Thursday 29 June 2017

Twilight Calls

The extensive freshwater marshes at Oxwich, lying behind the impressive sand dune system are the largest on the peninsula. Originally part of the old Penrice Estate, they are now owned and managed by Natural Resources Wales as a National Nature Reserve. Over the last century the large man-made serpentine lake with wet meadows, succeeded into what is now an area of reed beds and flashes, which are rapidly being invaded by willow and alder carr. In the mid 1970s the marsh was probably the most productive and finest in Wales, but even now after years of neglect, good numbers of reed and sedge warblers and reed buntings still remain, together with a well-established population of Cetti’s warblers.

A hidden squelchy path allows me to peer through the reeds and get a glimpse of a skulking reed warbler carrying a bright azure blue damselfly. They have young in the nest at this time, and the 400 or so pairs do well here from the rich pickings in the surrounding willows. Willow warblers and chiffchaffs still sing, they seem to be more common this year, and are a feature of the marsh. I pass the much-reduced heronry looking for little egrets, which have nested with the grey herons in the mature willows, but maybe not this year. In the 1970s purple herons and a little bittern regularly frequented the marsh in summer, and may reappear as global temperatures rise.

At twilight, starlings begin to circle overhead, and a handful of swallows hunt low over the tops of the reeds. Both roost here, and in a month or so their numbers will increase to many hundreds. The honking sounds of graylag geese punctuate the evening silence, and tawny owls call from the surrounding woodlands, but the twilight calls of the once regular nightjars and snipe have long been history.


Tuesday 27 June 2017

A Change of Seasons

After such a late onset of spring, the countryside continues to burst into life; just about every kind of wild flower came out in profusion, and still, in early June, it continues. Near Port Eynon Point, grass verges along limestone walls are awash with tall hogweeds, many covered in insects. These sturdy plants seem to thrive on Gower, even along high exposed hedgerows. True flies, hoverflies, and the odd bee buzz over their flat blossoms, which also attract weevils, shining iridescent in the bright mid-morning sun. An eleven spot ladybird opens its elytra, launches itself into the air almost vertically, and is gone.

Even by the sandy car park there are other interesting plants. Clumps of red valerian, long ago escaped from gardens, blend with native red campions and henbane, which can be toxic. Dune fescue, a scarce grass, mixes with stunningly beautiful bloody cranesbills, and so much more, making me lament once again at not learning enough about the rich plant life on Gower. In the sand dunes proper, bushes of sea radish, with lovely yellow flowers make a wonderful show, combining with dame’s violet. Along the path towards the Point, a few fading flowers of spring squill, cowslip and early purple orchids remind me of the passing spring, and a now rare small blue butterfly signals high summer just around the corner.

Around the headland it’s all about the sea. Gulls, maybe non-breeders, pass back and forth, and a tern offshore is too far away to identify properly. The plants change too. I’m now in a world of succulents and lush grass. Sea campion and thrift flows over rocky outcrops, and I bed myself down in a hollow hoping for a seal to pop up in the little sheltered cove below. There are no seals, but I make do with a school of harbour porpoises; it’s a lucky day again.


Sunday 25 June 2017

A Good Year

Flocks of wood pigeons are beginning to appear on the playing fields, most are young, drab-looking individuals, without distinctive white neck patches, and they’ll continue to increase in numbers in the next few weeks, eventually forming into very large flocks by the end of summer. Mixed tit flocks are forming too, and pre-roosting jackdaws, which now number several hundred, wheel over the cottage at dusk. It’s the time of year when bird numbers are at their highest, and food is plentiful. Even so, many species are difficult to see, hiding in the thick deep green vegetative cover that’s everywhere now. I can hear young blackcaps begging for food in the hedgerows, but never see them, and an occasional young speckled robin pops up to take food from its parent. In the garden it’s all or nothing, one minute just a few goldfinches, the next a hive of activity as a tit flocks drops in for a while.

Changing weather patterns in recent years, particularly wet and cold Mays, has resulted in great variability in bird breeding success, but it looks like this year has been good. The late spring put back the start of breeding for many species, and not all will have prospered. It’s far too early to be sure, but all will be revealed when this year’s results of the BTO’s Breeding Bird Survey are published. This wonderful tool, a continuation of the Common Bird Census, has developed into a vital index with which to monitor the state of the country’s breeding birds.


