The overwhelming beauty of springtime in Coed Tamsin
Almost exactly twelve months ago I was a guest at one of Bob and Felicia’s parties in Coed Tamsin – this one to celebrate the coming of spring – otherwise known by its Celtic name of Beltaine. Bob had set up a maypole which at the appropriate time would form the centrepiece of the celebration. Now at the very thought of any kind of formation dancing I run a mile and this was no exception. I left the others to it with their coloured ribbons and all. I walked alone through the valley and discovered a patch of bluebells of such an intense blue that I decided I would have to return with my camera the next day to try an capture the scene. And so I did.
That patch of blubells, early May 2025
But that was not all. For years Bob had been inviting me into the woods, but I had never taken him up on the offer. I knew that the future of this special place was in question, with both Bob and Felicia being well past retirement age, and that no decision had yet been made about its future should one of them pass away. It came to me in a moment of certainty – this special place needed documenting before it was too late. To cut a long story short, and after a few sticky moments, the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth agreed to purchase a set of prints of their choosing for their Collection.
Fast forward almost a year and the woods are looking spectacular. The sunny weather helps, of course, although for the photographer bright sun can be a disadvantage in woodland. Contrast levels can be terribly high. The bluebells are stunning and I feel I have been am blessed to have been able to spend so much time there. Just being there bathed in light and colour has sometimes been quite an emotional experience. Thank you Bob and Felicia.
Next Saturday is Beltaine again and out will come the ribbons and the maypole. This, I feel, will be the climax of my year in Coed Tamsin and this time I will be there with my camera to document it.
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This is my favourite “sit spot” in Coed Tamsin. Bob has installed a bench here, and I believe has felled some trees/shrubs on the other side of the stream to enhance the view. I’ve been tempted to call him “Capability Shaw”! I’m full on with the project at the moment. Things change so fast in spring time. Blink and you miss it……….
For an introduction to my work in Coed Tamsin, please see this post.
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It’s always good to have a photographic project on the go and since May last year I’ve been documenting a woodland near Aberystwyth. This has involved numerous visits during the course of the year which will culminate on Mayday 2026, the spring festival of Beltaine. I’ve been very lucky in that the National Library in Aberystwyth has agreed to purchase a set of prints of their choosing so that a permanent record will exist of the woodland and the activities taking place there. The following paragraphs have been written for the library as an introduction to the prints.
Coed Tamsin is a woodland a few miles from Aberystwyth belonging to Felicia Jervis, and managed by her partner Bob Shaw, a woodsman, environmentalist (and philosopher….) of many years experience. It was bought in 1987 as a memorial to Felicia’s daughter Tamsin, who had died the previous year in a road accident, at the age of 21. Tamsin’s father was John Jervis of Bryneithin Hall, Llanfarian, then a privately owned museum of Welsh country tools, other artifacts and techniques. Bob and Felicia’s intention was to manage the woodland for wildlife, people and timber, whilst also acknowledging John’s legacy.
Previously known as Flat Covert, Coed Tamsin was originally part of the Nanteos Estate. Prior to the purchase the woodland consisted largely of conifers and had long been neglected. Under new ownership the conifers were thinned or removed altogether, and broad-leaves planted using locally derived seed. Trees have been managed to produce good quality timber, coppice products, and material for woodland skills training. Alongside these aims, the enhancement of biodiversity has been a primary objective. In recent years the arrival of ash dieback and the consequent felling of mature trees has led to an explosion of woodland ground flora in spring.
Coed Tamsin has been used extensively over the years by groups of disadvantaged children and adults, for example, those excluded from school, or with learning disabilities, and recovering alcoholics. Groups from the Centre for Alternative Technology and elsewhere in the community received training in woodland management and green woodworking there. The changing seasons have regularly been celebrated at Coed Tamsin, with music, food and fire; notably at Beltaine, the Celtic May Day festival.
During 2025/26 the wood has been a meeting place for “Meini Hirion / Elders for Wales” – a project of the Welsh Government’s internal Culture Change Service which forms a core element of Wales’ response to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity.
