foot up here,

so pretty exposed, pretty cold, pretty harsh here.

But they time it so these chicks now are in the nest

at a time when they most need food,

-which is when everybody's lambing up on the hills here.

-That's right.

A lot of dead lambs, a lot of afterbirth, the odd dead ewe,

-so plenty of food for the ravens.

-Plenty of food for the ravens, yeah.

-They're like Welsh vultures, really, aren't they? They are, aren't they?

-COL CHUCKLES

One of the main uses of the uplands in Wales

is for conifer tree planting.

The trees are generally grown on land that's too poor for pasture,

and about 10% of the uplands are covered with conifer plantations.

These dark woodlands are often frowned upon by naturalists,

and thought of as barren, empty places with little value for nature,

but this is far from the truth.

They have a very rich wildlife.

Increasingly, they've become substitute habitats

for a whole range of species

that used to live in broad-leaved woodlands.

Mature conifer plantations are particularly liked by wildlife.

A jay is perfectly at home in a conifer forest.

There's plenty of food and nesting sites for it.

Conifer plantations are last refuges for red squirrels in Wales.

It's only in this habitat

that they can reasonably compete for food with the grey squirrel.

Spruce cone seeds are a particular favourite.

They can't compete at all in deciduous woodland.

All this wildlife would not be here,

were it not for commercial tree planting.

'Derek Roberts is a timber contractor,'

and he's using an extraordinary machine in a forest

lying on the slopes of the Preseli Hills in Pembrokeshire.

What will this wood go for now, what will it be used for?

You've got some thin rails here now, what will they go for?

Yeah, now if it's bent, that will go for pulp,

what it does, it goes to a... goes down to Swansea,

and goes on a boat and goes to Finland,

but all the other stuff, the log and fencing

will all go to local little mills around.

So the best wood goes local, but the worst one...

Yes, yes, they send that away. But the worst wood is pulped up for paper. Yeah, yeah.

It's just a rough length, is it, you try and get them all around the same length?

-No, they've got to be perfect.

-Oh, they have to be perfect, do they?

-Yes.

Yes - the mill, if it's too short, you know, they can't do anything with it,

so they're very strict on the lengths.

And it automatically shortens or lengthens...

It finds it all itself, yes. Fully automatic.

Does it feel like you're working your way through this forestry here,

in charge of a huge prehistoric beast?

It's like you're working a T-Rex!

-Does it make cups of tea and cakes as well?

-I've got an oven here!

-Have you?!

-Yeah, I've got a little oven there.

-Have you honestly?

I thought that was meant to be a joke!

-Where's the fridge with the cold beers?

-The fridge sits in there.

-Oh, is it?

-I haven't got my fridge.

Derek works with his cab comforts in the hill forests of Pembrokeshire.

Local bird recorders have shown that these forests have become important nesting sites

for a whole range of deciduous woodland birds, such as redstarts.

These plantations on the uplands have become important wildlife sites,

but if I were asked to choose my absolute favourite upland forest,

it would have to be Coed-y-Brenin in north Wales,

because of its size and the range of wildlife that lives in it.

You'll find nesting buzzards during the spring.

They're magnificent birds of prey.

Coed-y-Brenin also has one of the biggest fallow deer populations

in Wales, but there's something else even more remarkable.

It's an extraordinary ant which has really taken to this manmade habitat.

Wow!

This is a huge wood ants' nest.

Northern hairy wood ants, to be exact.

It's got to be, what, five metres in circumference? About a metre tall?

You can see the ants carpeting the top here.

They reckon it's probably about 100,000 ants in one nest like this.

And if you run your hand over them, they'll defend the nest.

And if you smell it then, oh! Formic acid. They'll spray that.

That's their defence.

They've got a series of tunnels in here, winding its way down,

and the nest is really carefully positioned as well,

because it's quite open this side. They do get some morning sun.

That'll heat it up, but it's also got quite a bit of shelter over it.

If you get heavy rain, then it's not too badly affected.

At the moment, it's cooled down a bit and the ants are not as active as they often are.

They're just getting some warmth off this nest. It's quite a warm nest.

Here they are, on my fingers.

Fantastic. It's like the whole nest is alive with ants.

The forest floor is full of anthills,

with tracks leading from them,

on which the ants travel to gather their food.

They bring back all sorts of material,

including beetles much bigger than themselves.

In any tour of upland Wales,

the Rhinogydd Mountains in the north west would have to be included.

