photography – Tales from Wild Wales

Farming and nature in Wales (Part One)

First a heads up. This post is not about photography, so some of you may like to look elsewhere. Having said that I’ll add a few words about the above image, which shows the hillside opposite my house. Visually I was attracted to the work the farmer was doing, ridding his land of bracken and gorse. I took a series of images as the bracken patch became smaller and smaller until it finally disappeared. Fortunately I took one photograph of the entire hillside, because over the following weeks it became my favourite. It’s not a great composition and looks rather random. And that is its strong point, because so much of the Welsh landscape is just as random, with buildings and structures thrown up wherever it is convenient. So I’ll leave that thought with you before I go on to the main text.

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In his excellent book “Sarn Helen” Tom Bullough includes quotations from some mid-Wales farmers dating from 2016.

He quotes his own father, who worked as a contract sileage maker, “How I hated watching those hay crops disappear. It had been going on for centuries but it made it no easier……. All those wild flowers coming up, they’ve lost them all now. I wish I’d had a camera then to take photographs of them…. “

“There’d be yellowhammers, pewits, curlews…. there’d be birds, then, from bottom to top!” adds May Lewis.

Tom’s friend Gerwyn Davies tells him :”Originally my granddad would have chosen what was best according to what he knew about his land. Every crop you can imagine would be on that farm. He had all the different feeds for the animals – oats, barley……. wheat.“

Cliff Pugh, who was 82 years old at the time. “I tell you. I don’t think anybody’s known such a change, in a generation, as in mine”

Tom concludes “Well it just can’t last”.

Gerwyn agrees : “Well, that’s it. It’s like wringing that last bit of water out a flannel. We’re just wringing it, trying to squeeze out the last few drops, thinking we can keep on wringing it, and you just can’t”

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Up to 90% of the land surface of Wales is farmed, with cattle and sheep grazing being the main land use. Over recent decades farming systems have steadily been intensified and the traditional mixed farm has more or less been eliminated. Measures such as the replacement of semi-natural grassland by single species leys, the production of silage instead of hay, the removal of hedgerows, ponds and wetlands, and the use of artificial fertilisers and pesticides have ensured this.

Over 50% of Wales’s vegetation now consists of improved grassland dominated by rye grass. It is sometimes described as “Wales’ Green Desert”. It has very limited value for wildlife and could be best understood as a factory floor for producing meat and, to a lesser extent, dairy products.

As intensification progressed step-by-step so nature has taken more and more of a back seat. Wildflower meadows have virtually disappeared, together with the insects and other wildlife they supported. Farmland birds such as curlew, lapwing, yellowhammer and cuckoo have seen particularly severe declines. Wales has been described as one of the most “nature-depleted” countries in the world. The overall abundance of Welsh wildlife has fallen by about 20% since 1994, and one in six species are said to be threatened with extinction. And yet during this time agriculture in Wales has been supported by public money by up to £350 million every year.

Welsh farmland is categorised as either “lowland” or “less favoured”; the latter to account for the harsh terrain and climate found in the uplands. The latter is further subdivided into “Disadvantaged” (23% of the total) and “Severely Disadvantaged “ (56% of the total) areas. In other words 79% of the Welsh land mass is described as “Less Favoured”.

On average 67% of farm incomes in Wales comes from subsidies, but in Less Favoured Areas this percentage increases to 80% or more. When prices are poor this figure could increase to more than 100%. In other words, agriculture in the uplands, particularly, is entirely uneconomic, and in bad years upland farmers make a loss without subsidies. Until 2026 these payments were in the form of the Basic Payment Scheme originated by the European Union. They were calculated according to the area of land operated by each farmer. The payments were designed to keep farmers farming. Nothing more, nothing less. In some cases a farm could be entered into an agri-environment scheme, which added a ‘top-up’ payment for maintaining a wildlife habitat on their land or improving certain features.

(Part 2 will follow shortly)

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What the hell….why not?

*Cormorants and starlings, Titchwell, Norfolk* (Entered in ‘Black & White’)

For a number of reasons I haven’t done much bird photography recently. Pardon me for blowing my own trumpet but perhaps subconciously I was influenced by the following statement in an internal document written earlier this year by Will Troughton of the National Library of Wales:

” Since then [1989] Jeremy Moore has become recognised as Wales’ leading environmental photographer. Over the succeeding years the Library has been fortunate to acquire over 400 high quality prints from different projects covering the length and breadth of Wales. His meticulous work has received extensive praise from many quarters.”

*Mallard* *(both entered in ‘Abstract’*)

Will has now retired so whether that support will continue under his successor remains to be seen. But who could resist quoting that statement? I guess I didn’t spend much time on the birdlife of Coed Tamsin during my project there during 2025-2026, and since then my main focus has been on documenting the wildfires occurring all over Wales during the late summer. That will probably continue.

