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Birdwatching in Mid Wales
Red kite in the Cambrian
Mountains
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Photo M. Sarjeant
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The red kite is Wales' national bird, and
Blaen-y-ddôl is a perfect base for birdwatching, and for visiting:
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Accommodation at
Blaen-y-ddôl
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Bwlch
Nant-yr-arian, where red kites are fed daily
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the Kite Country
centre at Gilfach
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the RSPB reserves
at Ynyshir and Dinas
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Tregaron Bog
(Cors Caron) National Nature Reserve.
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Though we specialise in accommodation
for walkers, Blaen-y-ddôl's facilities and setting make it just as suitable
as a base for birdwatching. Our library includes many books on birdwatching
and other aspects of natural history, and we have information on all the
nature reserves in the area. Our new sun-lounge is hung with bird-feeders,
so our guests can watch the local bird life at close quarters. The most
common visitors are tits - great, blue and coal - and chaffinch,
but we also regularly get great spotted
woodpecker, nuthatch, greenfinch and
siskin. A winter visit from a blackcap
was our most unusual. Elsewhere in the immediate locality, apart from such
ubiquitous species as robin, blackbird etc., we see kingfisher (rarely), dipper
(occasionally) and goosander (fairly
often) down by the river; kite (of
course!) and buzzard, redstart, pied flycatcher,
and a variety of warblers.
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Mid Wales is sometimes referred
to as Kite Country. It was the only area of Britain
where this beautiful raptor held on into the 20th century, after years of
persecution by gamekeepers and egg collectors. Measures to protect the
survivors and their offspring, starting about a century ago, permitted a
gradual recovery in the numbers, and now there are over 100 breeding
pairs in Mid Wales. Consequently, sightings now are happily an everyday
occurrence, and very few of our walkers fail to see at least one.
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Birdwatching at
Bwlch Nant-yr-arian
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For those who want to be sure of seeing
kites, there are several feeding centres in the area, the nearest being at Bwlch
Nant-yr-Arian Forestry Visitor Centre, on the A44, 25 minutes drive from
our accommodation at Blaen-y-ddôl. Red kite are now fed there year-round at
3pm BST, 2pm GMT, and if the weather is fair, there are commonly 2 dozen to
be seen.
Dinas RSPB reserve, south of Tregaron, is a "special
place" for birdwatching - a wooded, rocky hill by the River Tywi, with a
beautiful trail round its foot.
Tregaron Bog (Cors Caron) National Nature Reserve is 10 miles away, and
whilst it is chiefly valued for its rare raised bog habitat and flora, it is
also a rich source of food for birds, and attracts many birdwatchers to take
the easy walk along the old Aberystwyth-Carmarthen railway trackbed to an excellent
hide-on-stilts overlooking a wetland area.
Tregaron itself has a Kite Centre and Museum,
which includes information about the wildlife of Cors Caron and the other
surrounding countryside.
Ynyshir RSPB reserve, north of Aberystwyth, encompasses a wide range
of habitats, from moorland, through woodland and pasture, to marsh and
estuary. Each habitat has a hide, and the hides are joined by pleasant
footpaths, so Ynyshir is a place where any birdwatcher is sure to be in
heaven!
 Gilfach, owned by the
Radnorshire Wildlife Trust, is a "farm that time forgot". Neglected
for decades, it escaped the agro-chemicals and intensification which
impoverished the wildlife of Britain
after World War II, until it was bought by the RWT in the late 1980s. They
have restored the magnificent farmhouse as a visitor centre, and during the
breeding season it has live video camera coverage of several bird nests on
the reserve.
The cliffs of the Ceredigion Heritage
Coast offer yet another habitat, where a wide range of common sea birds
can be seen, as well as less common species, rarest of which are the
cliff-nesting chough (around 2 dozen pairs
in Ceredigion) and the peregrine falcon.
There are also stonechat and wheatear in the summer, and turnstone and purple
sandpiper in the winter.
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