At the time of writing the long-term future of Coed Tamsin is uncertain. There is no guarantee that ownership of the woodland will pass to someone sympathetic to the aims of the current owner and manager.
Photographer Jeremy Moore first visited Coed Tamsin in 1989 when working on his exhibition ‘After the Wildwood’. A photograph taken there appears in the exhibition catalogue. As a friend of Bob and Felicia he has visited the woodland on many occasions since then. However it was not until spring 2025 that he realised how important it was that this very special place should be documented before it was too late. He has since visited the wood many times in an attempt to present a picture of Coed Tamsin in perhaps its finest hour.
It’s impossible to choose one photograph to illustrate the whole project. So many photographic approaches have been involved…… landscape, documentary, portraiture and nature…….. But the one above goes some way to illustrate the links between nature and people which have been so important at Coed Tamsin over the last thirty-nine years. I’ll add some more images in separate posts over the next few weeks. So watch this space!
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It was always going to be a bit of a punt, visiting the Isle of Mull at the end of February. I’m not going to tell a lie, the weather was pretty poor. While we were able to get outside every day, even if just for an hour in the evening, I can’t remember a single moment when the sun shone from a clear blue sky. Maybe a peek through thin cloud now and again on a good day…….
At that time of year we hoped to see eagles (golden and white-tailed) and…yes… we did. I surveyed eagles on Mull for the RSPB in 1981, before sea eagles became established. It became apparent that the island was just bursting with golden eagles. Where a territory had no suitable tree- or cliff nesting sites, they would nest more or less on the ground. I’m sure I didn’t find them all but it was thought that there were probably 25 pairs on the island.
There has been a school of thought that during the following decades, as white-tailed eagles successfully colonised the island, golden eagles might be driven out of their territories, especially along the coast. But on the evidence of our visit that did not seem to be the case. Most of our eagle sightings were of birds high in the sky a quarter of a mile away or more and nearly all of them were goldens. While we did see some white-tails they tended to be closer to ‘civilisation’ and thus easier to see. I know this is very poor evidence to support any kind of theory but it was interesting. I’d love to know the truth.
This white-tailed eagle drifted across to take a look at us on our first evening.
But the eagles were by no means the only highlight of the week. Our last morning was wonderful, with little wind and blue skies. From the Oban ferry I picked out what I first thought was a group of small cetaceans. Further observation suggested they were probably blue-fin tuna; I’ve searched online for ID pointers but most websites are far more concerned with catching them than identifying them! Wintering great northern divers were common and the chocolate shop at Craignure was wonderful! Perhaps my most enduring memory was of an otter at the narrow mouth of a sea-loch, Loch Spelve. Sitting onshore and looking across the water I noticed a disturbance mid-channel and it turned out to be an otter, heading inland from the ocean. Every so often it would appear for a few seconds, then dive, its conical tail being the last part of its body to be visible. It came onshore briefly and I managed to get some photographs of it before it headed off again.
Otter , probably sprainting, Loch Spelve.
I’m trying to get in touch with Dave Sexton, the RSPB’s “man on the ground” on Mull (now retired) for some thoughts on the relationships between golden and white-tailed eagles on the island. If I get a reply, I’ll update this.
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After rousing myself from the sofa a couple of evenings ago I noticed my phone on the kitchen table. It showed a very high red aurora alert. I cursed my laziness when I saw that it had been red all evening! I rushed outside and through a break in the cloud – a rare phenomenon in itself – I could see that that, yes, the sky looked rather “different”. I threw on some more layers , grabbed my camera and tripod and walked along the road. As explained previously we live on an exposed east-west ridge with (almost) unobstructed views to the north and south – ideal for seeing the Northern Lights. I soon came across a couple who were obviously aurora watching. They had come up from the nearest village and told me how amazing it had been and showed me pictures on their phones. I was downcast but set the tripod up anyway; and soon noticed that the camera was almost out of battery! So it was back to the house and more piddling about. Finally almost semi-organised, I came back out just in time to discover that cloud was, by then, almost 100%. A popular photographic maxim in the past was “1/125th second at f8 and be there”. Those settings are clearly not appropriate for photographing the aurora but the last requirement certainly is and I had failed it completely!