However I recently came across the WildArt Bird Photography Awards. Its publicity blurb includes the following statement :

When we launched the awards back in July, we hoped our vision of celebrating creativity, originality and a different way of looking at birds would strike a chord with photographers around the world. The response has been fantastic, and we’re enormously grateful to everyone who has helped make our first year such a success.

I had some success in the BWPA a few years ago (two ‘highly commended images’ – or was it three….? ) but there is some concern that these competitions are primarily about raising money for their organisers. So I haven’t entered any for a number of years. But in a bit of a ‘what the hell’ moment I handed over my rather substantial entry fee and began the very enjoyable process of searching through images accumulated over the last few years that I thought might fit the bill. So I’m posting a few of my entries here. Some are very definitely not your standard bird pictures: I particularly like the Mallard images – entered into the ‘abstract’ category – in which you may struggle to find any actual birds!

*Arctic tern, Anglesey* (Entered in ‘Urban’)

So wish me luck!

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Letters to the Editor (5) …… or Spreading like wildfire (Part Three)

*Derelict cottage and burnt mountain ash tree in the Rhinogydd.*

At the end of part two (click to read) in this series I asked rhetorically what NRW (and the fire service) were doing in the Rhinogydd during the wildfire there in July this year. Shortly afterwards an article appeared on the Cambrian News website, and I wrote following response:

The fire started on Thursday July 9^th (not the 12^thas your article stated) when, allegedly, a gas stove being used by a wildcamper was knocked over and set fire to nearby vegetation. It spread, as they say, like wildfire. At some point over the weekend the farmer at Cwm Bychan (or perhaps the landowner) called in a helicopter pilot to extinguish the fire on his land, which he successfully did. The pilot offered his services to NRW in order to extinguish the fire on Crown land nearby but they turned his offer down, claiming that he was not qualified to do so.

By Monday morning (July 13^th) the fire had spread from Cwm Bychan eastwards into the Rhinogydd National Nature Reserve and by that afternoon seven fire engines were present in Cwrt forestry plantation to the east of the mountains. But what were they doing there? There seemed to be no attempt to prevent the fire spreading further into the NNR.

By Tuesday afternoon (July 14^th) the fires around Cwm Bychan were more or less out but the whole east side of Rhinog Fawr was ablaze and there had been no apparent attempt to put it out. So what exactly had the Fire Service and NRW been doing all that time?

A little bit more about Rhinog Fawr; it is a National Nature Reserve, Special Area for Conservation and Site of Special Scientific Interest. Furthermore, “because of its remarkable natural condition” it is also a Wales’s only “bioenergetic reserve”, so described because it is “one of a network of special sites across Europe chosen for their importance to try to preserve the genetic variety of European wildlife species – in this case heather”.

But not important enough for NRW to attempt to save the vegetation from fire, clearly. I believed that NRW and the Fire Service were doing nothing more than attempting to retain the economic value of the timber in Cwrt Forest. This was confirmed in a press release from the Welsh Government issued on July 23rd about wildfires in Wales. Among acres of verbiage it stated that in the Rhinogydd “key forestry assets have been protected.” I myself visited the area recently and saw the firebreaks which had been bulldozed along the eastern side of the plantation, which had been largely successful.

Since the fire NRW was widely criticised for being incompetent. But it is more than that. NRW is completely dominated by procedure and bureaucracy. It could not engage with a helicopter company actually on the spot, and qualified to put out wildfires, even in an emergency, because it was not on an approved list of contractors. NRW is also the result of an ill thought out merger of three different bodies, with three different priorities – forestry, water quality and nature conservation. It is not difficult to work out which of those three got the shortest straw in the new organisation.

Looking at the bigger picture, climate change deniers would also claim that this fire was the result of carelessness, rather than climate change; a wildcamper – who shouldn’t even have been there – knocking over a stove. Well yes, but how careless have we been to perform an unimaginably massive experiment in changing the composition of the atmosphere when for decades we have been warned what the result would be.

Climate chaos.

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Eclipsed

Way back in 1999, I travelled down to Cornwall to experience the total eclipse. Although the run-up to totality was ruined by cloud cover, I remember coming back to Wales with a few transparencies showing a partial eclipse after totality through thin cloud.

Over the winter I’d been mulling over the idea of visiting northern Spain for the total solar eclipse on August 12th. I asked family members and friends if they would be interested in joining me, and earlier this year began looking at transport and accommodation options for a small group. It proved to be a difficult search. Access to the western side of northern Spain is long-winded and/or expensive, (unless you fly – which I don’t) and reasonably priced accommodation was difficult to find. To cut a long story short I dropped the idea altogether.

