The small village of Rhandirmwyn sits within the upper Tywi valley on the northern edge of Carmarthenshire in mid-Wales. Red kites held out around here in perilously small numbers through the 19th and early 20th centuries until they gradually reclaimed much of Wales through coordinated protection and monitoring by local watchers and the goodwill of local farmers. The oak woodlands that still ‘hang’ on the steep valley sides just to the north of the village, including the RSPB’s Gwenffrwd-Dinas Nature Reserve, held the handful of nests that comprised the remnant UK breeding population.

A good summary of their bleak history is given in a paper published in 1981, co-written by Peter Davis, the lead architect of their successful restoration, which states:

“In the early part of the 19th century, the red kite Milvus milvus was widespread in Britain, but it had declined by 1900 to a remnant of less than a dozen birds in central Wales. The decline coincided with the rise in game preservation, and, to judge from accounts of the time, was due primarily to human persecution. These large conspicuous birds were easy to shoot and trap and, feeding readily on carrion, they were also easy to poison. With protection of the nests, however, the remnant population increased very slowly during the 20th century, reaching more than 10 pairs in the 1940s, and more than 30 pairs in the 1970s”.

Among the most notable of the small cast of local characters that helped to protect the red kites, was Capt. H.R.H. Vaughan and his wife Irene, herself a notable botanist; the pair were central to red kite conservation from the 1930s to the 1970s and lived for many years in the village. A no less passionate and remarkable contributor was Dafydd Dafis, the local headmaster from 1958 and resident for more than 50 years.

The milestone of 100 breeding pairs was eventually reached in 1993 and population then grew and spread rapidly across the Principality and was estimated to be 2,500 pairs in 2019.

Rhandirmwyn, which translates as the ‘valley of the minerals’, unsurprisingly has a long mining history with a huge lead and zinc mine at Nantymywn just to the north of the village; in its heyday in the 17th and 18th centuries, the village supported hundreds of miners and their families.

A terrace of former miners’ cottages on Panau Street, which is no more than a narrow cobbled path, sits above the village pub. In early April, the spring flowers are at their best. The streams and runnels that run down through the village still wash large quantities of toxic heavy metals into the Tywi.