Cwm Bychan is roughly four miles inland from Harlech.

It's a hotspot for wild goats.

But what makes it special for me

is the variety of small upland bird species that you'll find here.

There's a male ring ouzel singing away on a rock up there.

It is really a mountain blackbird. Its terrain is out in the uplands,

rocky uplands like this.

And the Rhinogydd are just about the best place

in the whole of Wales for them.

They're not easy to pin down. They're not easy to find.

I'm sat on the edge of a territory here

because he's singing away like... Oh, it's a beautiful song!

Everyone says, "The blackbird has got a lovely song,"

and it has, but I think the ring ouzel's song is....

Reminds me always of the wilder, rockier parts of Wales.

When you hear that, you know that you're out in the wilderness by yourself.

It's a lovely song.

During the spring,

the Rhinogydd slopes above Harlech are full with the sounds of birds.

If you venture too close to a stonechat nest, you'll soon hear this alarm call.

STONECHAT CALL

It's a female. The male is much darker.

And they'll both warn you away from their territory.

A similar-looking bird to a female stonechat is the whinchat.

And like the stonechat, a whinchat is a summer visitor from Africa.

This is a bird I was really hoping to see up here. It's not a common bird any more.

When I used to wander these hills 25-odd years ago,

practically, every little valley had them.

He'll use some of these low perches.

He'll go on gorse, some of the rocks, lower branches,

but he'll also go quite high up in the ash as well.

When they're up there, singing away, they're striking birds.

But nowhere near as confiding as some of the other birds up here,

in that they have this kind of a comfort zone.

You rarely get within 40 metres of a whinchat.

Once you get that close, poomph, off it goes.

The Rhinogydd Mountains and indeed the whole of the north-west uplands

are also special because they're full of relics from the past.

And this is the most extraordinary of all,

a monument built on Bryn Cader Faner during the Bronze Age.

Francis Lynch is an expert on prehistoric Wales.

This, I have to say, is one of the most remarkable

ancient structures I think I've ever seen in Wales.

-It looks like a crown of thorns.

-Yes.

It's a sort of sunrise monument and it's splendidly dramatic.

-But what was this then?

-Well, this is a cairn, a round cairn,

which is the traditional burial monument of the Bronze Age,

round about 2000 or so BC.

But why here? We're over 1,000ft up, it's very barren, very harsh.

Why would they have built it here?

Because they were living around here at that time. It is a period of climate change.

You've got warmer weather here, a longer growing season,

and you do see a lot of Bronze Age activity in the uplands.

Wouldn't it be wonderful to come here 2,000 years ago and see...?

Exactly what it is they were doing. They were burying here and so on.

Intelligent people. We tend to think that they were heathens, but they were intelligent people.

-They were an intelligent bunch.

-They must have been. They were Welsh!

Of course they were!

Actually, they made some quite good ones in Cornwall and Derbyshire as well.

-But they would have been Welsh there, in those days.

-Indeed. The kingdom of Elmet.

-Yes, that's right.

-Yes.

-We once ruled the world, Francis!

-It's gone downhill since then, mind.

-Yes.

The Welsh Uplands are truly magical.

They're places where you can really lose yourself in the past.

And they can even transport you to distant lands.

Whenever I come up here and look out, I always think of the African plains.

The Serengeti, with its wildebeest and its giraffes.

But of course, these are not acacia trees. They're hawthorns with a few rowan thrown in as well.

This is the edge of Ireland Moor in Radnorshire in mid Wales

and this habitat is frith.

It's kind of a mixture of a bit of bracken, a bit of gorse,

a bit of heather, scattered trees.

It's undervalued because, probably, of the fact

that there's so much bracken here, and yet, in spring and summer,

it's alive with the songs of really quite scarce birds.

The loudest song comes from a skylark,

which sings high up above the moor.

Island Moor is a man-made landscape.

It is, if you like, a lower upland zone,

which in the past has been occasionally farmed,

sometimes left wild, and more recently used for game shooting.

And this land use is ideal for ground-nesting birds like the skylark.

Here's another one. A meadow pipit.

It's an unremarkable looking bird and yet even ordinary common birds

are fascinating to watch, especially when they're looking for food.

This one's strategy is to listen...

watch...

and a quick dash when an insect appears at the surface.

There are plenty of insects for the Meadow Pipit on the Welsh uplands

and that helps make it our commonest upland bird.

These are the Epynt Mountains in mid Wales.