While the eclipse in Britain would not be total, here in the west it was due to reach about 93% of totality- which is not to be sneezed at. As the day grew closer I became more and more keen on trying to photograph it. I dug out the solar eclipse filter which I had bought in 1999 and watched a few Youtube videos. Photographing a partial eclipse seemed more of a technical exercise than a creative one (a total eclipse would be a different matter). I had all the equipment I needed apart from the step down ring that I would need to attach the filter to my current lens, and that was easily obtained online. The forecast was good so what had I got to lose?

So come last Wednesday evening I was down at the seafront in Aberystwyth with my camera bag and tripod ready for the off. It was a long time before any changes were apparent in the sun’s shape or its ability to warm or light up my surroundings. But through the filter the tiniest bite into the sun that the moon made was soon visible and its size steadily increased for about an hour. Only after about fifty minutes could the dimming of the light be noticed and a slight cooling in the air be felt. I took an image roughly every 5 minutes as the sequence took place. Do I wish that I had continued beyond maximum coverage until the sun’s disc was fully visible again. Yes. Perhaps I should have taken the event more seriously: I may never see its like again*.

Back home I discovered that most images were over-exposed by about three stops, but that was easily dealt with. I also moved the white slider to the point where the sun ‘s brightness started clipping. Processing was a doddle compared to most landscape images.

The sequence below was taken roughly every nine minutes.

Or perhaps not……. There’s a total eclipse in southern Spain in August 2027, and totality lasts for 6 minutes.

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Spreading like wildfire (Part Two)

*_{The “Roman Steps” climbing through burnt ground in the Rhinogydd.}*

The following day I woke early. I could see the fire still burning away but decided to keep well clear of the immediate area. I drove around the northern flank of the Rhinogydd towards Harlech and then cut across to Cwm Bychan on minor roads. The lower atmosphere amongst and to the west of the mountains was thick with blue and/or orange haze and visibility was poor. In normal circumstances my camera would have stayed in its bag but the intention was to document the conditions. I stopped several times to take photographs as I made my way slowly along a gated road (at least seven gates!) into Cwm Bychan. I think they capture the atmosphere quite well.

On reaching the “main” valley road into Cwm Bychan I came across a very definite “Road Closed|” sign. At this point I parked up, had a coffee in the van and put my walking feet on. But did “road closed” also mean no access to pedestrians? It wasn’t clear. Road walking is not my favourite activity but there seemed to be no alternative. After about an hour I reached Llyn Cwm Bychan; I could see that the crags on the other side of the lake had been burnt out, with small patches of vegetation still smouldering. At the farm there was no sign that footpath access to the Roman Steps (and the fire!) was forbidden so I carried on. Fire had fortunately not reached the ancient oak woodland on the lower slopes but as I emerged into open uplands I could see plenty of burnt ground. I carried on upwards along the Roman Steps towards the watershed.

The Roman Steps are definitely not Roman. However the rock laid in medieval times to allow sheep and cattle to be herded eastwards towards markets in east Wales and England did form a partial firebreak. For quite long stretches the flames had not apparently been powerful enough to jump from one side of them to the other.

Signs of the main fire to the east side of the mountains were becoming more obvious so I decided to turn back. I didn’t want to be a victim of the fire or the Emergency Services’ anger! I’d taken a range of images of the burnt ground and have posted the best one at the top of this post. I feel it works on more than level; it shows the results of the fire but also has abstract qualities. I drove home the way I had arrived, via Trawsfynydd; from the main road south it was clear that the entire eastern side of Rhinog Fawr was ablaze. How could this tragedy have happened? What were NRW and the Fire Service actually doing?

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Spreading like wildfire (Part One)

Last week I shrugged off my mid-summer photography slump, dusted off my camera bag and headed off into north Wales. I had heard there was a wildfire in Cwm Bychan in the midst of the Rhinogydd, a range of rugged and wild mountains (and National Nature Reserve) between the Mawddach and Dwyryd estuaries. I thought it might be interesting and useful to document it – if it was still burning. My plan was to drive towards Trawsfynydd , turn off westwards along a minor road into a forestry carpark, and then head further west on foot along the “Roman Steps” a public footpath through the mountains into Cwm Bychan.

Just a few miles north of Dolgellau it became clear that a wildfire was still burning in the Rhinogydd. A blue-ish haze suffused the landscape. It was genuinely unsettling and this feeling was accentuated when a fire engine hurried northwards, blue lights flashing. A gate barred the minor road I planned to take and a sign warned that it was closed ahead. Smoke billowed from the mountains several miles to the west. I reckoned that if the road was “closed ahead” I could legally drive as far as the point where it was actually closed. So I headed along it towards the mountains.