Saturday 24 June 2017

Threatening Storm

Maybe it’s the sea breezes that keep them at bay, but thunderstorms are uncommon here. It’s not really hot, but the humidity is stifling, and it feels as though we may be in for a flash storm. The clouds are dark, but I take the risk and head out from the cottage to the common.

Greens are replacing browns quickly now, and the fast-growing bracken is painting the common with great swaths of rich lime-green. The blonde tints of winter, which can last well into summer, are gradually being swallowed up, replaced by new growth and lovely patches of cotton grass, perfectly still in the still air. The threatened storm passes, and the sun gradually wins out. The skies clear, there’s a dazzling haze in the west lighting the cotton grass from behind and it’s a different world. Skylarks rise, and at least four sing high up in the haze, and a meadow pipit parachutes to the ground just a few yards away. I don’t bother to try and find the nest, since I rarely succeed.

A few cows with newly born calves look nervous, but don’t mind me passing, but there are no sheep. More cotton grass follows the bed of the little stream, snaking like a white carpet into the distance in both directions. The sun brought with it a gentle breeze, causing the heads of the cotton grass to sway. I run some through my fingers; it feels more like silk.

The spring flowering of gorse is over, the only yellow now is from meadow buttercups and a few patches of bird’s foot trefoil. A small heath butterfly takes to the wing, and even though it’s been a warm day, we’ve had little sun, not the best conditions for butterflies.

Within half an hour the weather changes again. A mist creeps in from the coast, the skylarks descend, and all I hear is the scalding of stonechats.


Friday 23 June 2017

Cornish Choughs

My evening walk along the cliff path is rewarded with this year’s first sighting of choughs with young. Three adults with a couple of distinctly smaller juveniles still with yellow bills, paint a lovely picture on the grassy slopes covered with thrift and rockroses. The young are not long out of the nest and fly only weakly, preferring to sit on the cliffs waiting to be fed.

Choughs were absent from these cliffs for more than a century, but returned to breed about 30 years ago, occupying the exact same nesting caves vacated so long ago. We now have about half a dozen productive pairs each year, which with offspring, congregate in late summer to form a roving flock sometimes up to 20 strong. There are nests under the cliffs either side of me, and it’s not clear which one this family is from. In the first week or so after fledging, they’ll stay close to the nest site, and if the other nest succeeds, will eventually mix, providing an even better spectacle in the weeks ahead. ‘Our’ choughs have been ringed over the last few years, and I can just make out colour rings on the legs of one of the adults. Some of the birds we see on Gower originate from Pembrokeshire, and a few find their way back, and some Gower-ringed birds cross the Bristol Channel to Devon and Cornwall.

Chough is the county bird of Cornwall, and was also absent there for more than a century. Long and protracted discussions took place as to whether they should be reintroduced, and in 1999 the decision was finally taken to go ahead. The choughs knew better, promptly reintroducing themselves the year before the project was due to start, and are now doing well there as well.


Wednesday 21 June 2017

Old Pier

Parts of the old pier at Mumbles are in a bad way. I walk to the end to count the colony of kittiwakes nesting on the decaying structure, and wonder how long it will be before some health and safety official closes the pier to visitors. The iron superstructure is rusting away, and the wooden platform at the end is in a sorry state. A few fishermen watch their lines, but never seem to catch anything. The newly painted lifeboat house glints in the evening glow, whilst early holidaymakers enjoy the sunshine and lick cones of Joe’s ice cream. A newly renovated Victorian café at the pier’s entrance sports splendid wrought iron railings, matching perfectly the rusting sides of the sad old pier. Couples sit on modern silver and wicker seats enjoying a cappuccino, or perhaps a more traditional ‘nice cup of tea’. I know that most are unaware of the seabird spectacle just a little walk away.

Kittiwakes have been on the pier for several years, nesting on the ledges beneath the old iron seats only a yard or so from the visitors. This is not unusual, and in several parts of the country these delicate little gulls use a variety of man-made structures, which imitate coastal cliff ledges. On the pier the kittiwakes are used to people, more or less ignoring the curious who peer over the edge. Until the welcome return of the peregrine in the late 1970s, hundreds bred on the high cliffs of west Gower. Unfortunately they provided easy pickings for the peregrines, and gradually moved to nest on the pier. This single colony of about 100 pairs is all that remains of nesting kittiwakes on Gower, and could be at risk if the old pier is given a facelift. In anticipation of this, The Gower Ornithological Society, in conjunction with the local authority, have erected nesting ledges on the lifeboat house, which the birds have taken to readily. 

