Valleys episode 1
Iolo's Valleys episode 1
Category
🐳
AnimalsTranscript
00:00The South Wales Valleys, one of Wales's most iconic regions.
00:12Most people associate it with coal mines, pollution and a scarred environment.
00:21Now with heavy industry mostly gone and replaced by a greener landscape, nature is making a
00:28comeback.
00:31Despite it being the most populated part of Wales, the people who live here are never
00:36far from remarkable wildlife and breathtaking scenery.
00:43So I'm heading to the Valleys to discover the extraordinary wildlife that's reclaiming
00:48the old coalfields.
01:03The South Wales Valleys cover a vast area.
01:07Each of them have their unique character and history.
01:11Some have tightly packed communities nestled below hillsides.
01:16Others are wider, with busy roads through them, but they all have very special wildlife.
01:22The valleys north of Swansea are where I'm exploring first.
01:31During the last two centuries, Swansea Valley was dominated by heavy industry, resulting
01:37in the Toway River and many of its tributaries getting severely polluted.
01:47It's taken some of the smallest streams decades to recover, and I've come to visit one of
01:53them.
01:56This is Pontardawe, one of the hundreds of towns that grew up around the South Wales
02:01industries, especially coal mining, but I'm leaving urbanisation behind and I'm heading
02:07up Cwmdy Glen local nature reserve and following the Upper Cloddach River.
02:14It's a fantastic little place.
02:23This small urban gorge has fast-flowing water and several cascades, which make it a prime
02:29spot to look for a bird that's associated with a healthy river.
02:40Dippers just gone past me up here now.
02:42Careful, watch your feet.
02:44It's not one, it's two dippers.
02:50They've just gone on up, they've gone on up, we'll follow them up, see what's going on
02:55further upstream now.
03:00Dippers mostly eat insect nymphs or larvae found underwater, and as it's the breeding
03:05season I'd expect them to be busy collecting food for their chicks, but these two definitely
03:11aren't.
03:12Dipper's here now, on the fall and a bit of ash over here, it's bobbing up and down.
03:22I think what's happening is that the femur's been incubating, this is her, she's come off
03:26the nest, she's gone off to feed, she's come back, she's just getting ready to go back
03:33into the nest now.
03:35We'll see when she goes, we'll be able to find exactly where the nest is then as well.
03:39Oh, there she goes, there she goes, she's just gone in, she's just gone in.
03:44I can see the nest as well, oh what a cool nest.
03:48Not only is it under the overhang there, turn to speak and look back and just caught
03:53her going in, so what she's done, she's gone off to feed, she's incubating, I'm pretty
03:58sure she's incubating, there's no manic feeding or anything like that, so they haven't got
04:03chicks.
04:04Nobody knows why dippers bob up and down, and I like the fact that there's still a bit
04:09of mystery to them.
04:11One of the remarkable things I think for me about all of this is, this river right, three
04:17and a half miles upstream of where I am now, was the Abernant Colliery, now it was opened
04:23in the 1950s, and in the 1970s it employed 900 men, it was very, very busy, and at that
04:33time this river used to flow black, it was dead, there was nothing in it at all.
04:41The mine didn't close until the 1980s, now since then the river's improved no end, and
04:47if you've got dippers it means you've got a good river, a clean river, because the dippers
04:53need invertebrates, they need things like stonefly larvae, mayfly larvae, caddisfly
04:58larvae, and they will only live in a clean river.
05:12The hills between the Amman and the Tawai Valley are scattered with reminders that ancient
05:17settlers once called this area home, including Penllir Castell, a mot and bailey castle ruined
05:24from the 13th century.
05:27I'm heading to a smaller site nearby, Carn Llechart, that dates back even further.
05:34I'm bringing you now to a hidden little archaeological gem that not many people know about, on the
05:43hills between Pontardawe and Glan Amman, and this is it, it's a bronze age ring cairn called
05:52Carn Llechart.
