16th: Gilfach – Radnorshire

This is a tough one to start. I’ve mentioned quite a few times haw varied many of these reserves are and about how intertwined they are with our history. The problem here is that Gilfach takes the variety to a bit of a new level and has a healthy chunk of history interwoven with it as well. The variety is covered by a stunning array of river, meadows, pastures, oak woodland and high heather moor.

As we walked around the reserve, we were almost constantly accompanied by the sound of calling cuckoo, we never saw a hint of them, but they were always with us. We spent a fair while in the dipper hide, without seeing dippers (that came later in a different location!). However, we did see nuthatch and a pair of nesting pied flycatchers visiting a nestbox at regular intervals. We’ve not seen these striking blank and white birds (maybe perfect for my style of artwork) before, so that was a real joy. We also had encounters with treecreeper and green woodpecker. I’m a bit concerned this trip is starting to focus a little too much on birds! The thing is though that we’ve just been extraordinarily lucky with the encounters we’ve had with birds.

The landscape itself was also really moving, with sweeping views across the moorland and very intimate experiences with wizened old oaks. One of which was showing how much of a true survivor this species (and probably all trees) can be. It had really been in the wars with evidence of multiple breaks and falls, resulting in a tree that should, by all normal reckoning, be dead, but there was one small strip of bark still intact that ran down to the roots, so this section was still alive and at this point in time, is the sight that has inspired me the most. But then, there are the beautiful pied flycatchers, the sweeping views and the nuthatch as well!! Just too many options.

To add to this dilemma, we had to drop the car off for an MOT (don’t ask how I managed to not get this organised before we left!!) and went for a walk along the River Taff to find a spot to take lunch whilst we waited. We weren’t in the best of places, although if you could ignore the 2 shopping trolleys, seat and multiple bottles and other varied detritus, it was beautiful. However, even here we still saw 2 dippers (living up to their name, dipping in and out of the river) for about 10 minutes and a pair of kingfishers fly past. Maybe even more options to add to the list. I can certainly see that the hardest thing about this trip is going to be whittling down the inspirational ideas to a reasonable number of pictures that give me a fair chance of getting them all completed before the exhibition!