On the beach beyond the old lighthouse, kittiwakes collect kelp from the high tide line, and although most pairs are on eggs, there always seems to be a need to add more nesting material. Another group has found good fishing offshore, where a couple of gleaming white gannets dive, and fulmars glide back and forth without even a hint of a wing flap.


Monday 19 June 2017

Swifts

It looks like there are not many swifts around here again this year. Like many summer visitors they’re in trouble, and the BTO’s indicators are showing big declines. There are a few pairs nesting somewhere in our village, and I cherish warm summer evenings in the garden just before dark, watching them gradually descend and scream low over our cottage.

My son often remands me of the time when he was young, and the screaming parties of dozens along the road he walked to school in Mumbles. There are none there now, perhaps it’s a result of our affluent society replacing old wooden eaves with plastic ones, which seal off entrances to nesting holes. They’re mostly gone from the centre of the city as well, but are still common in some of the small towns nearby, but I wonder for how much longer.

Before swifts moved into our homes they nested on cliffs, and a few pairs still do so on west Gower. Cliff-nesting sites are very uncommon now, and to be certain they are actually nesting, they need to be seen entering holes. After years of watching the few that fly over the cliffs at Pennard, I’ve never seen one anywhere near the cliff face, and I guess the cliffs are just not high enough, and that these individuals nest in the houses nearby. At this time of year a good place to see them in their natural environment is Mewslade Bay, where a few hours watching from the cliff top can sometimes reveal a traditional nesting site on the seaward side of Lewis Castle. 

Sunday 18 June 2017

A Touch of Class

For fear of robbery and vandalism, many churches are now closed to visitors, not so St Cadoc’s Cheriton. Set deep in a tranquil valley, and built in the early 14th century, the stocky, limestone church is probably the most lovely on Gower. There’s real peace here, just the sound of the stream running the length of the churchyard, and birds calling in the high sycamore and ash trees. A distant cuckoo calls. I follow a brimstone butterfly along the path to the church; it disappears over the boundary wall passing the grave I’ve come to visit again. The simple inscription on slate reads:

William Henry Nairn Wilkinson
Knight Bachelor
1932 to 1996
Of Pill House Llanmadoc
Naturalist and Defender of the Countryside

Such a short epitaph hides the life and achievements of a truly great man, whose wisdom and influence changed the way government in this country thought about wildlife conservation.

In the church porch there’s a table and a notice offering water and soft drinks to walkers and visitors, and the door to the church is open. Inside is cool air and silence. Beautifully painted ceilings, part of a restoration in 1974, are quite wonderful. A single candle burns on the altar guarded by six brass candlesticks, all protected by a modern digital security system. I read the inscriptions on the walls of children, just weeks old, buried here in the early 18th century. On the north wall a plaque records the names of all the rectors dating back to the very first in 1649.

Outside again I rest on a wooden folding chair, again provided by the church, soak up the peace and sunshine, listen to the cuckoo and wonder how Sir William, from such an illustrious family, came to have a connection with a tiny village in this remote part of Gower. I always forgot to ask him.


Saturday 17 June 2017

Beautiful Hairstreaks

There are no really rare butterflies on Gower, but there are some here that are classified very scarce in the UK. I have a tip-off that there are lots of marsh fritillaries on Welsh Moor at the moment. This is the best place to find them, and provided the weather is right, there can be good numbers on the common. Last month it was still chilly, it was the beginning of their season, and I found only a couple, but today it’s easy.

They seem to be all over the place, most fly quickly, and I catch only a fleeting glimpse, others settle, but in the warm sunshine are off before I can get close. I head for the lower southern part of the common in the shelter of the trees. There are lots here, and it’s clearly a good year for them. My natural urge is to count, but with so much movement, all I can do is estimate, but there are certainly 50, and probably more, I’m not sure. Just these few minutes are more than enough to explain why Welsh Moor has SSSI status.

There are other butterflies here too, small and large whites, common blues, and several stunning green hairstreaks along the wooded edge. Small pearl-boarded fritillaries are usually on nearby Pengwern Common at this time of year, and I’ve often wondered if they are here as well. As usual, I find none, so sit on a clump of dry grass, and simply enjoy what in reality is a rare UK sight of lots of marsh fritillaries in bright June sunshine.