After faffing around for a while, and then trudging and floundering on foot upwards across a wasteland of molinia tussocks, I finally reached a point from where the source of the smoke could be viewed across the treetops. It became clear that the fire which had begun in Cwm Bychan on the western flank of the Rhinogydd more than a week earlier was now burning on the eastern flank, It had, as they say, spread like wildfire.

*Looking back inland, Arenig Fawr to the left on the far horizon. In the foreground one of several restored hut circles.*

From my viewpoint I could hear vehicles driving along forestry tracks but they couldn’t be seen. I had no real idea what fire-fighting activity – if any – was taking place. Although a breeze was blowing the smoke south-eastwards, the fire itself appeared to be progressing slowly northwards. Very strange!

After taking a series of images, the best of which is reproduced at the top, I returned to my van and a quick mug of tea. I continued up the road in the van but at the point where it enters the forestry plantation I could go no further. It really was closed here. What I had assumed was one fire truck going backwards and forwards must actually have been seven different fire trucks and they were all parked here. Dozens of fire-fighters were in attendance, plus a refreshment tent. They were surprised to see me and rather suspicious of my motives. “Are you the official photographer?” one asked me. It seemed that I had arrived just at the moment when most of the fire crew were being stood down. I heard the chief thanking them all for their hard work and I managed a few quick snaps before they left.

But the fire was still burning. It was more widespread than it had been earlier in the day. The great pall of smoke was still heading for Dolgellau and onward. What had they actually been doing?

Part Two will follow.

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Coed Tamsin Part Four – Bob.

Although Coed Tamsin is owned by Felicia, her partner – Bob Shaw – is the heart and soul of the place. Philosopher, mystic, woodsman, teacher, and Friend of the Earth, Bob is truly one of a kind.

Born into a farming family in the south of England, he went to agricultural college there in the mid-1960’s, before moving to mid-Wales in 1969. I first met him around 1980 when he was a committed Buddhist (me less so…..), and we have met socially, in FoE, and elsewhere, over the years since then. Still somewhat “old-school”, he doesn’t have a mobile phone or computer of any kind. He has witnessed first-hand the intensification of agriculture over the last fifty years, and the consequent loss of wildlife this has entailed. And it hurts him. He can very eloquently explain how we need – and could return to – a countryside that is more nature-friendly; but, despite being very well read, he has never been able to commit his ideas down on paper.

A lifetime of manual labour can be seen in his hands. They wouldn’t feature in a nail-varnish advert, but they were one of the first things I wanted to photograph during the project. And it wasn’t difficult. He was a brilliant subject, never phased by the sight of a photographer lurking around as he worked. Although he never acted the prima donna, perhaps he secretly enjoyed being the centre of attention? He does deserve it!

Coed Tamsin is a monument to all the hard work that Bob has put into it. I do hope that when the time comes, he and Felicia will have found a buyer who will keep the spirit of the place alive. I’d like to think that my work there – available for all to see at the National Library in Aberystwyth – will provide a visual record of the place should all else be lost. It has been an honour for me to have been the person that created it.

For an introduction to the Coed Tamsin project, please click here.

Edit: I met Bob yesterday at Coed Tamsin. We talked wildlife, farming, and people we know in common. He suggested that people should walk silently around the wood, and try imagine where the “edge” was between them (the individual), and nature. He slips these ideas in during conversation, without you even noticing.

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Coed Tamsin Part Three : Beltaine

Well, the beginning of May arrived far too quickly! But conditions in the wood were ideal for photography: no wind with light cloud overhead. the latter ensured that levels of contrast under the trees were very manageable. By early afternoon the musicians and guests were arriving and soon the maypole was erected. As mentioned in the previous post, Beltaine 2025 was the inspiration for this project and this year’s celebration was due to be its finale. So I got busy with the camera.

*A sense of movement (click to enlarge)*

It was my intention to suggest a sense of movement around the maypole by slowing the shutter speed right down. In my opinion this tactic was successful although the movement is perhaps not as smooth as I would have hoped. There’s a good reason for this…… two rings of people surround the maypole, each person holding a ribbon, and each ring moves in a different direction. No wonder people were confused…. I think you can see it in their expressions.

I often moan about the wet and windy weather here on a west facing hilltop in coastal mid-Wales, but at least we are spared the exhausting, record-breaking heat the south-east of Britain is suffering from at the moment. After ten days down there recently it is a relief to get back home, catch up with work in the garden, and wonder what to do next. I may sneak in a final visit to Coed Tamsin – just to tie up a few loose ends!

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Coed Tamsin: Part Two – Bluebells

*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 it. 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, set off by a whole spectrum of fresh spring greens, and I feel I 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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Coed Tamsin – Part One

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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