Episode 1 The Brecon Beacons with Iolo Williams

The beauty of the Brecon Beacons

rivals any other landscape in the whole of Britain.

While much of it may look like upland wilderness,

it's in fact land that's been tamed,

lived on and worked for thousands of years.

And the Beacons are not just mountains and open moorland.

There are spectacular waterfalls,

ancient woodlands,

reservoirs and forest,

farmland and lakes.

I'm Iolo Williams, and I've been working with wildlife,

particularly birds, all my life.

I was an RSPB warden in Wales for 15 years,

and the Beacons was on my patch.

It's an extraordinary national park,

as it's a cultural landscape shaped and influenced by people

who live, work and come here for leisure,

while at the same time,

wild areas still exist and have incredible wildlife.

I'm following the Beacons over 12 months to see

how both wildlife and human life change and adapt to the seasons,

from mountaintop to deep underground,

to every landscape in the Brecon Beacons.

The Brecon Beacons National Park is located north of Swansea

and Cardiff in South Wales. It has four distinct areas.

The Black Mountain in the west,

in the centre, Fforest Fawr and the Central Beacons,

and the Black Mountains in the east near the English border.

And that's where I'm heading first.

The Brecon Beacons is rightly famous for its mountains

and its harsh upland environment

and it doesn't get much worse than a day like this in deep midwinter.

Now, I'm on the eastern edge of the park in the Black Mountains,

heading up towards one of the peaks, Twmpa, up there

and this weather wasn't forecast,

but that's mountain weather for you - constantly changing.

I know from bitter experience

that conditions on the Brecon Beacons uplands

can be very different to the lowlands.

While the weather on Twmpa's summit is extreme,

it's a sunny day on the lowlands near Hay-on-Wye.

Most of the hills in the Black Mountains

are 600 metres or 2,000 feet above sea level.

It's a wild landscape, especially during winter.

It's this challenging upland landscape

that many of us are attracted to.

But I also like walking on the lower slopes,

in less obvious places,

where even when conditions are at their harshest,

you'll find wildlife trying to survive.

Here on this stubble field, many species of small birds,

including brambling and reed buntings,

are feeding on seeds

that have fallen from the previous year's crop.

I can spend hours watching scenes like this,

knowing full well that at some point,

a sparrowhawk will turn up to survey his prey

and pick the right time to attack.

Scenes like this are just as special to me as the high peaks.

The Beacons has so much natural beauty,

it's very easy to assume that it's always looked like this.

This wonderful woodland is on the slopes of Sugar Loaf Mountain,

near Abergavenny.

It's called St Mary's Vale,

and it's one of the oldest woods in the Brecon Beacons.

But it's not a natural wild wood.

The fantastic shapes that you see on many of the trees

are the result of people managing the woodland for timber and charcoal

to be used in the coal and steel industries of South Wales.

Look at this. The weather has changed again.

That's winter in the Brecon Beacons for you. Driving rain now.

But I wanted to come and have a closer look at this tree.

Just look at the shape of that! And this, of course,

is a tree that, over hundreds of years,

has been coppiced several times

and what that's done, it's left you with this unique shape.

This base is going to be, what, 300 years old, maybe even more

and relatively speaking, these shoots here are much younger,

maybe 100 years old.

If they were still working now,

they would come back, they would coppice here again,

it would grow again and it would be coppiced over and over.

A lot of the landscape in the southern parts of the National Park

has been shaped by old industries.

Spoil tips of old ironworks and coalmines

are still visible in many areas,

and these are gradually being reclaimed by nature.

One of the unexpected little gems in such a mountainous national park

is this - it's the Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal.

And it was built over 200 years ago now

to service the heavy industries in South Wales,

and it's left us now, of course, with this fantastic wildlife habitat

that runs all the way up the Usk Valley.

It's the only canal in the Brecon Beacons,

and a lovely place to walk.

During its heyday in the early 1800s,

150,000 tonnes of coal were transported on the canal each year

on barges towed by horses.

Today it's much more peaceful,

with only around 400 pleasure boats using the canal each year.

In the winter, the canal's wildlife is quiet,

but you'll often see passing flocks of birds looking for food.

These are long-tailed tits feeding on insects.

Other members of the tit family will form mixed flocks during the winter.

You'll get blue tits, coal tits and great tits feeding together.

But long-tailed tits tend to stay in family groups.

So these are brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts.

And if you think about it, you can look out for each other

a lot more if you're related.

Together, they'll find food and keep an eye out

for predators like sparrowhawks,

which will help them survive the winter.

There are hundreds of streams and rivers

coming down off the high tops of the Brecon Beacons,

but the biggest and the most famous is this one, the River Usk.

This is the middle section here,

it's not as narrow and not as wild as it is higher up,

and it's not as deep and not as meandering as it is further east.

And this lovely old bridge here, this is Llangynidr Bridge,

a very narrow old bridge

and this is a great spot for looking out for birds

like dippers and grey wagtails.

They love these rocks here.

'January is far too early for grey wagtails and dippers to nest.

'Goosanders, however, are already displaying and mating.

'The male will soon be leaving Wales

'to spend the spring and summer in Scandinavia,

'leaving the female to build a nest and raise her chicks on her own.

'Much of the lowland in the Usk Valley is farmland,

'and they say that there are

'3,500 miles of hedgerows in the Brecon Beacons.

'This one is being laid in a traditional way by Trefor Prothero

'and his son Gwilym at a farm near Brecon.'

-Trefor?

-Ah, hello.

-How are you?

-Nice to meet you.

-Good to see you, boy.

-What a nice job!

-Thank you.

-Cracking!

I tell you what, I've always wanted to hedge lay.

Go on, you keep going

because I know it's going to get dark before long, so you keep going.

Now, I was always told that Breconshire people

have got their own particular style of hedge laying.

Yeah, well, every county has their own style

and this is the traditional Breconshire style.

So, Montgomeryshire would have a different style,

Radnorshire would have a different style?

Yeah, Radnorshires don't use these stakes

or don't use these hetherings.

-And that's what you call what you put on top, the hazel?

-Mostly hazel.

-And that is just to hold the hedge down?

-Yes.

We put one of these through every stake.

Right, so that gets shoved in.

-Push them in behind the stake a bit.

-Oh, I see,

then you just bend it in and out the stakes, then?

-Yeah, and weave them in.

-Oh, that's nice.

-It's almost like basket weaving, isn't it?

-Yeah.

-And this is a job that you just do in the winter?

-Yes.

From sort of November until...

-Well, the end of March is the cut-off date by law now.

-Why?

Is that cos of all the birds nesting and everything else, is it?

Yes, yes, the birds nesting.

If I lived here, I'd ask you to teach me how it's done,

but I don't - I live in Montgomeryshire

and I don't want to take Breconshire style back to Montgomeryshire.

You'll have to come down!

It would confuse the locals, I think, that would, Trefor.

'Although much of the wood that Trefor puts into the hedge is dead,

'at the base he has split and bent the original hedge bushes.

'During the spring and summer, these will grow through the weave

'and create a fantastic thick hedge

'which will be a terrific place for wildlife,

'and it looks a lot better than machine-cut hedge

'or a barbed-wire fence.

'Trefor's hedge at Llanfrynach

'is on the edge of what some call the Brecon Beacons proper,

'the Central Beacons, and the highest peak, Pen y Fan.

'The north-facing slopes are steep,

'having been carved out by glaciers during the Ice Age.

'The lower slopes on the south side, however, are far gentler.

'On a snowy winter's day, they are mostly hidden by low cloud.

'Few venture up the peaks in this weather - not even a fox.

'There is more to find lower down.'

It's not every day you get into a staring match with a fox.

I've been watching a fox walking along the edge of the stream here.

I think it's a dog, it's quite a big fox in really good condition.

It's got a winter coat and a big, big bushy tail.

Obviously looking for food.

And every now and again, it has stopped and it has looked at me,

it has looked into my eyes.

It obviously knows that I'm here and he is sat over there

and then he has gone up a little bit now

and this is actually a reservoir.

You wouldn't believe it now, but it's the Upper Neuadd Reservoir

and it has been drained for maintenance work along the dam here

and usually the view from here -

bear in mind we are 1,500 feet up - is quite spectacular,

looking up towards Pen y Fan and the high tops, but the cloud is down.

It's not the best of days for the view,

but it's a brilliant day for watching a fox walking in the snow.

'I've noticed that snowy, wintry weather often draws out

'usually secretive animals into the open.

'The fact is, he's hungry and has to find food

'and he knows there's a lot of worms and grubs

'in the soft mud of the old reservoir bottom.'

The Brecon Beacons National Park has 18 reservoirs.

They were built around 100 years ago to supply drinking water

for the growing towns and cities of industrial South Wales.

And they are still a vital water supply

for hundreds of thousands of people.

I've come over to the Taf Valley now,

or the Taff as it's often called,

and here you've got a succession of three reservoirs,

all of them providing water to Cardiff.

This is Llwyn Onn Reservoir, and on the far side over there,

you've got the main north-south route, the A470,

that really bisects the park itself.

'When it's full, Llwyn Onn holds 650 million gallons of water

'and with the rain that falls in the Beacons,

'I'd imagine it's full pretty much most of the time.'

Winter's a good time to see water birds on reservoirs,

as it's one of the few places during this time of year

where there's plenty of food for them.

You can tell there's plenty of fish in this reservoir

because there's lots of fish-eating birds here.

Way out on the water over there is a male goosander,

but far more interesting is this tree, this old larch here,

right by the water's edge, because it is full of cormorants.

I think there are seven or eight in there at the moment

and it's the ideal spot for them

because you've got three reservoirs here in all,

all of them full of fish,

so the cormorants can plop into the water,

catch a fish and then they can perch

up on this tree here, dry their feathers.

Once they get hungry again,

all they've got to do is pop back down into the water.

'Many think of cormorants as sea birds,

'but while you do see them along the coast,

'they are just as happy inland, on lakes, reservoirs and rivers.

'I guess anywhere where there is plenty of fish.'

Above the cormorants and the reservoir,

there's a conifer plantation,

and a part of it has been cut during the past few years.

There are lots of conifer plantations within the park

and a lot of it, actually, is planted

in association with these reservoirs.

And this was a mature plantation here, too.

What they do is, they'll plant them

and then they will cut them down after about 40 years

and that wood will be taken off to be used

and then you are left with fairly bare, open areas

with a few old trees standing

and this is the perfect location then

for a really, really rare bird -

only maybe eight or ten birds come to Wales every year

and they come in the winter.

The bird likes these open places because it's a predator,

and it needs good views of potential prey.

And here it is. It's a great grey shrike.

Now, it may look like a small, timid bird,

but don't be fooled by its appearance.

This is a ruthless hunter.

This is the tree that the bird was on earlier,

and what it's doing is, it's using that as kind of a lookout post.

It's got several of them here,

but this one appears to be its favoured one.

And it's looking down for prey, and at this time of year,

prey for it would be probably mice and voles

and a time when there's plenty of food, what it'll do is,

it'll find a hawthorn bush or a barbed-wire fence,

and it'll put mice and voles and large insects on the spines

and keep them there for when he's hungry and he can't find food.

And that's the reason why

another name for this is the butcher bird.

This one has caught a bird.

It may well be a robin. It's the commonest bird here.

After storing its catch in its secret larder,

it returns to clean itself.

You can just about see its hooked beak,

which it uses to tear up its prey.

And he's not the only bird that's using tree stumps.

A great spotted woodpecker

is looking for insects in the dead wood.

As you head west from the Central Beacons,

you enter the Fforest Fawr area.

Fforest Fawr is Welsh for "great forest"

and it was once a royal hunting ground.

In the Middle Ages, a forest was a place set aside for hunting -

it didn't necessarily describe a large woodland.

Although the original deer stock died out

more than two centuries ago,

deer have returned to the park during the past 30 years.

(I'm watching a group of red deer just up on the bank,

(under the trees over there.)

And these come from a local farmer

who was keeping deer and they escaped -

a handful of deer escaped in the 1980s,

and some people say that other deer, including a stag,

escaped from Margam Park near Port Talbot,

worked their way up the Neath Valley, which is all the way...

would be maybe the best part of 15-odd miles, 20 miles maybe,

and joined this herd here.

'No-one is quite sure of the number of red deer

'in the Brecon Beacons National Park,

'but experts reckon this is the only wild red-deer herd

'in the whole of mainland Wales.

The hinds usually live separate from the males

outside the autumn rut season.

It's now the middle of January,

and a stag has joined the herd.

Maybe because of the conditions,

he's come to look for plants to eat in the same cover, nearer woodland,

where the snow is likely to thaw first.

'In the south part of Fforest Fawr,

'the landscape changes from open moorland to deep gorges

'cut by fast-flowing rivers and wonderful waterfalls.

I've been to all of them and they are all stunning in full flow.

'There is Sgwd Clun-Gwyn on the River Mellte.

'Its Welsh name is said to mean "fall of the white meadow"...

'..but I have a feeling it may well be a case of lost in translation,

'as I suspect the word "gwyn" - Welsh for "white" -

'refers to the white water.

'Like many of the falls in the area,

it's surrounded by fabulous ancient woodland.

'Sgwd yr Eira on the River Hepste, a tributary of the Mellte,

'also hints at white water.

'The name "Eira" is the Welsh word for "snow",

'so it's "the falls of snow".

This area is aptly named Waterfall Country

because, within an hour of me here,

there are more than 20 individual waterfalls

and this one, Henrhyd Falls, is certainly the most impressive

and the tallest, too,

and at 90 feet - that's 27 metres tall -

it's the highest waterfall in southern Britain.

And on a day like this, following a night of heavy rain,

it's at its most magnificent.

At the top of the waterfall is a thin layer of very hard rock,

and that's called the farewell rock,

a name given to it by the local coal miners

because when they were digging deep underground,

if they hit this layer of sandstone rock,

they knew that they could wave farewell to finding any coal.

The rivers in waterfall country cut through deep gorges

and form wonderful wet landscapes.

They're the Beacons' equivalent of a rainforest.

Oh, wow. Come and have a look at this tree. Look at this.

It's absolutely festooned in mosses

and there are lichens and ferns,

probably liverworts here as well,

and that's one of the wonders of these gorges,

is that they are so wet. It's incredibly humid here,

because of the waterfalls,

because of the cascading water as well.

There's constantly so much water in the air,

it's the ideal growing area for these mosses.

On this tree in particular, it's everywhere -

not just on the trunk, covering the branches as well,

and of course, added to that is the fact that

the industries have all closed down. The coal mines have all gone now,

so the air is very, very clean,

and that provides the perfect habitat

for all of these lower plants.

Many of the high peaks of the Brecon Beacons

have an iconic flat-top appearance.

It gives the Beacons their unique identity.

They look like this because they're made of very hard sandstone,

which is resistant to weathering

compared to the softer stones on the surrounding slopes.

In the southern part of the Beacons,

the prevalent rock changes to limestone,

and because of the stone's solubility in water,

it forms caves underground.

These are some of the most impressive caves in Europe.

I've descended into this one with cave guide Anna Stickland.

It's below the uplands of the Upper Swansea Valley

and has around 50 miles of passages,

rising and falling to depths of 300 metres.

It's called Ogof Ffynnon Ddu.

-Anna, what an amazing place underground!

-It is,

it's really beautiful and so varied, as well,

and often I'll take little kids caving

and they'll be quite nervous about being underground,

think it's going to be tight

or just kind of a muddy hole is often the impression people have

and they don't realise how varied it is and how beautiful it is.

And Ogof Ffynnon Ddu here, this is a huge cave system.

It is, yeah, we've only seen a tiny, tiny part of it,

but, yeah, it's a big system. It's also a very deep system

because at the moment we are quite low down,

near where the water comes out into the river,

but you can follow it all the way through

and you can come out on top of the mountains,

so as well as being lots of passage, it's also quite a height change.

And I always think of caves as something...

things that were formed millions of years ago,

because it is still going on all the time now.

Yeah, it is, it's a continual process and so, yeah,

originally it was formed millions of years ago

and just through tiny gaps and cracks in the rock,

so where you've got the bedding planes

and you've got the fault lines.

And so water can get into the tiny cracks

and gradually it will get bigger and bigger,

initially through a sort of corrosive action

and then once the water can start to flow,

you'll get erosion going on

and it gets bigger and bigger and bigger.

There are literally hundreds of caves in the Beacons

and while some of them are open to the public and easy to explore,

most are only accessible to hardened cavers.

And in these hidden chambers,

there are stunning sights deep underground.

West of Fforest Fawr, in the Black Mountain area,

lie the Carmarthen Fans.

Many of the mountains in the Brecon Beacons are called fans.

It's simply the Welsh word for a beacon

and the name Beacons dates back

to a time when people would light fires on visible peaks

to warn of attacks from invaders.

'I'm with National Park warden Judith Harvey,

'who lives just below these magnificent peaks.

'She's taking me to one of the finest views in the Beacons.'

Judith, what a place! What a place!

And we've got Llyn y Fan Fach below us, and Fan Foel.

Now, that is the highest mountain in Carmarthenshire.

That's right, yes.

Yes, because we've come over the border now, into Carmarthenshire.

Looking at it this way, as well, it is stunning.

I love these rolling hills here.

Yes, and then down in the valley,

all the patchwork of farmland and hedges and trees.

And all these houses and smallholdings, you know,

-you can only see from up on high like this.

-Absolutely, yeah.

We often think about national parks worldwide as places empty of people,

you know, places there for the landscape, for the wildlife,

but, of course, Brecon Beacons is very different, isn't it?

It is very different in that the park authority

owns a lot of the land, we own the land that we are standing on here,

which is very unusual for a British National Park,

but, obviously, people, farmers, have got interests up here.

This is common land, so farmers have got the right to graze sheep

and, in some cases, cattle and even geese up here,

though we never see geese on the hill these days!

And then there's the pressure from walkers and tourism.

You know, we've walked a path that has been made by the National Park

to try and limit the pressure of erosion, so it's a balancing act.

We've got to try and accommodate all sorts of pressures

within this very, very precious landscape.

-Somebody once told me that this is the roof of South Wales.

-Yes.

And it is right because from here

you can see virtually everywhere in South Wales.

'It's one of my favourite sights in the Beacons.

'It's a place where you can be totally alone.

'As Judith said, the National Park's character

'comes as much from the people who live and work in the Beacons

'as the natural forces that shaped it,

'and on the slopes of Mynydd Myddfai near Llandovery,

'Kate Mobbs-Morgan is one of the many people

'who make it such a special place.'

Walk on a little bit.

And again.

Back, love.

Good boy.

Back, love.

-Kate? Hiya.

-Hi.

I've got to tell you, you've made an old man very happy.

Watching you at work here took me back to when I was a little lad,

when they still used horses in woodlands in mid Wales,

-but this must be unique in the park now, is it?

-It is unusual.

I would say maybe two people working horses in forestry

-in this locality, yes.

-But it's lovely to watch

and I love the way that you work WITH the horse,

talking all the time, the horse listening all the time, as well.

He is listening. Sometimes he blurs out the white noise in between,

but he is listening for his commands all the time.

And it's the WAY that you talk, as well, it's as if it isn't a horse,

it's a mate working with you in the woods.

We work together all the time,

so it is like having a friend working with me, so yeah.

What is the horse? What breed is he?

He's an Ardennes. They come from France and Belgium.

He was homebred in the UK, but they are a French horse, really.

-He's a lovely, lovely horse.

-Thank you.

-And incredibly strong.

-Yes.

What's the advantage, then? Why use a horse? Why not get tractors in?

On sites like this, we can come into the steep sites,

we don't need big tracks cut into the woodlands,

we can just work between the trees.

So something like this, where you are selective thinning,

just taking out a few trees, we can just work

within the environment without causing any damage.

And again, working on the steep sites

where it's difficult to get in with machinery,

it is just as quick to use a horse.

As winter draws to an end -

and in the Beacons, that could be late April -

much of the landscape work stops.

It's a time when wildlife wakes up.

A time when birds need to nest.

And a time for plants to be left alone to grow.

I'm in Pwll-y-Wrach wood.

It's a wonderful ancient woodland in the eastern

part of the Brecon Beacons not far from Hay-on-Wye.

As the tree leaves haven't fully emerged yet,

light can penetrate to the woodland floor

and ground plants are at their best.

Herb paris is a particular speciality of this kind of woodland.

It was used in medieval times to guard against witches,

which seems appropriate

as Pwll-y-Wrach is Welsh for witches' pool.

It's thought that the name Pwll-y-Wrach

comes from the old practice of dunking witches in pools.

Its use today is far more benign.

There's a pair of grey wagtails just underneath me here

and they've both got a beak full of insects.

And this is typical of grey-wagtail country.

You've got the falls, Pwll-y-Wrach here.

Lots of water, high walls with lots of little holes where they can nest,

and all this rushing water means lots of insects, which they feed on.

They're quite comical, actually,

because they're walking slowly across the stream here towards me

and I'm pretty sure that the nest is

tucked into the bank just below me here.

Pwll-y-Wrach is in the Black Mountains area of the Beacons.

The mountains are a series of broad ridges

running north-south in the eastern part of the National Park.

Between the summits, there are valleys which were gouged out

by melting glaciers at the end of the last ice age,

resulting in very steep slopes and a precarious landscape.

An odd looking church. It's St Martin's Church in Cwmyoy.

And when I walked in, I couldn't quite make it all out,

but if you look at it carefully,

you see that the tower is leaning towards me.

There's an arched back to the main roof,

the walls are not quite square

but there's a good reason for all of this

cos it stands on a site that, over hundreds of years, has seen

a succession of landslips and that includes one major incident

that split the mountain behind us here.

St Martin's Church at Cwmyoy

has been called the most crooked church in Britain and it's

one of many stunning historical sites in the Brecon Beacons.

It ended up like this

because it was built by medieval builders on an ancient landslip.

A crack in the hill above the church is clear from above.

The old red sandstone summit,

a rock characteristic of the Beacons,

fell apart thousands of years before the church was built

but, unbeknown to the builders,

the surrounding land was still unstable.

Like the rest of Britain, the ice age has left its mark

on much of the landscape in the Beacons

and helped to create some beautiful scenery.

Llangorse, the largest natural lake in South Wales,

was also formed by a glacier.

Given the right conditions, a spring dawn is truly magical.

Birds come to feed and breed around the lake.

At this time of year, they're in peak condition

and in their finest feathers.

Llangorse also has more secretive wildlife,

particularly in the ditches leading to the lake.

This is one of the best places in the Beacons for water voles.

They were reintroduced here during the past five years

and Cardiff University student Sophie-lee Lane

has been monitoring them to establish how well they're doing.

But they're quite difficult to see.

I'm going to use an old trick to try and lure one out.

An apple. Few plant-eating animals can resist its sweet taste.

Something moving there.

That might be just bubbles. They've got a hole up on the bank...

and they've got a hole right down just down at water level.

Those will be connected, will they?

Yeah, they should be connected.

They'll have a number of holes connected into different

escape routes.

They're all connected into one colony.

And what will they be eating? All the vegetation you see?

They kind of are quite selective.

They tend to eat sedge, erm, reeds,

which then allows a lot more vegetation

richness in the area, so they tend to be ecosystem engineers.

So then they kind of modify their habitat, so they increase...

-The variety.

-..the variety of the plants and wildlife.

That's pretty good, that's excellent.

You can hear, like, chomping.

That's moving.

-That's a water vole coming out, is it?

-I don't know whether...

I can see it, yeah. I can see it.

-Where can you see it?

-In the grass there.

-Yeah.

-These are proving pretty elusive - aren't they? - today.

-Yes.

I reckon I put the wrong apples out.

The wrong brand of apple, I think.

Listen, we've been here long enough.

I reckon we leave the apples and just let the voles get on with it.

-What do you think?

-Yeah, sounds good.

-Come on.

You watch, once we've gone, they'll eat everything.

We left the cameraman on his own.

We were probably too noisy and, sure enough, after a while, one appeared.

They just couldn't resist the smell of fruit.

Before reintroduction,

water voles were believed to be extinct in the park and this

is probably the only sustainable population in the Beacons.

Let's hope they recover and extend their range.

I'm back on the Usk, the main river in the Brecon Beacons.

This time, I'm on a section is near Crickhowell.

The Usk is rated as one of the finest fly-fishing rivers

in Britain for brown trout.

It's mid-April, and early in the season.

It's the best time to fish by day,

as the water levels are high and flies are emerging.

Justin Connolly is a professional angling instructor

who lives in the Beacons.

Hello there. Keep fishing, keep fishing.

I'll just sit down here, if that's all right. You carry on.

-Have you had any luck so far?

-No, not yet. A few fish rising.

Fishing for what now? Trout?

-Wild brown trout.

-And what's the technique?

Do you try and drop the fly right on him or up above him?

No, I want it slightly upstream just

so it looks like a natural insect coming down in front of the fish.

And if I cast right on top of him, it's going to spook him a bit.

And then if he takes a bite, do you then strike?

Yeah, just lift into the fish.

Do you then take notice of what insects are around at particular

-times of the year?

-Absolutely.

Through the year you get different hatches of flies and insects

and the trout will switch on to that particular hatch.

So we need to try and imitate what's coming up through the water,

which is the natural food for the fish.

By a hatch, what you mean is a lot of insects will all hatch out,

roughly at the same time, do they?

Yeah, I mean, early morning, the hatches are going to be quite

sporadic and ones and twos coming off.

As the day goes on and the temperature rises,

we get a larger hatch of insects and flies then.

Hopefully the fish will switch on but...

And sometimes I have seen it where you get literally

millions of, say, mayfly or whatever all hatching out at the same time.

-Clouds and clouds of insects.

-That's a lovely thing to see.

-It is.

On the Usk now, is fishing as good as it was 20, 30 years ago?

A lot of the fish have been taken out in the last 20 years.

It is very good fishing but I think we need to be realistic

and sort of look after our fish stocks at the moment.

If you look at some of the statistics,

it gives you cause for concern, I think.

So, for you, it's all about the sort of pitting your wits

against the fish, catching it and then putting it back.

Exactly. If I want a fish for the table, I'll go fish a stock fishery.

I think the wild fish are too precious

and important to be taken out of the river, to be honest.

The best known parts of the Brecon Beacons National Park

are incredibly busy and it doesn't matter what time you go there,

there are always lots of people

but you've got a few parts that are tucked out of the way that

very few people know about and many of those are old industrial sites.

Most of these old industrial sites are in the southern fringes

of the National Park where, historically, the rustic North

gave way to industrial South Wales.

This old quarry is in the Central Beacons

and there are many like it throughout the National Park.

In many of these sites, you'll find special

and protected wildlife during the spring, which is

why I can't disclose the exact location of this quarry.

This is a little ringed plover and, naturally,

it nests on river shingle.

It's quite surprising, really, to find

a pair of little ringed plover here in a quarry high up

in the Brecon Beacons but, when you think about it

and look around you, everything the birds need is here.

They have gravel,

where they lay their well-camouflaged eggs,

they have grassy banks, where they can go and feed on invertebrates,

they have shallow pools where, later on,

they'll take their chicks to feed on the insects.

So, to us, this might look like the surface of the moon

but to a pair of little ringed plover, this is home.

Another special bird has also taken up residence in the quarry.

It's making use of the quarry cliffs for nesting.

There's a very confiding female peregrine falcon

sat on a nest less than 100 metres away from me here

and they've chosen the old nest of a raven.

These old quarries are great places for peregrines to nest.

I remember as a young lad growing up, these were very,

very rare birds and they're not common now

and there's something really special, I think,

about peregrine falcons and to be able to lie here

and share five minutes with a bird like that, it's a real privilege.

In Wales, the Brecon Beacons are a stronghold for them,

with more than 40 pairs nesting here.

But they're nevertheless scarce breeders

that are mainly confined to these former industrial sites.

They're particularly sensitive at the nest site.

Therefore, we're getting these shots at distance with a very long lens.

Although she's relaxed, she has one of the best eyes on the planet

and knows we're here, so we won't be staying long.

I'm walking on one of the most popular routes

in the Central Beacons.

It's the path above a cwm called Craig Cerrig-Gleisiad,

and it has fantastic views of the mid-Wales lowlands and,

across the valley, Corn Du and Pen y Fan,

the highest peaks in southern Britain.

In the spring, Craig Cerrig-Gleisiad

is an important nesting location for birds.

A regular visitor to this site

is Breconshire bird recorder Andy King.

-Andy. What a setting, eh? What a setting.

-Fantastic, yes, yes.

Are you scanning for anything in particular?

So much of interest here now in early summer.

You know, you've got the summer migrants coming in and some of

the more established birds like the peregrine falcon

and things like that.

Andy, you're the Breconshire County bird recorder. What does that mean?

Every county across the UK has a county bird recorder

and it's really their role

to keep tabs on which species are doing well,

which are in decline, as well as rarities

that might get blown in from North America

or come across from Europe.

Andy, together with an army of volunteer bird-watchers,

gathers information on the birds in the Beacons.

No matter where you go in the uplands,

-there's always ravens, aren't there?

-There always are, yes.

Cronking away.

He's taking me to a good spot for breeding birds on the upper slopes.