Thursday 15 June 2017

A Sobering Thought

I leave the car at Pilton Green, cross the road, and walk south over the fields towards the sea.  I’m heading for Paviland Valley and then Kilboidy, in the hope of hearing a yellowhammer sing. They were once a certainty along here at this time of year; maybe three or four singing males, but they’ve gone from most of their regular haunts on Gower, and I walk more in hope than expectation.

The land around Great Pitton Farm is barren, years of intensive arable farming have ensured that little wildlife survives here. Along the hedgerows, and in the ditches, there are remnants of what it must have been like; red campion, meadow buttercup, foxglove and a clump of bloody cranesbills, one of Gower’s specialities. In a tiny corner of an enormous field a small patch is free of the plough. Wildlife thrives here; a wash of buttercups, more red campion, white clover, massive docks, butterflies, and a cluster of blue-tailed damselflies shows what can happen if we give nature a chance.

At the top of Paviland Valley everything changes. Gone is the worn out farmland, and in its place limestone cliffs with gorse, rock-rose, bird’s foot trefoil and singing whitethroats.

On the top of Horse Cliff a carpet of pink thrift growing between outcrops of golden lichen-covered limestone is just beautiful. On the inland slopes, shaded from the wind, there are brown argus, common blue and wall butterflies. The view west from here towards The Worm is spectacular. I’m alone again looking at what is surely the best view on Gower. Below in the sheltered cove the water is crystal-clear blue, and I watch seals under the water. But there’s something amiss. For as long as I can remember, fulmars have nested on the cliffs opposite, but there are none today. The usual wheatears and rock pipits on the rocks below are not there either. Kilboidy feels empty.

On the cliff top above The Knave I enter a nature reserve. The world changes once more. Dense gorse, insects, flowers, more butterflies and a skylark rises; all is not lost. A boisterous family part of six choughs gives me even more hope, and sitting proud on top of the gorse is my yellowhammer. It’s the only one I see all day, and I speculate on their future. Could they become extinct as a breeding bird on Gower? A sobering thought.


Tuesday 13 June 2017

Nothing Rare

On the wetter slopes of Barlands common, where a grasshopper warbler sings each spring, there’s a small, secluded lane which brims with wildlife. It’s hidden and narrow, just enough for two people to walk along, the track is indistinct and it looks as though no one has been here all spring.  Tall meadow buttercups flank both sides of the path, but there’s much more in the dense vegetation; wild pea, cuckoo flowers, daisies, herb robert, speedwell, ragged robin, red campion, dandelion puff balls, red clover, nettles, dock and a quite wonderful display of southern marsh orchids. There are insects too, crane flies, a few large red damselflies, common cardinal beetles, but alas very few butterflies. I find just a couple of green-veined whites and single speckled wood. There are few birds, although a distant willow warbler sings and the song of a very close blackcap resounds in my ear. 

At the top of the lane, a five-barred gate blocks the way to an extraordinary field completely covered with buttercups, possibly another result of the long cold spring. There’s wet woodland here, mostly hazel and willow and a few oaks with shining new leaves fighting for survival in the dense carr. In a sunny glade, perfectly formed orchids look like decorative candles and the ground is doted here and there with mating damselflies.

There’s nothing rare here, it’s just the British countryside as it should be in June, but there’s no buzzing of insects, such a feature of quiet spots like this until not so long ago.

Back on the common proper the wind plays tricks with the singing grasshopper warbler reeling its strange song from within a dense patch of brambles; it sounds a little similar to the wheezing of a greenfinch in the woodland behind. I've never found the nest and don’t intend to even look for it this year.


Sunday 11 June 2017

Vicarage Cream Teas

After more than twenty-four hours of welcome continuous rain, it finally stops after lunch. The light is wonderfully clear, always the case here on sunny days, when the wind comes from the northwest.

I drive to the middle of Gower looking for entries to add to the BTO’s Breeding Bird Survey. The little village of Ilston nestles at the end of the woodland path leading up the valley from Parkmill, and boasts a sturdy 12th century limestone Norman church, with the usual old yew tree in the churchyard. The notice board in the porch advertises creams teas on Midsummer Day at the old vicarage - £3 per head in aid of the church. Not much seems to have changed in small villages like this, where only a few miles away the noisy, changing city is a world away. I’m hoping to see a dipper, or a kingfisher on the stream by the church, and on cue a flash of blue bombs past, allowing me just a fleeting glimpse, but enough to lift my spirits.