05:54Come inside and have a look at this, see the ring, well it's called a ring cairn can't
06:01you there, and then in the middle is what they think was a little burial keist, a little
06:07burial chamber if you like, but I like coming up here, it's tucked out of the way and it
06:15blends into the landscape and it dates back to what, the bronze age, that makes it what,
06:19between roughly 3,000 and 5,000 years ago, and it shows that people had colonised this
06:28part of South Wales long before the industrial revolution, it's just such a peaceful place
06:34as well, a few birds, reed buntings I can hear, skylarks, meadow pippets, and I love
06:41the way that it sits here, unlike really some of the modern structures we've got, you've
06:47got the wind farm there, in the other direction there's another wind farm, they sit up really
06:53obvious, and I've got a connection with this area as well because just over the hill there
06:59I've got my Tadci, my Mamgi, my Grandad, my Grandmother, an Auntie, they're all buried
07:05there and my Dad grew up over there as well.
07:14Some of the ruins of heavy industry still stand today.
07:17The impressive remains of Ynys Cedwyn Ironworks at the head of the Swansea Valley gives a
07:23sense of how busy these rural areas were back in the day.
07:28The nearby village of Ystrad Gynlais was once a hub for coal production in the early 20th
07:33century, with different infrastructure and waste tips along its fringes.
07:40Little evidence remains of this today, but I'm meeting local resident Geraint Roberts
07:45who grew up next to one of these former sites which has now become a park.
07:51You wouldn't think that all of this land would have been under the same land, would you?
07:56No, it's incredible.
07:58I'm proud to say that there's old work here.
08:01What was the name of this work?
08:03It was called Diamond, it was also the work of Wayne Plymouth.
08:06It was a low pier, pier, pier in the diamond.
08:09They say it was on the way to being a diamond.
08:12It's an amazing view isn't it Geraint?
08:15You look at it.
08:16The Bann Gehirich, the Bann y Brechinogs we say now of course, the Brecon Beacons.
08:22It's amazing.
08:23Now, you were saying now that the coal mine here, when did it open?
08:29So, they've been mines here for, you know, since at least the middle of the 19th century.
08:34And the Diamond, which was the last mine on this site.
08:36But it was a coal mine, not a diamond mine.
08:39Oh no, it wasn't a diamond mine.
08:41Well if it was, they kept quiet about it.
08:43No, they call it a diamond because apparently the coal was so far on its way to being carbon,
08:49they said that when they threw it in the drums it shattered like glass, you know.
08:52Because, you know, carbon is, diamonds are made out of carbon.
08:56But it was a very, very pure sort of anthracite coal.
08:59You're in the anthracite coal field here.
09:01About 450 men working here at one point, you know.
09:04450?
09:05450 men just about a century ago.
09:07The last coal was coming out just before the Second World War.
09:10In fact, my father, I remember coming down and talking to the night watchman and so on.
09:13And my grandfather worked on this site as well.
09:15When I was a child, you could still see far more signs of industry than you can now, you know.
09:21It's been changed over the last 40 odd years.
09:24So, when you were 7, 8, 9, 10 years old, what would you have seen around us here then?
09:29More tips. Big old tips.
09:32And of course, I remember as a 10 year old as well, so I was like looking up at Everest, you know.
09:36But yeah, they were substantially bigger.
09:38And there was an extremely big tip just over there called the Wembley tip.
09:41And there was a long ridge of tips behind there where we used to go sledging on the occasions where we used to have snow, you know.
09:48So, it was a far more obviously post-industrial landscape then, you know.
09:52It was far more obvious that you were on a coal tip.
09:54Look at it now. It's been grassed over.
09:56You wouldn't say, would you?
09:57But that's what it is. You're on a coal tip.
09:59This stuff should be below ground.
10:01When I was about, I don't know, 10 or 11, there was a company who came and they went through those coal tips looking for coal.
10:07There was obviously enough coal in those tips to make it worth their while.
10:10And ultimately, perhaps that was a good thing because it's reduced the level of these tips.
10:14And because this stuff isn't meant to be here, it's nutrient poor.
10:21And paradoxically, that's a good thing because that means that some species which don't really flourish in today's world get a chance to grow here.
10:31So, as we came past another clear area down there, it's full of this lovely purple flower called Devil's Bitscabias.
10:38It's, you know, I mean, where I live in Mid Wales, we've got not much of it.
10:42Here, on an old tip, it's absolutely covering it. It's amazing to see.
10:47And that's a valuable habitat, of course, for one of our rarest butterflies.
10:52Brithogors, whatever that is in English.
10:54A marsh fritillary, Brithogors.
10:57Yes, and that's just up the valley there and there are hopes that it'll, you know, flutter its way down here as well.
11:03It'll be nice, won't it? It'll be nice.
11:08Up the valley from Diamond Park is an area of land that was used to transport the raw material from the collieries.
11:15But now, it's one of the best places in Wales to see the marsh fritillary butterfly.
11:22This is Ystradfawr Nature Reserve, owned by the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales.
11:29And we're on the northern edge of what would have been the old coal fields here, but this would still have been industrialised.
11:36You can see bits of coal everywhere. There would have been a railway line carrying coal down to Swansea Docks.
11:42And this is what they call horse pasture.
11:45Now, traditionally, this would have been grazed by cattle.
11:48But today, it's grazed by ponies.
11:51And it's remarkable how some of these industrial sites have recovered.
12:00Pockets of horse pasture are found all along this region of the South Wales Valleys, which are crucial for this rare species.
12:08They used to be widespread, but they've declined severely over the last century due to habitat loss.
12:19Small populations can crash suddenly for different reasons.
12:24So, having a few similar sites like this one nearby with other marsh fritillaries can be a lifeline for them.
12:38I'm moving on to explore the most westerly valley in this region.
12:45This is the Amman Valley, and this was one of the big coal-producing valleys.
12:50Quite different to a lot of the other South Wales Valleys, because it's quite broad, a very broad valley.
12:55But the coal that they produced here, anthracite coal, was seen as some of the best coal in the whole world.
13:05Ammanford, or Rhyd Aman in Welsh, is the biggest town in this valley, and it's seen a lot of changes over the centuries.
13:14This rural community had been mining coal for their own homes for hundreds of years,
13:19before the booming black gold turned it into an industrial town that provided a livelihood to many local people.
13:28Although the local pits have been and gone, some of these places are welcoming back nature.
13:34Just on the outskirts of Rhyd Aman, or Ammanford now, and this is the site of the old Pantyffynnon colliery,
13:47and actually where I'm walking, this was the railway line that serviced the old colliery.
13:53But I'm actually heading towards the Afon Llwchwr, the Lachar River, because there's a fantastic nest that I want to show you there.
14:04Now, basically, it's a kingfishers nest.
14:15Now, technically it's not a nest, it's a hole, it's an entrance, and what the kingfishers have done,
14:20there's a bank over there, and it'll dig a tunnel about a metre long, slightly at an angle, with a chamber at the end.
14:28And the fascinating thing about this is that the entrance hole is in some soil.
14:34You've got the lower layer of soil there, which is sort of brown earth, but above that you've got a layer that's about a metre and a half thick,
14:42and that is coal waste.
14:45So although the entrance hole is on the border between those two, because it goes slightly uphill,
14:51the kingfisher has actually dug the tunnel into the coal waste, and the nesting chamber will be in that black soil there.
15:00Isn't that amazing?
15:03It's difficult to see where exactly the nest entrance is, with so many branches and ivy hanging in front of the bank.
15:12It's got a fish.
15:15A kingfisher's just come in.
15:18It's just perched up with a fish.
15:22It's got a bull head, like a miller's thumb, like a fish with a large head.
15:31And it's gone into the nesting hole.
15:34Now the hole itself is quite well hidden, it's got a bit of vegetation and a few branches there,
15:39and although the male and the female will incubate it, when she's incubating he'll fish and he'll take fish in for her,
15:46so he won't be in there long I don't suppose, he will come out in a minute.
15:50But isn't that remarkable?
15:52And it just goes to show you that, you know, nature will fight back when it's given the opportunity.
15:58You think 50, 60 years ago this would have been devastation, absolutely nothing here,
16:05and now you've got woodland, you've got singing birds, and you've got a nesting kingfisher as well.
16:16A lot of the Amman Valley's landscape has been scarred by mining in the past,
16:21but there are plenty of places that have remained relatively unspoiled, including a few near Glan Aman.
16:29One of the many things I love about this valley is the fact that it's so well wooded,
16:33and not just up on the hillsides, but on the valley bottom as well,
16:38you've got this lovely mosaic of broadleaf woodlands.
16:47The thing that makes these woods special is that they're small pockets of oak trees that haven't been touched in years.
17:00Amazing wood, and there's something very primeval about it,
17:04and it's got a real mix of these woodlands and then pasture outside,
17:09and they've survived really because of the coal industry,
17:14because the miners would have wanted wood, good wood, to make pit props,
17:18so they could dig in deeper following the seam.