They're situated immediately west of Builth Wells.

It's a vest area of empty rolling hills

dotted with conifer plantations here and there.

Much of this upland has restricted access and for good reason.

It's the most important Army infantry training area in Britain.

GUNFIRE

GUNFIRE AND SHOUTING

The enemy position is that barn in the distance over there.

You see some of the guys... more of them moving up now.

All kinds of stuff here - light machine guns, heavy machine guns, they've got rocket launchers.

Incredible.

The Epynt upland is perfect for this type of exercise,

with its undulating contours, hidden gullies and sporadic woodland cover.

Colour Sergeant Stuart Benson is one of the soldiers who is overseeing the exercise.

Stand by!

So this is absolutely vital training for these boys before they go overseas for combat?

Massively, especially in the job they're going to do.

These are training to be section commanders,

so they need to know how to do all this and the procedures.

If team commander needs you...

Are you watching them and thinking, "I wouldn't have done that, I'd have done it this way."

-Or are you watching and thinking, "He's good, he's good."

-Both.

At the end of every incident, we go through a debrief, talk about the use of ground,

the rates of fire.

So, basically, assessing everything - the whole exercise,

from individual to team work to everything.

From individual skills and drills, all the way through.

All this banging's going on and shooting and everyone's organising this

and I'm thinking, "There's a skylark singing over there."

EXPLOSION

What makes the Epynt exceptional is, in fact, the Army's presence.

Because the land has restricted use for agriculture and general access,

it's perfect for wildlife.

With hardly any sheep grazing allowed on the land,

rough grassland and areas of bracken and gorse are allowed to grow,

which act as nesting and feeding sites and cover for all sorts of birds and animals.

Away from the noise of the action,

you can really tune in to the songs and calls of the birds.

BIRDSONG

Most of the Epynt here is grass moorland

but tucked away down in the valley is some really interesting little bits

and these will hark back to the time when this was all farmland.

Lovely woodland.

Mainly birch and a few hazel in there.

And they're obviously really old - they're covered in moss. They're full of holes as well.

From a bird's point of view, that is what makes them really interesting.

You look and you listen and you can hear blue tits, you can hear willow warblers,

and, every now and again, you get a heavy machine gun going away.

That really is quite disconcerting, I have to say.

The most striking bird here is the redstart

and this is a more typical habitat for it.

They can be elusive birds.

It's difficult to get a really nice, clear view of this male redstart

because he's just so busy in this wood.

He's not long back from Africa so he's torn between two things.

He wants to come up on to the tops here and sing because he hasn't got a mate yet

but also he wants to keep his territory clear.

He's willing to chase away anything and everything,

whether it's a willow warbler, robin, blue tit, great tit. It doesn't matter what it is.

So the moment he comes high up on one of these obvious perches,

I get my binoculars up and he's off, chasing another bird away.

He's into the dense undergrowth then.

A difficult bird to watch - really difficult bird to watch.

Redstarts are mainly found in the north and west of Britain,

with the greatest concentration in Wales.

They seem to love these upland areas of mid Wales.

Though their traditional nesting site is in tree holes, they'll nest pretty much in any safe hole.

I'm sure even this tank would do quite nicely.

I tell you, one bird I wasn't expecting to see out here

is a crossbill.

There's a stunning male right up on the top here now.

Beautiful red plumage. He really does stand out.

But there are others calling. There's one calling from up here.

I suspect it's probably a family group.

They have this unique beak. One mandible goes that way, one goes that way.

It's designed to get at pine cones.

They're early nesters.

Even though it's only April now, it's still quite cold, even though the sun's out.

These would have been on eggs in January.

They'll have the chicks out of the nest by the end of Feb

so they'll be together for a while.

They've stopped here for two reason. First of all, there are quite a few cones here.

Earlier on, they were down... a little bit of water here,

and because they're diet is seeds, that's incredible dry,

and they have to come down every now and again and drink water.

They'll come down, drink from here, but at the moment they're up on these tops.

He's back feeding on some seeds up there now.

He really does stand out - bright red against all that green. A cracking looking bird.

More than anything, it's the unexpected sighting that makes wildlife watching so rewarding.

Especially on the big open spaces of the rugged Welsh uplands.

All the landscapes of Wales have their little gems.

Sometimes you have to work hard to see them.

Sometimes a gentle stroll is all it takes.

But, whatever the effort,

if you look carefully, you'll find some stunning sights in Wales.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd