peregrine – Tales from Wild Wales

Raptor Nut (Part 4)

As I mentioned in posts one to three in this series, I have a particular interest in birds of prey. It began when I first worked for the RSPB in 1979. I was posted to a remote part of north Wales, living in a caravan on a farm and asked to watch two pairs of peregrine falcons which had a history of being robbed of either eggs or young. Two years later I was sent to the Isle of Mull, where I enjoyed a full breeding season surveying white-tailed eagles, peregrines and golden eagles. Following that I spent the next breeding season in the Lake District checking up on pairs of peregrines and golden eagles.

Where my interest came from I’m not sure. Perhaps it was the wilderness areas these birds tend to inhabit that drew me to them. But I also began to experience the strength of personal feeling that tends to surround the birds and their human admirers. With the RSPB, one was parachuted into a new area each season and had little contact with local people. My experience of the animosity between certain individuals in these areas was second or even third hand but in the last year I have unfortunately become personally involved locally.

Several years ago I began watching a pair of merlins nesting high in a mid-Wales cwm. Last summer – watching from a great distance – I located the nest site, and informed a trusted friend who happens to be a very experienced and highly regarded ornithologist. He in turn informed Tony Cross, also a very experienced ornithologist, and a bird ringer for about forty years. I think it’s fair to say that both of them are part of the birding “establishment” in Wales. At the time I was (almost) the only person who knew the exact location of the nest so it made sense for me to lead them to it. In Tony’s professional hands the ringing of the five chicks was successful.

About a week later another raptor enthusiast visited the cwm and saw no signs of merlins – adults or young. On a second visit he found the remains of one merlin chick. He had seen my report of the ringing expedition on the Ceredigion bird blog and put two and two together, getting five. It was the ringing that had caused the failure of the breeding attempt, and the adults had fled. Circumstantial evidence there certainly was but no more than that. He began questioning me in great detail by email about the visit, but, knowing how these things might get out of hand, I politely refused to get involved. Little did I know at that moment how nasty the situation would get. This man later complained about Tony Cross both to the BTO (British Trust for Ornithology) – the ringing authority for the whole of the UK – and Natural Resources Wales, who issue licences to visit the nests of Schedule One bird species in the country. This was beginning to look like a vendetta. But in both cases, to use the legal terminology, it was found that he had no case to answer.

A couple of months later an opinion piece appeared in my local paper. I know the journalist quite well and up until that moment had considered him a friend; a good friend even. But he has never, to my knowledge, had any interest in birds or ornithology. He used sections of my blog (without permission) about the merlins to flesh out his uninformed opinion that as a result of the ringing attempt, they had failed to rear young. I can only assume that the “raptor enthusiast” (Mr X) had put him up to it although the journalist denied it. Tony wrote a long and detailed defence of ringing for the newspaper. The journalist later informed me it was “libellous, lying, long-winded, disjointed and meandering”. As for Tony Cross : “Never mind, he must be all right, mustn’t he, otherwise he wouldn’t have received all those awards, would he…….?”. I just don’t understand where all the bile came from. But one thing is for sure; Tony Cross will have done a hundred times more for wildlife conservation than a bird artist and a journalist between them will ever do.

This year I visited the same cwm a number of times. I am very pleased to say that the merlins were back, and by early June they were feeding young. The thought of sharing even the same mountain with the “raptor enthusiast” was not a welcome one, but I suppose it was inevitable. Visiting with a trusted friend one day in mid-July I recognised him. My friend and I kept a low profile. However he later sought us out and began his interrogation. Getting steadily more agitated, he was just about to leave but could no longer resist: “Did you hear about the ringing?” He is obviously still obsessed with what he must believe are ‘his’ birds and just cannot let it go. His parting shot was that he “didn’t approve” of my posts on the Ceredigion Bird Blog. I can’t say that I covered myself with glory either and with the benefit of hindsight should have kept my mouth shut. It was a very unpleasant encounter.

As for the birds themselves: having successfully reared at least four young, the adults took them from the nest site to a grassy hillside about 300 yards away, dotted with scree and rocky outcrops. This served as their base camp for a number of days. On one visit I was observing them from a respectable distance when one juvenile left its perch and flew directly towards me, landing about fifteen yards away. A fraction of a second later another youngster appeared from behind me and landed right next to the first. It looked over its shoulder, saw me and they flew off together like a shot. The whole episode lasted perhaps two seconds, just enough time for me to realise that I didn’t have my camera to hand. I saw little more, really, than a fast-moving jumble of wings and tails. But it confirmed for me that young merlins are inquisitive, impetuous and easily get bored!

Ironically, I found myself on the same side of an argument as X earlier this year. Another birder (Z) was posting photographs of peregrines to a Facebook page, of which he just happened to be the moderator. X responded that it wasn’t a very good idea to do so, and I backed him up in the most tactful way possible, noting particularly that the location was barely disguised. Z justified his own behaviour at great length and then shortly later began criticising me on Facebook about my own blog posts. He had obviously not read them thoroughly because his criticisms were well wide of the mark. I took myself off the Facebook page immediately and have not been back. It is so easy to become embroiled in finger-pointing and vindictiveness where raptors are concerned. We all believe we are correct and who’s to say where the reality lies?

NB : For those that want to read more about merlins, I highly recommend “The Merlins of the Welsh Marches” by D.A. Orton, which is available secondhand for a few quid from online book retailers.

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Raptor nut (Part 1)

*Juvenile peregrine. I got the impression this was a male.*

There’s always been something special for me about birds of prey. In my “youth” (ok, I was about 30) I did several summer contracts for the RSPB which usually involved raptors and I seemed to identify with them. I spent more time with peregrines than any other species and I still seem to have an affinity with them. But I also spent many weeks with white-tailed and golden eagles on Mull, and with various species in Wales, Scotland and England. Not to mention gyr falcons and peregrines in Greenland! So you could say that since then I’ve been a bit of a raptor nut. I’d rather spend four hours watching a peregrine eyrie – even if virtually nothing happens – than four hours counting waders on an estuary.

Over the last two springs and summers I’ve been keeping my eye on several raptor eyries – from a distance, of course. It started in early 2021, during lockdown, when I discovered a pair of peregrines on a cliff within cycling distance of my home. This was exciting for me because until then I was under the impression that inland peregrine eyries had long since been abandoned in Ceredigion. I followed them through to mid-summer and saw at least one juvenile in the vicinity of the cliff. On an early visit this year I saw both adults visiting the same ledge together, which bade well for the current breeding season.

This year, following a tip-off, I found another pair nesting in an old raven nest on another cliff even closer to home. By that time the three youngsters were already well-developed and on my second visit it looked like two of them might jump and flap off the nest at any moment. One can only imagine the sense of excitement and trepidation that these young birds experience as they prepare to take their first flight. I had found a comfortable perch for myself on the opposite side of the gorge where my presence didn’t seem to worry their parents. On my third visit, a few days ago, as I approached the gorge on foot , I saw that two of the now fledged youngsters were actually using the my own perch for themselves! So I hung back and let events take their natural course. There was plenty of activity as the juveniles raced around after each other and their parents, screaming raucously. There’s nothing more stimulating to the senses than peregrines at full throttle!

I began to make plans to return to the site with my picnic chair and pop-up hide, but the truth is that I am getting very poor results from my current photographic equipment, and I don’t know why. (The image above is very much the exception.) I’ve ruled out my long lens (a Panasonic 100-400 zoom), so it looks like the problem lies with the body – an Olympus EM1 mk 2, which is now almost three years old. I’m wondering if the “in-body image stabilisation” (IBIS) is faulty or whether my settings have become corrupted in some way. Unfortunately I am a bit of a technophobe so all this is rather a challenge. But needless to say, and incredibly frustratingly, any attempt at long range bird photography is having to take a back seat for now.

In summer 2020 – again following a tip-off from a friend – I heard that merlins were nesting in a dramatic, cliff-enclosed cwm a little further away. I was not familiar with this species, so I visited the site, and was excited to see a female merlin flash by on the walk in. It all seemed very promising. Reaching the cwm I noticed several small raptors perched on erratic rocks on the grassy hillsides around the lake. I decided they were merlins but then noticed that, in the air, one of them seemed to be hovering like a kestrel. And then…….. oh….. that one’s hovering like a kestrel as well……….. Eventually the penny dropped. They were kestrels. It was all a bit puzzling. I read “The Merlins of the Welsh Marches” , by David Orton, and that whetted my appetite even more for merlin experiences.

Cliff-nesting merlins are unusual; merlins nesting anywhere in Ceredigion are unusual. In fact, merlins in Ceredigion are unusual, full stop! But last summer I managed to locate this pair’s nest on a heathery ledge part way up a low cliff above the lake. I visited the cwm several times with a few trusted friends and we all enjoyed some exciting raptor action. They are such lively, feisty little birds, especially the tiny, blue-grey male, that in a sense they almost put peregrines to shame. I visited the cwm again this spring and noticed that the merlin pair were present and showing an interest in a section of cliff high, high above the lake. Would they be nesting there this year?

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Peregrinations (part two).

*Part of the remains of the Cwm Coke Works, near Beddau*

A couple of weeks ago I drove down to Cardiff with my mate Jonathan to see Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets at St David’s Hall. Nick was one of the founder members of Pink Floyd. A few years ago he put together a band to play music from “the Floyd’s” earlier and arguably most creative years, prior to Dark Side of the Moon. No Roger Waters dirges here, thank you very much! The gig, originally scheduled for spring 2020, was postponed, postponed again, and then again. You had to hope that Nick would still be fit enough to eventually play. That Wednesday, it finally happened, and he was. I don’t think he could be described as the most original or inventive drummer in the world, but he sets a rock-solid foundation for the other musicians around him. At the age of 78, it is astonishing that he is still able to undertake gruelling sequences of one – night stands, and to keep alive some of the most compelling rock music of all time.

I won’t say much more about the music, other than this : both Jonathan and I are of the opinion that the 22-minute long track “Echoes” (on the album Meddle) is one of the most sublime pieces of rock music ever created. I personally believe it should, and eventually probably will, be considered alongside the great classical music of its era. I had been worried that I wouldn’t be able to cope with experiencing it live. But as we left the venue we agreed that the version of Echoes which ended the second set was a bit of a let-down. It was as if the band were wary of reproducing the space and tranquility which so permeates the studio version. Or perhaps they were unable to do so?

But I digress. My next encounter with peregrines, on the way back from Cardiff, was in a very different setting to the previous one; from the sublime to the ridiculous, you could say. I have briefly visited the Cwm Coke Works site twice in recent years. It only finally closed down in 2002, so I must also have seen it in all its working glory on earlier visits to the Valleys. I just wish I had given it the time it deserved as photographic subject matter, because this extensive site is now derelict and rapidly being demolished. Last summer I heard the unmistakeable calls of peregrines there so vowed to re-visit the site during the breeding season if at all possible.

*The Coke Works bar and coffee shop, Beddau. (Mural hand-painted by Jenny Ross)*

At first it was very quiet. A raven was calling and song birds singing from the woodland which is rapidly regenerating around the site. Then came the sounds of two peregrines in conversation. I spotted one bird circling low around the building in the main picture and shortly later J. picked out the female hunched down in the dirt on an inaccessible part of the site. Later the male brought her some food, and when she stood up you could see two tiny white downy bundles beside her. It is worth mentioning here that at the time Derek Ratcliffe wrote his masterwork The Peregrine Falcon (publ. 1980) it was virtually unknown for the species to nest on man-made structures in the UK : now it is commonplace. I suppose this site gives the birds all the security they need, but it was strange to see such dignified creatures in such delapidated surroundings.

A group of naturalists appeared on the coal tip behind us and I discovered that one member of the party was Carys Romney, who I had also met by chance on a previous visit. She is an ecologist and the leading light behind the Cwm Tips Appreciation Society. She told me about her new venture – a peregrine- and cwm tips-themed bar/coffee shop in the ex-mining village of Beddau a couple of miles away. As you can see from the picture above, there are some fabulous murals there by the artist Jenny Ross, and I can certainly vouch for the quality of the coffee! So why not give the Cokeworks Bar a visit if you find yourself in the area?

NB : I hesitated before posting details of the peregrines, but it should be noted how well-known and valued the birds are locally; and how they are protected by some very keen site security staff.

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Peregrinations (part one).

Over the last few weeks I’ve been exploring parts of the Ceredigion coast with the aid of an excellent bus service. I leave my van in the out-of-town-supermarket car park in Aberystwyth and hop on the bus. It’s a relaxing way to arrive at your destination, and stepping out of the bus in New Quay or Aberaeron on a sunny morning can feel like being on holiday!

I’ve never had much success photographing dippers, but there is a pair on the river at Aberaeron which is semi-accustomed to the presence of walkers passing by. I spent one morning there recently where I was able to photograph both birds at close range. The male has an unpleasant growth on his right ankle but that doesn’t seem to have affected his ability to supply his mate (and possibly youngsters) with larvae from the river bed. The female is a very fine specimen indeed.

I wouldn’t like anyone to think that I come back from a visit like this with memory cards full of perfectly composed, focussed and exposed images of birds like this. Quite the contrary. I’m often frustrated at the results I manage to achieve and I really don’t understand why some appear so mushy – especially those taken with my long zoom lens. Is it equipment failure or user error? I’d love to know. But I usually manage something to be proud of.

*Checking me out …… peregrine near Aberaeron*

After another visit I walked along one stretch of coast to the north of Aberaeron before catching the bus back home. It was delightful on a warm spring afternoon to be out in the fresh air with birds singing and the first wild flowers in bloom. Walking above some sheer cliffs I suddenly saw what I had been hoping for – a dark shape appearing above the waves and very obviously checking me out as it flew past. A peregrine! It repeated the maneouvre several times before disappearing back out of sight. Photographing fast-moving birds birds in flight has never been my forte but I was as prepared as I could be for this eventuality. Following the bird as it flew back-and-forth a few times, I attempted to keep it in focus, and I largely succeeded. I think the main reason for my success on this occasion was that the birds stands out so clearly against the background. There is very little chance that the autofocus will be confused. But it was still an anxious time until I opened the files up on the PC!

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