Apparently, around 80 different bird species either visit or breed on

Craig Cerrig-Gleisiad.

Wheatears - and this is a fabulous male -

breed pretty much everywhere in the uplands.

But the speciality here is the ring ouzel -

a summer migrant from North Africa.

-Good spot for them?

-Yeah, well, the crags and the breeding sites

are away to our right on the national nature reserve,

but this is common land here, quite tightly grazed,

and in the first month or so when the ring ouzels arrive

in late March, fantastic supply of earthworms...

Let's face it, the ring ouzel is basically a mountain blackbird,

so it feeds very much the same as a garden blackbird.

To put in perspective the importance of this site for this special bird,

only around 12 pairs of ring ouzel breed in the entire National Park,

and most of them nest here in Craig Cerrig-Gleisiad.

By late spring, the woodlands of waterfall country have turned green,

and the deep gorges and waterfalls are beginning to disappear

in the rich plant growth.

There's something very hypnotic, I always think,

about water like this, and the power of water.

This is the River Mellte,

and it's hard to believe standing here now,

but 100 years ago, this was the site of a big gunpowder factory.

The old buildings are still visible,

before they become completely hidden by the spring plant growth.

Judith Morris' grandfather, her great-grandfather

and her great-great-grandfather all worked at the gunpowder works

and she still lives in the valley.

How big was this at its height, then?

Well, it employed around 65 workers.

It had 70 buildings producing gunpowder for civil engineering,

for mining, for quarries all over the world.

-It was an absolute hive of activity.

-Why here?

Because it's a lovely looking valley, it's quiet.

Well, this is a really secluded spot

but that really was one of the reasons it was chosen.

The seclusion meant nobody would come into this area.

-In case there was an accident, of course.

-Yes, yes.

Also, the River Mellte serviced this area

and it was a very strong river, and also the woods,

they used the trees for charcoal,

so it was an ideal valley for the gunpowder works.

-It's fascinating, isn't it?

-It is.

We're right on the edge of the Brecon Beacons,

a quiet, lovely wooded valley with a beautiful river

flowing through it and there's all this amazing history here too.

With a hidden secret.

There are many reminders of the Beacons'

cultural past in the landscape and,

while today there are stunning scenic locations

virtually everywhere in the National Park,

it's a landscape that's been used, fashioned and refashioned by people

and this has been going on for thousands of years.

That is an impressive rock. Look at the size of that.

This is Maen Llia and it's one of 30 standing stones in this area.

This one is by far the most impressive one.

What's interesting is that it's made of a rock called calcrete,

which isn't found in this area, so they think that it was carried

here by the ice age some 20,000 years ago

but it was actually raised 4,000 years ago by our forefathers.

And when you consider that they say

that a third to a quarter of it is underground,

that gives you some impression of the size of this thing.

It's absolutely huge. Why is it here?

Well, we're not quite sure.

Is it to mark a route? Is it a boundary?

Has it got religious connotations? Nobody really knows.

It's clearly a visible landmark on a pass between hills,

so it could conceivably mark an important route.

And there are many known ancient routes in the Beacons.

They say it's spring but, up here, it is cold.

It's really cold and this is an old Roman road. Trecastle,

the village of Trecastle, is about two miles behind me.

I've got Usk Reservoir down below me over there.

2,000 years ago when the Romans were here,

this must have been quite a busy place with the legionnaires

marching back and forth and the best thing for me

is that every step of the way, I've heard skylarks.

Not just one or two skylarks but a choir of skylarks.

SKYLARKS CHIRP

These males are singing for territory.

They're trying to attract females and, when they've paired up,

they'll breed and nest on the ground.

It's a lovely spring sound.

Moorland locations like this attract many species of ground-nesting

birds and they'll breed here from April right through till midsummer.

I've got a nice patch here.

You've got the rough grassland, you've got the rushes

but you've got a little bit of gorse as well and on the gorse here,

a male stonechat has been sitting up for a while.

And near our territory, the female will be nearby somewhere.

Probably the nest will be in one of these gorse clumps

and he's a really smart bird.

He's got this sort of very dark head and a white collar

and they'll always sit up somewhere prominent and if you go

anywhere near the nest, they'll "chack, chack, chack" away to you.

They'll tell you, "Listen, keep away here now."

And this is typical meadow pipit habitat.

There's lots of meadow pipits up here.

They're a really important part of the food chain

because all the birds of prey will be eating it.

You have sparrows passing through, the merlins, peregrines as well.

And talking of birds of prey, there's quite a few of those around.

There's a buzzard, a whitish buzzard,

perched up on a tree down there.

He's probably keeping an eye open for mice and voles.

Again, you'll have lots of mice and voles in an area like this.

And there's been a kite hanging around too,

floating around using the wind.

And that kite may be looking for mice and voles

but, up here, probably looking for carrion.

Because it's so hostile in the winter

and the end of the winter into spring, typically you'd have

lots of dead sheep, dead lambs,

so there's plenty of food up here for them.