17:21The pit ponies, well, they wanted food, they wanted to come out every now and again for food,
17:26so they kept areas of small fields and pasture, and that's why these woodlands survived.
17:31And then, of course, when modern agriculture came, the land here is pretty wet, it's pretty rocky,
17:37so it wouldn't have made good farmland anyway.
17:40A couple of things for me make it really special.
17:43One is they wanted dead wood.
17:45You have a look, look, you've got wood lying about on the floor here,
17:48you've got standing dead wood as well.
17:51Like 10, 15 years ago, that would have been felled.
17:53They would have got rid of it, but they've left it standing.
17:56Brilliant for things like bats, for beetles, for all kinds of invertebrates,
18:01and it's well managed, it's been fenced off.
18:03So, just look at this, this is all young oak, oak saplings.
18:08I don't think I've ever seen so many, absolutely thousands, tens of thousands of them,
18:13and that's because they're not grazed, you know, so it's a brilliant woodland.
18:19In spring, this mature wood is a good place for native birds to nest,
18:24and it also attracts migrants from Africa.
18:27Red starts and pied flycatchers will be flying around the canopy looking for invertebrates.
18:34While they'll nest in holes in trees or stone walls,
18:38several boxes have been put up by a local naturalist to encourage more of them to breed here.
18:45Sadly, both species have declined by over 40% in the last 25 years,
18:50so it's great to see them getting a helping hand.
18:55The western region is blessed with several stunning places
18:59that not many people will have heard of,
19:01and the Neath Valley certainly has a few of them.
19:05It's regarded as the gateway to waterfall country,
19:08and has plenty of rivers and streams,
19:10and where better to visit than one of my favourites,
19:14Melincourt Falls, or Sgwr Rhydder Hesg in Welsh.
19:25This stunning nature reserve is managed by the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales,
19:30and although the gorge looks untouched,
19:33it was home to an ironworks and a blast furnace in the 18th century,
19:37so it would have been a very different place back then.
19:42You've got very, very hard rock here, penance sandstone,
19:47lying over much softer shale,
19:49so as the shale gives way, the sandstone withstands the forces of nature,
19:54hence this waterfall, 80 foot in all.
20:05But one of the things that makes it so special,
20:07if you come with me, I'll show you up here,
20:12is the botany.
20:14It is a brilliant place for all kinds of ferns, mosses, liverworts,
20:20and all these lower plants thrive here because of the humidity.
20:25Yes, you've got high rainfall, this is Wales after all,
20:28but the waterfall is running every hour of the day.
20:32That means that there are thousands, millions of little water droplets
20:37circulating all around here,
20:39so no matter what the weather, it's always damp.
20:43And that is what these lower plants need,
20:46and that's why they festoon the wall everywhere.
20:54Wood sorrel and bluebells add a touch of colour
20:58to the surrounding native woodland during spring.
21:02And a variety of common bird songs echoes through the trees,
21:06while thickets of ivy provide the perfect cover
21:09for a songthrush to raise chicks.
21:14MUSIC
21:19Deciduous woods support more wildlife than conifer plantations,
21:23but some areas of forests within the Neath Valley
21:26are home to some very interesting species.
21:30Blocks of crossbills will move across the treetops
21:33looking for pine seeds in cones.
21:36And you could be lucky enough to see a deer or two roaming around.
21:43But these woods are also an important breeding area
21:46for a rare bird that only visits during summer,
21:49and I'm visiting a protected nest site up the valley.
21:54I've been so lucky over the years.
21:56I've got to film some really pretty scarce birds,
21:59rare plants and butterflies, all kinds of mammals,
22:02but today my heart is in my throat
22:05because I'm here to film Wales's rarest breeding bird.
22:10It's a honey buzzard, so rare that only one nest is known
22:15in the whole of Wales, and that's here in the Neath Valley.
22:25I'm very nervous because I really don't want to get close.
22:28I've got a licence, by the way, but I don't want to get close at all.
22:31The nest is just up there.
22:34I can just about make out the top of the head
22:37of the one chick in there.
22:39Now, what I'm going to do is I'm going to retreat back
22:42probably another 50 to 100 metres,
22:44but I want to go somewhere where I can just about see
22:47when the owls come in on the nest.