2024 had been an excellent year for seeing the aurora here in west Wales, as it was in many other parts of the country. Twice – in May and October – I saw spectacular displays with a further moderate display on my birthday in September. So I’d had some fairly recent experience of the pitfalls and problems involved in aurora photography. I wrote about these experiences in this post and this post . In the former I said I could write a book on aurora photography: I was exaggerating, of course, but I do find the subject absolutely fascinating., and not only in a technical, “how to” sense.
I explained in this post why it is that we see much less colour in the aurora when we look at it in “reality” than when see a photograph of it. To summarise, our eyesight is more sensitive to black-and-white than colour at low light levels. It is just the way our eyes work. So a digital sensor (or even film) will pick up more colour than our eyes do. The sensor is more “objective ” than our eyes are. Even that, I suspect, is a generalisation: The first time I ever saw the northern lights – in about 1984 – I was with a friend. My memories of that event were of a white-ish or pale green aurora, whereas he remembers a colourful one. There must be individual differences in the human ability to pick up colours at low light levels.
Another consideration might be how our camera (or phone) is set up to take and produce the photographs. When the photographer sees the result of their shutter press on their phone or the rear screen of the camera, they are looking at a jpeg file , already automatically processed by the device to give optimum results no matter what the subject is. Other photographers set their camera up to produce a raw file only, which needs to be manually processed using software (such as Lightroom) designed specifically for the task. When downloaded onto a computer the raw file usually looks like a dull version of reality, which needs individual treatment to get the best out of it. The camera also produces a jpeg which is what appears on the rear screen. And over- or under- exposure will affect the intensity of the colours in the digital file. Yet another variable!
Anyway…….. yesterday evening had been more or less cloudy but by 11 pm there were signs of a clearance coming up from the south. As I lay in bed , through the window I could see that the sky between broken cloud looked paler than normal. Could it have been a full moon effect in some way? No…. that was about a fortnight ago. I lay there considering the pro’s and con’s of leaving my warm and comfortable cocoon. Should I? What if? Steadily and calmly adding layer after layer of warm clothing and collecting my camera gear from several different locations (ever organised, me……) I was outside by about 11.20 pm. and straight away could see an aurora with the naked eye.
I had mounted a fixed focal length Panasonic 9mm f1.7 lens on the camera (18mm full-frame equivalent). While this is too wide for most situations I had purchased it partly with the Northern Lights in mind. Its main advantage is the f1.7 aperture. This allows much shorter shutter speeds to be used, and it gives an excellent depth of field, even open wide. I set the tripod up and pressed the shutter. I was elated on seeing the result. A deep crimson was visible on the rear screen which was barely visible to the naked eye, while the off-white/pale green colouration which had been visible became a deep lime green. Over the next fifty minutes the intensity of the aurora diminished steadily and although I waited for it to be re-invigorated it wasn’t to be.
One final philosophical consideration, though. If we can’t literally see something, does it really exist? My feeling is that it does.
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This photograph, originally in colour, was taken about thirty years ago, and appeared in my first book Wales – the Lie of the Land. The location is the Nanteos Estate near Aberystwyth, which contains some fine clumps of beech trees planted as landscape features. During an exploration there I met the farmer and he showed me this graffiti, which he claimed he had carved himself. In case you can’t decipher it, it reads HERR ADOLF HITLER 1933, and includes a Swastika. It is dated 1937, so probably 58 years prior to my taking the photograph. I don’t remember how old the farmer was but the graffiti was carved to last and it seems unlikely that a child, or even a teenager, could have been responsible for it.
Over the years I have pondered over the origin of the graffiti. History has never been my strong point but the most likely explanation, it seemed to me, was that prior to the second world war, a party of Germans had camped on the estate and left a memorial of their visit. And it looks like I may have been correct.
