It is 10 years since the first Mid Wales Midwinter post and I’m back spending a few days before Christmas with my old friend Tony Cross.

The rural landscapes of rolling mountains, small green fields, steep bracken-clad valleys and cliff-lined coastline are as beautiful as ever. Of course, the day we take the mountain road from Rhayader to Cwmystwyth the empty moorland is shrouded in a dismal blanket of low cloud; we run past a buzzard, kestrel and merlin all hunched on old telegraph posts that line the side of the road. Only the merlin, a large muddy brown female, is obliging; this is likely to be an Icelandic bird Falco columbarius subaesolon because she appears slightly larger and perhaps a little tamer than the local birds.

On the coast, the skies are clearing; we try to read the colour rings at a roost site for Choughs at Wallog (pronounced Wathlog) north of Aberystwyth. The low tide coincides with dusk so, with little wind and a low sun, the rocky coast is lit by a golden sun. The choughs fly in at dusk, the local pairs first and then the flock of this year’s young. The pairs forage on the cliff sides before dropping into the shelter of deep ledges. There are also roosting shags and a female peregrine; herring gulls head out to sea to roost and a distant gannet patrols inshore . The ancient black rocks at low tide are covered by reefs of Honeycomb worm (Sabellaria alveolata); this intertidal species supports many other species and a key reason why this section of coast is designated and conserved as a Site of Special Scientific Interest and forms a small part of a large marine Special Area of Conservation.

The pasture fields around Borth are waterlogged and hold both Jack Snipe and Common Snipe. We tramp around and manage to trap and ring a few of each before the cold northerly wind gets the upper hand. On another night, in the green hills around Rhayader we also trap and ring eight woodcock and a couple of golden plover. Tony has been catching and ringing (as well as weighing, measuring and aging) these beautiful birds for many years. When you multiply it up, Wales must hold hundreds and thousands of these cryptic waders that, for most, remain hidden from view.