22:50To ensure we had the best chance of getting shots of the adult bird,
22:54we left our cameraman hidden away nearby.
22:57I can't tell you yet how old that chick is.
22:59I didn't get a good enough view,
23:01but there's quite a bit of down on its head still,
23:03so it's probably, you know, more than about four weeks old,
23:06maybe something like that.
23:09The chick is stretching its wings,
23:11just having to exercise its wings a little bit.
23:21It'll do this now more and more and more as it gets older.
23:24It'll be in that nest for, what, another maybe two weeks,
23:27ten days, two weeks, something like that,
23:29and it'll hang around here for ten days or so
23:32after still being fed by the parents.
23:38Usually, when the adult comes in, the chick will see it
23:42and it'll start to call like a high-pitched mew,
23:45but it's quite silent.
23:48An adult has just come in.
23:51I can just about...
23:54It's the male.
23:56Perched on a branch about maybe 10, 15 metres away from the nest.
24:01It's got prey as well.
24:04I can see a foot sticking down,
24:06but I can't tell you exactly what it is.
24:08The close-up shots reveal he's caught a frog.
24:19It's gone to the nest and then left it straight away,
24:22because at this age, the chick will be able to feed itself.
24:27The chick must be hungry, as it's swallowed it in one,
24:30and as their name suggests, it's not just frogs that they feed on.
24:36And they're called honey buzzers
24:38because the bulk of what they eat usually is wasp comb.
24:42They dig out wasp nests and carry the comb to the nest,
24:47and then they'll take out the grubs and feed the chicks.
24:52A lot of the pioneering research on UK honey buzzards
24:56has been done in the South Wales Valleys,
24:58and the team that monitors them here put out a camera near this nest
25:03to record the early stages of the breeding season.
25:06Just two weeks ago, the chick was a small lump of fluff,
25:10and it's obviously been fed well by the parents since then.
25:15What they've found is that the male here has got a white ring on it
25:19with some unique letters on that,
25:21and we know that the male is 80 years old,
25:24and he was born, he came from a nest just a couple of miles away.
25:33It's obviously only the one chick,
25:35and from the camera that they put up earlier on,
25:38they know that there were two eggs in there,
25:41and they are quite concerned,
25:43because they know there was a disturbance issue some weeks ago here,
25:47and whether that affected the nest, we don't know.
25:50And it's really important that disturbance at the nests of all birds of prey,
25:55but especially about this rare, is kept down to an absolute minimum.
26:00I'm really hoping that this chick fledges successfully,
26:03and who knows, maybe it'll be rearing its own chick or two
26:07in South Wales in a few years' time.
26:11Winding its way through this valley is the Neath Canal.
26:15These days it's a popular place for people to enjoy,
26:19but in the past, it was a vital transport route
26:22for moving coal and other raw materials.
26:33This is clean locks along the Neath Canal,
26:37This is clean locks along the Neath Canal,
26:40and this canal was built as a direct result of the Industrial Revolution.
26:44It was built in 1795, and prior to that,
26:48well, all the goods would have to be taken out to this valley by horse and cart, really.
26:53But once the canal was built from Glyn Neath down to Britain Ferry,
26:57they could carry 70 tons at a time,
27:00and the canal closed in the 1930s,
27:03because by then, the coal mine owners, the big industrialists,
27:07well, they could take their coal, all the raw material, away by railway.
27:11And it's actually a brilliant place for wildlife.
27:14There's a lot of fish in here, a lot of invertebrates,
27:17a lot of beautiful plants, purple loosestrife over there,
27:20and there's a damselfly called a beautiful demoiselle.
27:24There's a male on the vegetation over there,
27:27and it's called beautiful demoiselle because it is absolutely stunning.
27:31Lovely sort of metallic bluey-green colour.
27:38Although the Neath Canal was built for industry,
27:41it's become an important wildlife corridor in the valley for many species,
27:45and now provides much-needed habitat for all kinds of dragonflies and damselflies.
27:56The Western Valleys has some amazing wildlife
27:59that's helping to rewire former mining sites,
28:02and some of our rarest species are breeding here.
28:07Next time, I'll explore the Central Valleys,
28:10where I get up close to night jazz in a forest.
28:13I'll also watch a barn owl hunting on common land,
28:17and I'll look for beautiful adders next to a rugby pitch.
28:29www.subsedit.com