Last week I visited the Ceredigion Archive to enquire about the graffiti. Did they know anything about its origin? The archivist didn’t but a visitor overheard my question and told me that there were some reports in the Cambrian News of the day about a visit from Hitler Youth to Wales in July 1937. That was my lucky break. At the National Library I discovered in the July 30th edition of the paper that “twenty-one members of the Hitler Jugend (Nazi Youth Movement) camped at Aberdyfi on Thursday week“. The report continued :
…..”owing to the inclement weather (they) were allowed the use of the Pavilion. They had spent one week of their British tour as guests of the Rydal Boys School at Colwyn Bay and had marched through Snowdonia, Beddgelert, Harlech and Towyn, and on to Aberdyfi.
They were, apparently, warmly received wherever they went and enjoyed the wonderful scenery and the friendliness of the local people. “They continued their route marching on Saturday morning and before leaving were presented with a specially inscribed souvenir copy of the Aberdovey Guide by Mr Owen Jones, of the Publicity Bureau”, said the Cambrian News.
More searching on the internet led me to an opinion piece in NATION.CYMRU (15/9/25) which quoted the Cambrian News as saying that in July 1937 twenty-one members (plus three adults) of this movement [Hitler Youth] arrived in Aberystwyth on Saturday “and made the Scout Hall their headquarters“. It claimed that rather than marching, they were actually cycling, which seems far more likely and corroborates with other reports of their activities in the UK. The well-meaning hosts all over Wales must have believed that these charming, clean-living, visitors were the German equivalent of the Boy Scouts – but this was far from the truth. The oath taken by all 10 year olds on entering the Hitler Youth included the following statement:
“In the presence of this blood banner which represents the Fuhrer, I swear to devote all my energies and my strength to the saviour of our country, Adolf Hitler. I am willing and ready to give up my life for him, so help me God”
and “I promise to do my duty in love and loyalty to the Fuhrer and our Flag“.
It has been said that the purpose of the Hitler Youth was to indoctrinate those children into Fascist ideology before they had a chance to learn anything else.
These cycling trips were not unusual in the mid- to late- 1930’s and they made links and stayed with Boy Scout groups and ‘public’ (actually private) schools. The Nazis were very impressed by the British ‘public’ school system, and cultivated links with Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts, who is known to have had Nazi sympathies. But the British secret service became suspicious of them and for good reason: behind the healthy outdoor living activities of these young people lay a more sinister purpose. They were instructed to make notes on and memorise the location of towns and villages and landmarks such as church towers.
“Make a note of the names of places, rivers, seas and mountains. Perhaps you may be able to utilise these sometime for the benefit of the Fatherland”, they were told.
So did the Hitler Youth who arrived in Aberystwyth in late July 1937 actually camp on the Nanteos Estate? It would certainly have been suitable, should the owner and occupier – a certain Margaret Powell – have been naive enough to have allowed it.
A bit late this year, I know……. but I’ve been suffering from a particularly unpleasant winter lurgy for the last few days, and am only beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I hope!
This photo was taken at Cemlyn Bay, Anglesey, during my annual visit to the tern colony there this year. I’ve always had difficulties separating arctic and common terns, and I’m going to have to come clean…. I don’t know if these are one or the other! What appear to be long red bills suggest common, but the lack of black tips suggest arctics. If anyone can put out of my identification misery, please let me know!
So, many thanks for reading my posts and I hope you have enjoyed them. May there be blue skies ahead!
