Right at the heart of the Cambrian Mountains in mid-Wales, the Doethie valley runs north off the Pysgotwr which in turn runs down into the Tywi by the Dinas nature reserve; it is a rare valley in that there is no road or driveable track just a path used by walkers and mountain bikers between…
Tag: Mid-Wales
Rhandirmwyn
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…
Mid Wales Raptors
The Clywedog reservoir in Mid Wales supports breeding ospreys; on a recent trip with Tony Cross to ring the two young it was a chance to snap the anxious parents and ruffled young. Over the weekend we also ringed a brood of kestrels in Cwmystwyth, sparrowhawks on the edge of Borth Bog and an albino…
Cors Fochno
Cord Fochno, is a raised mire; a great lens of peat next to the Dyfi estuary a few miles to the north of Aberystwyth. At its heart, there is no solid ground, just layers of compressed Sphagnum mosses laid down on a freshwater wetland since the end of the last Ice Age. In the past,…
Elenydd
21st – 23rd April The Elenydd mountains are an empty landscape of soft grassland plateaus cut by deep, bracken-clad valleys; the myriad small streams feed the Cothi, Elan, Teifi, Tywi and Ystwyth rivers. The highest plateaus are capped with blanket bog and mires full of sedge, cotton grass and Sphagnum fill the shallow depressions. These uplands are…