There’s a small bungalow in the village where a retired pastor lives and he has an amazing array of bird feeders in his front garden. Clustered around a central bird table, more than a dozen feeders offer seeds, nuts and fat, all year round. There are only a few birds today; tits, a robin, collard doves and some chaffinches, but taking seeds from the top of a gatepost is a beautiful male yellowhammer. They breed on the common above the village, maybe this one is late in starting, or knows that last winter’s food source is still here. He’ll probably be in full swing with ‘a little bit of bread and no cheese’ on the common by the evening.

I didn’t see a dipper, they nest further upstream by the weir just outside the village, but the almost guaranteed beautiful grey wagtails more than compensated.


Saturday 10 June 2017

Diminutive Woodpeckers



At this time of year, the local great-spotted woodpeckers bring their newly fledged young to the feeder in our willow tree, and they arrived this morning. The adults hack out tiny bits of peanuts, shuffle up the branches, and delicately feed the waiting chicks. The young clumsily land on the feeder, but have no absolutely idea what to do, or even that the nuts right in front of them are for eating. After a few days of tuition they’ll gradually learn the ropes, and begin feeding for themselves. The family usually stays around well into the autumn.

Every summer I keep my eyes and ears open for the diminutive lesser-spotted woodpeckers in the woods around Oxwich Bay. I think they’re still there, and I've been lucky in the past, and I even caught one whilst mist-netting by the marsh many years ago. They’re notoriously difficult to see, usually keeping to the treetops and easier to locate by sound, but I haven’t heard one for years now. There are probably some in the woods at the top of the Clyne Valley, but again I’ve had no luck there either.

Thursday 8 June 2017

The Smell of Salt

In lovely morning light, I set out early to walk the cliff path from Southgate to Three Cliffs Bay. It’s not a long walk, and at this time of day, there are few people about. A small group of ponies loaf about on the top of the cliffs; some lay flat on the ground, which I assume are fast asleep. Just a few sheep graze the steep slopes down towards the sea. There are scrapes on the short turf from last night’s rabbits, and badgers have been here too. In a couple of places along the path, the pungent scent of foxes cuts through the pure air, mixing in the still morning air with occasional delicate whiffs of coconut from the gorse that covers the cliff top. But it’s the smell of salt that overpowers the senses. Landwards, the hedgerows bordering the fields are bursting with green life and it’s hard to remember now their struggle to emerge during the recent long, cold spring.

I sit looking down to the sea. A fulmar glides close by, turns back for another look, before gracefully disappearing round the headland. I’m surrounded by flowers; bird’s foot trefoil, one clump decorated by the deep red and black of a burnet moth, rockroses, thrift, daisies, sea campion, kidney vetch and much more. A few viper’s bugloss stand proud in the warming sunshine, and in years after the cliffs have been burned, these magnificent flowers can sometimes cover the ground.

I pause at the bench on the edge of the cliff facing west over Pobbles and Three Cliffs Bay; the beautiful sandy beach below is almost empty. A few distant hardy souls brave the water, still cold at this time of year, but there are some locals who bathe here every day. It’s an easy clamber down to the beach at Pobbles Bay. I round the rocks, cross the shallow water that was once the Ilston Stream, but the tide catches me out and I’ve no time to get past Tor Point into Oxwich Bay.

Tuesday 6 June 2017

Ash

Years ago Landimore was a poor North Gower village. It’s changed now to become a desirable upmarket place, with every house immaculately kept, but it remains quiet and away from it all.

The little pond behind the small car park at the end of the village is always interesting. In the warmth of the morning, thousands of tiny flies dance above its surface, eagerly feasted on by a robin-turned-flycatcher darting to and fro from the cover of the wood. The yellow flash of a female broad-bodied chaser dragonfly arrives, but it’s gone in a moment.

The rough track west bordering the marsh is always quiet. A few birds sing from the hanging woodland and a buzzard, merely a dot in the blue, calls incessantly. Ash, fully out now after the delayed onset of spring, dominates the woods, and I ponder what it might look like should ash dieback take hold.  Mile after mile of flat salt marsh is covered with many hundreds of bleating sheep, and salt marsh lamb is a speciality here and a local delicacy. The tranquillity is broken by the sound of a jeep out of which jumps a local farmer. With binoculars he checks his flock, stays a few minutes, and, satisfied that all’s well, is off.  Silence returns, and I walk on, passing tiny ponds in the soggy turf. At the head of one of the countless pills leading out to the estuary, a small decaying boat, now wedged high and dry after some long-gone big spring tide, is used as a perch for a smart pied wagtail.