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There’s no doubt that a highlight of my visit to the Basque country was San Juan Gaztelugatxe on the coast near Bermeo (see previous post) . But there were others too. We planned to do a “compare and contrast” exercise between the Dyfi Biosphere and the Urdaibai Biosphere as the areas are superficially similar. Both sit within regions using a minority language. Each is based on a single river catchment and each has a core area where wildlife is strictly protected. For Machynlleth – a town of about 2200 people in a very rural area of mid-Wales – think Gernika, with its population of 16,000, in the still rural but more highly developed Basque country. For the downmarket holiday resort of Borth in Ceredigion, think Bermeo, once the centre of a thriving whaling industry, now thankfully part of the town’s history. For the Dyfi estuary think the estuary of the Oka. The obviously very well funded Urdaibai is in startling contrast to the Dyfi, with two part-time members of staff, surviving on a shoestring and with its future very much in doubt. So there are similarities but the small scale and perceived lack of importance of one contrasts strongly with the other.
Each has a visitor centre in its core area and the fate of the two couldn’t be more different. In Wales, Ynyslas Visitor Centre near the mouth of the Dyfi was closed last year by its operator, Natural Resources Wales, in very controversial circumstances. It had been open in several different guises for at least 46 years and been steadily developed over that time; I worked there in 1978 when I first moved to Wales. Meanwhile the “Bird Centre” in the Urdaibai was opened in 2012, and is a startlingly modern (high-tech even) facility with large picture windows overlooking lagoons created in the wetlands. It is equipped with telescopes so that staff and visitors can study the estuary’s wildlife.
Breakfast at Urdaibai
And what is more, you can stay there! The bedrooms are modern and comfortable and at breakfast time you emerge into the “guest lounge” reserved for overnight visitors. It is on the top floor and has a wonderful view of the estuary. Telescopes are available and every table has a pair of binoculars for each guest. What a lovely touch! A delicious buffet meal is laid out and you just help yourself. You can eat your fill over a leisurely breakfast and watch birds at the same time. The highlight for me was a black-winged kite, (a distant view only, admittedly), seen as I tucked in to toast, croissants, fruit and coffee. Talk about a breakfast with a view!
Edit: The top photograph lists Biospheres throughout the world but for some reason omits the Dyfi!
For more information about the Urdaibai Biosphere and the Bird Centre see the following –
My partner Jane works at the Dyfi Biosphere reserve in Machynlleth, which has links to the Urdaibai Biosphere near Bilbao, in the Basque Country. So we decided to have a short holiday there in September. We’re both keen on train travel and it was a chance for me to use the Interrail pass which I had bought last December and which expired this month. So we took the sleeper train to Bayonne in France and then onward to Hendaye on the Spanish border. From there we transferred onto the narrow gauge (but electrified) line towards Bilbao. I can’t say I would recommend the latter. It took three hours and stopped at fifty-one stations! At each one the doors slid open and clanged shut, with numerous accompanying beeps. Think a three hour journey on the Tube and you’ve just about got it. But arrive we did, eventually. There is a very good network of local trains and buses in the Bilbao area so we used public transport exclusively while were there.
I knew little about the Basque Country before leaving and even less about the language. It’s fair to say that the distribution of letters in a Basque edition of Scrabble would be very different to the UK version……. X, Z and K would only score one point each, for starters! It is hilly and heavily wooded country with a dramatic coastline. One of the most well-known features of the latter is the islet of Gaztelugatxe – complete with a chapel dedicated to San Juan on its summit – linked to the mainland by a stone bridge. It is considered to be a pilgrimage site, and has always been a popular destination for visitors. It was used as a location in The Game of Thrones, and now, at busy periods, you need to book a ticket online before visiting. And there can still be queues. I knew nothing about this, of course, and was disappointed to discover that no passes were available for the day that I could visit. It took me a while to discover that in late September there were no longer any restrictions. Lucky me!
My visit started with a bus journey from Bermeo (the nearest town) well before dawn on a showery morning. It was still dark when the bus left me at the side of the road above the island. By the time I had reached the coastline it was light but no sun lit the island. A passing break in the clouds allowed a few sunbeams to hit the chapel but the camera was still in my bag. I then discovered that I had left my polariser in the hotel. This was becoming a habit!