I always like looking for wildlife in the uplands during spring.

You may have to walk for miles,

but you quite often find something special.

This is Fan Llia Ridge,

one of the most spectacular paths in the Beacons.

It's the longest of its type in Britain

and leads you out of Fforest Fawr

to Carmarthenshire and the Black Mountain area.

This particular summit, right at the heart of the Black Mountain,

is called Garreg Lwyd.

It probably gets its Welsh name

from the grey stones littering the summit.

And it's an important resting area

for migrating birds during the spring.

This is one of those really lucky occasions where you're in

the right place at the right time.

There's a small flock of dotterel. They call them a trip,

a small trip of dotterel. I'm not quite sure, maybe...

I've seen nine birds, there might be one or two more.

For me, that's a rare occurrence.

The first time I've seen dotterel in Wales for probably about

seven or eight years. This is a brilliant find.

And these shoulders, these high tops here,

are a regular passage place for these birds.

They're birds that winter down in Morocco

and probably these will breed up in the Highlands of Scotland

and these ridges, they pass through most years.

It's the first time I've stumbled across them here

and they're cracking birds, they're absolutely stunning.

If you look at them, some are more colourful than others and you

would bet money that the colourful ones are the males, but they're not.

They're the females.

Because when they get onto their breeding grounds,

the female will mate with a male, she lays the eggs, but then

she abandons it, she leaves the eggs and the chicks for the male to rear.

She moves on, she mates with another male, lays some more eggs

and moves on again.

That's why she's the one who's colourful

and he's the one who's quite drab cos he's the one who's going

to have to sit on the floor incubating those eggs.

The dotterel will also call in on the Beacons

on their return journey to Africa during early autumn,

but at that time, the females will not be as colourful,

with the breeding season completed for another year.

There are more than 5,000km of stone walls in the Brecon Beacons.

This particular one is right on the western boundary

of the National Park.

Stuart Fry has been building and repairing walls for 22 years.

It's such hard and laborious work that he builds, on average,

one kilometre of wall per year.

It's not the best of days to be out on the hill by yourself.

-Good Lord, no, it's not, is it?

-How are you? Good to see you.

-How are you?

-Good to see you. You carry on working. Go on.

-So what's happened here? You've got a bit of a...

-A collapse.

-..a break in the wall or a collapse.

-Yeah, the wall's collapsed.

How old is this wall, then? Do we know?

Yes, we do know, funnily enough,

because there was an enclosure act for the whole of this hill in 1812.

It's classically... The earliest is going to be mid-1700s, you can

tell that by the way it's built.

I don't say it's not built well, cos that's a bit unkind to the...

It's been here for, what? Nearly 300 years.

But it's got characteristics that tell me it wasn't built by...

Craftsmen.

Well, I wouldn't say they weren't craftsmen,

they were being paid for what they put up.

-It was a fast job?

-Fast job. Get it up as quick as they could.

If you see a collapsed wall, look in the middle.

The middle is called the hearting.

It's the heart of the wall and if that fails...

And the way it fails is it's not packed tightly enough

when the wall is put up and it'll sink, it'll rattle down

to the middle, so that the two sides are not supported.

And the fundamental of dry-stone walling,

it's why people's garden walls always fall down, if you think of...

There's a good example here now of why this has fallen.

If you look at that stone...

that is laid in exactly the same way as you'd lay a brick or

a concrete block.

That's not the way to do dry-stone walling.

If you look at this stone, the depth,

the length of the stone is into the wall.

It's zippering into the wall and that's the way to do it.

But, of course, you've only covered that much face

whereas, by putting it that way, you've covered that much face.

So if you want to build it quickly, throw it up like that.

And that's why these walls fail.

Stuart's walls will probably last another 300 years and, who knows?

Someone might be here then to read his stones for an insight

into the Brecon Beacons and its people of today.

Many have lived and worked in the remotest parts of the Beacons

for thousands of years.

Even the bleakest upland has been much more densely

settled in the past.

These walls were built by a Celtic tribe

2,500 years ago.

Do you know, the Brecon Beacons National Park

has got so much to offer, an incredible amount.

You've got the landscape, you've got the wildlife,

you've got peace and solitude when you want it,

and you've got a lot of history, too.

And this is one of the Park's many hidden gems.

It's Garn Fawr, it's an Iron Age hill fort.

Inside this, and this is huge, you could fit five,

six rugby pitches in here, maybe even more.

There would have been a whole village,

if not a town, in here and the views over the Towy Valley

looking towards Llandovery that way, Llandeilo the other way.

I've been lucky because this spring I've had the park pretty much

to myself, but all of that is going to change now

when I come back in the summer.

The summer is the peak time for visitors in the National Park.

It's also a time when fox cubs come out to play,

hundreds of dragonflies emerge from pools,

and lizards bathe in the sun.

I'll then go on to finish my journey during autumn,

and the stunning colours of the fall.

Thousands of birds arrive from Europe

to escape the colder winter of the continent.

It's also the best time to pick mushrooms

and see trout head upstream to spawn.