At the end of the track under North Hill Tor I can see for miles, but can’t get across the Burry Pill to join the few walkers heading out over the sea wall to Whiteford Point.

Sunday 4 June 2017

Water Voles

There’s no easy way to Pwll Du Bay. It’s a long walk down the Bishopston Valley, and even from the road at the top of the cliff, the path down to the beach can be difficult under foot. Whichever way I choose, the effort is always worthwhile. From the old bridge I look upstream for signs of water voles, they were common here years ago, but there are no telltale holes in the bank anymore. There may be some left on Gower, but I haven’t seen any for years.

Over the bridge, I turn right up the valley and head along the narrow path. It’s dark and sheltered here, the scent of wild garlic is overpowering, and the woodland floor is a mass of white flowers.  The small reed bed below is now mostly invaded by willows and will soon be no more. Not far from the bridge, the canopy opens a little, the sun lights half of the woodland, with the rest in shadow. A buzzard soars and calls above, birds sing, and there are more flowers. A male orange tip butterfly catches the sun, and in a moment it’s brilliant colours take my breath away.   Bluebells, nearly past their best now, send a delicate scent drifting in the air, mixing with the strong scent of garlic. The river bends again and will eventually disappear underground. The walk up the valley to the village is long and hard, so I make my way back to listen to the sea breaking on the only real storm beach on Gower. There are terns fishing offshore, unnoticed by the sunbathers taking in the sun, I wonder if they hear their exciting calls, but think not.

Saturday 3 June 2017

Evening Mist

On the coast the weather can change quickly, and after a long day of annoying drizzle, there’s a promise of a fine evening. With the rain out of the way, clouds pass quickly overhead, and the sky is blue once more.  Although it’s been hidden all day, there’s heat left from the sun, bringing the cliffs to life. Bumblebees and hoverflies on are the wing, stonechats snap up invisible insects from the air, and the first rabbits appear on the grassy slope below, nibbling nervously before darting for cover under the gorse. A few common blue butterflies take to the air, but don’t fly far in the already cooling evening.  Flowers, closed during the rain, open up, and a short distance below where I’m sitting, the limestone is decorated with a blaze of yellow rockrose. Bugles and thrift add blue and pink, and tiny pure white daisies are fully open once more.  As if let out to play, jackdaws and choughs cavort by the water’s edge, their glossy feathers reflecting iridescent in the sunlight.

Everything is washed clean and I can see for miles over the flat-calm sea. I watch the comings and goings of gulls, and cormorants heading for their roost on the cliffs by Bacon Hole.  As dusk approaches, a low mist rolls in and my vision over the water fades; the passing gulls are only heard, and the horn on the lighthouse pipes up to the east. From the top of the cliff I’m above the mist and I can still see Lundy Island a good 40 miles to the west, but the rest of the Devon coast has gone.  Every day is different by the sea.


Thursday 1 June 2017

Old Henllys

A wide green path leads from Llandewi church westwards towards the back of Rhosilli Down, used by drovers centuries ago, it retains a feeling of a forgotten world. Only a few farmers and walkers use it now, and I can often walk all the way to the Down without seeing a soul.  I come here to experience a long-gone age before cars and modern life, which changed everything.  Old Henllys farm dates back to at least medieval times, and hasn’t changed in decades. Limestone walls, feet thick and painted white, are dotted here and there with tiny windows, and a lovely old red door, there’s also what looks like an authentic longhouse attached to the side. An old lady with her snapping terrier lived here until recently, but there are no signs of life now. I pray that this gem can survive the ravages of rich developers, who would no doubt quickly turn it into a holiday home and destroy it forever. There’s so much history attached to this old farm, and I always have the feeling it should be moved to the National Museum of Wales.

The orchard behind the farm still buzzes with life. Birds, butterflies and bees give a hint of what it must have been like before the age of pesticides.  It's early morning and I sit on a limestone rock and wait. I hear no mad-made sounds, only nature interrupts the silence and bird-song is peaking now. Each year I read these nature notes as if dipping into a familiar book.  There are telltale signs of overnight activity too. The pungent smell of foxes drifts in the breeze, and the droppings from badgers and rabbits litter the grass. I search for owl pellets inside the broken down barn and find none, but it’s the next farm along the way where barn owls nest.

A year on and I make another visit. Old Henllys is empty, a high wire fence surrounds the buildings; it’s for sale. Goodness knows what will happen to the old place now, but at least it's Grade II listed.