3.2 seconds at f8.2.5 seconds at f8
However, when I got to the bridge and looked along the coastline things started took a turn for the better. Talk about moody! Stormy skies, rock stacks, skerries with white water breaking over them, and rain showers passing across the landscape. I decided that long exposures using a neutral density filter would make the best of the conditions. Without a tripod I had to brace the camera carefully against a stone wall and rely on the image stabilisation for which Olympus kit is renowned. I took a series of exposures in the region of 1.6 to 4 seconds long and hoped for the best. Short breaks in the cloud even allowed the sun to illuminate the most prominent stack, leaving everything else in shadow. All my extremities were crossed at this moment! And the islet with its chapel was illuminated for short periods of time too.
I spent hours processing some of these photographs on my return home to the UK. Most of the long exposures needed some serious sharpening, but taking into consideration how long they actually were, that’s not surprising. Without the latest technology they would have been virtually impossible (without a tripod), say, ten years ago. Thank goodness I had arrived early because by mid-morning the area was thronged by visitors. And thank goodness it hadn’t been a blue sky day!
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I wonder if most landscape/outdoor photographers are as solitary as this one? I suspect not. But if I’m not out in the landscape with my camera or binoculars I can usually be found sitting at my desk watching cat videos on Youtube or scrolling though Facebook er….. sorry……. er ……..processing images and running my business. Rarely does the phone ring or an exciting proposal arrive by email. I’m not naturally gregarious and promoting my work comes pretty low down on my list of priorities these days. But an unexpected opportunity came my way last weekend.
I was attending “The Eye” photography festival at Aberystwyth Arts Centre.. It is devoted to documentary photography and photo-journalism and its organiser – Glenn Edwards – has been able to bring some of the biggest names in the genre to little old Aberystwyth over the years. While these are not my specialities I do appreciate good photography of all types and I have always found it a stimulating event.
During the first lecture I noticed that my friend Will Troughton was in the audience. He is the photography curator at the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth and has always been a supporter of my work. So I went over to have a chat, during which he told me that one of the afternoon events was a visit to the Library. He had selected some prints from its huge Photography Collection (almost a million prints altogether) for attendees to browse through. As well as work from some of the greats of 19th Century photography, he had also chosen some more contemporary work including some of mine. So alongside Carleton Watkins prints of the nineteenth-century American West, and a set of prints of Native Americans from the same era by Edward Sherriff Curtis, was a selection from my exhibition Bird/land (click here to visit my website).
As it happened I had a one-off copy of the Bird/land book with me, so I offered to come down to the Library with him. While I hadn’t prepared a presentation I was introduced as the photographer and it gave me the opportunity to talk about Bird/land with some knowledgeable and interested photographers. I also had a copy of another one-off book with me – the result of a very long term project variously known as ‘my black-and-white project’, the ‘Fay Godwin project ‘, or, most definitively, ‘A Sideways Glance‘ (click here to visit my website.) The two books are so different in style and subject matter that it must seem difficult to believe that the same photographer could have produced both. But I am living evidence that he did! Both books provoked a great deal of interest and some good feedback.
This was a real boost to my confidence. Back at the Arts Centre I collared Glenn Edwards and showed them to him as well. The documentary style of A Sideways Glance was more to his liking, I suspect, and he looked through it very carefully, finally giving me very positive feedback. A few years ago I had hoped that he might give me a slot at “The Eye” but I think his intention has always been to bring photographic excellence to Aberystwyth, rather than showcase local photographers.
The following morning one of the other photographers asked me if it was possible to buy a copy of Bird/land, and I had to explain it was a one-off, and therefore quite expensive. But we agreed on a price and I’m just about to send it off to him down in Pembrokeshire.
As for me, until the weather improves, it’s back to the cat videos!
If you are interested in buying a copy of Bird/land, please let me know. It is in hardback, 28 x 28 cm in size with 20 double-page spreads, on very thick paper in “lay-flat” style. It contains a total of 117 images mostly in the form tryptichs. The price would be £95 including postage.
NB. Sadly it looks like this will have been the final “Eye” in Aberystwyth due to declining attendances. It was good while it lasted!
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