photography – Page 10 – Tales from Wild Wales

In hawfinch nirvana.

Hawfinch in cherry tree, Dolgellau — Hawfinch in cherry tree, north Wales

A couple of years ago I posted about photographing hawfinches in a Welsh churchyard. (See this post). While it was exciting to come back with something usable it was not really the image of my dreams. So I kept my ear to the ground about other possible locations.

The hawfinch has always been an uncommon bird in the UK and has become increasingly scarce in recent years. In 2013 the maximum number of breeding pairs remaining in the UK was estimated to be one thousand. The 2013 BTO Bird Atlas noted that the Welsh population was becoming increasingly significant in a UK context. And – unlikely as it may seem – it has become more and more apparent over the last few years that one north Wales town is the British hawfinch hot-spot. The first hint of this came in 2004, when research published in “Welsh Birds” suggested a breeding population of about fifty pairs in the area, and a wintering population of more than a hundred birds. The increasing scarcity of the species and its growing presence in the area has resulted in further ringing and other studies being undertaken there. Both the BTO and the RSPB have become involved. The results have shown how numerous the species actually is there and how little we knew about the hawfinch!

Ornithologist Dave Smith and bird-ringer extraordinaire Tony Cross have set up a feeding station in woodland nearby which is kept well-stocked with sunflower seeds. Hawfinches can rely on this food source all year round and there they can be netted, ringed and released. The yellow plastic leg-rings, each with an individual letter and number combination, can be read relatively easily in the field. Perhaps the most astonishing information has come from just one garden in the leafy outskirts of the town. Shortly after moving into the house, inexperienced bird-watchers Trevor and Chris ******** began to notice some unusual-looking birds on their feeders. Delving into their field guide they realised they were hawfinches. Their garden has since developed into a hub of hawfinch-related activity. Trevor and Chris themselves have become, by their own admission, obsessed with the species. They sit in their kitchen and read ring numbers with a telescope. To date they have identified 185 different birds, with probably an equal number of un-ringed individuals. It really is hawfinch nirvana.

Thanks to my contacts in BTO Cymru Trevor and Chris very kindly agreed to let me visit their garden to do some photography. Trevor has himself taken many excellent photographs of the hawfinches through their kitchen window and posted them on Flickr. But there is no mistaking the fact that they are all taken at bird feeders. Not really the type of setting I felt they deserved. Tony Cross generously took me to his feeding site but the setting there is, if anything, less attractive. It is an extensive carpet of sunflower seed shells surrounded by ringing paraphernalia. We tried scattering seeds on the woodland floor around the “feeding table” but the birds just weren’t interested. Perhaps I should have been more patient……..

But there is a cherry tree in the ********s’ garden and the hawfinches sometimes perch in it before heading for the feeders. That sounded more promising! There followed a wait of several weeks for it to come into bloom and leaf. The strong northerlies of late April and early May held back flowering even longer than usual. Last Sunday the tree finally began to show some colour and it was amazing how much change there was in the following 24 hours. I chose a position in the garden where I could look across to the cherry tree against a dark background. For the first time in my life I set up the tripod, brought out the camping chair, sat down and draped a bag hide over myself and all my gear.

It took a bit of getting used to. Apart from the issue of physical comfort, tunnel vision was a problem. I could hear birds all around but often not see them. The lower branches of the cherry tree were visible but the lawn and bird-tables were out of sight. But when a hawfinch lands it has the tendency to sit tight for a few seconds and survey its surroundings. There is sometimes an air of deliberation about their activities. They seem to take their time and think things through. So on the few occasions when one did perch in the cherry tree I had the chance to catch it in a variety of postures and compositions before it dropped down onto the feeders. Light cloud was preferable to bright sunshine as it tended to illuminate tree, flowers and bird in a gentle, even light, and cast no shadows. I’m absolutely thrilled by this image.

NB I have removed Trevor and Chris’s surname to maintain their privacy, and also the name of the town.

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A tale of three images.

Ramsey Island (on left) and the Bishops and Clerks, from Whitesands.

It has been a while since I last posted but things have been moving apace. Most of February and March was spent getting postcards out into shops in various parts of Wales. It is always difficult to drag oneself out of the semi-hibernation of mid-winter and this year was particularly fraught because Easter was so early.

It has to be admitted that sales of postcards are steadily declining. This is partly because people are using phones and Facebook to contact their friends while they are away but also because the number of potential outlets is declining rapidly. The perils of running a bookshop in the Amazon era are well recognised, but independent retailers of all kinds have been closing and are not being replaced in similar numbers. What is particularly sad is the number of Tourist Information Centres that have closed, will soon close or are under threat of closure. It is happening all over Wales as a result of cuts to local authority funding. It may be our local councils (and National Park authorities) that are having to make the difficult decision to close them but the root cause is central Government.

A selling trip that would until recently have taken two and a half days now takes two or less. But that does mean I have a little more time available for photography on these trips and I was lucky with the weather on some of them. After one particularly busy day in Pembrokeshire I was able to nip down to Whitesands, arriving just after sunset. I started a short high-tide walk along the beach but quickly ran back for the camera. The conditions were just stunning! I only had a few minutes to run off a few exposures and I wasn’t entirely happy with the composition in any of them. But I’ll settle for the above…….

On a trip up to north Wales I spent one night at Pen-y-pass YHA. I normally avoid youth hostels these days but Pen-y-pass is so well situated for an early morning walk in the foothills of Snowdon that in winter I occasionally make an exception. Unfortunately my dorm also contained a snorer so I had a disturbed night’s sleep and was not able to get up at the crack of dawn as I had hoped. But a little later on this was the view of the Snowdon horseshoe from “The Horns”, situated between the PyG and Miners’ paths.

Snowdon summit and Y Lliwedd — Y Lliwedd, Yr Wyddfa and Crib Goch from “The Horns”

I was able to devote the whole of this superb day to photography so then headed off eastwards to photograph the packed masses of waders at their high-tide roost at the Point of Air, near Prestatyn. The only trouble was – there weren’t any. Just a handful of the commonest species. I then spent a couple of hours searching for, and failing to find, my current birding obsession – hawfinches. I won’t broadcast the location because villagers get pretty cheesed off with the behaviour of some birders, but there is a well-known site for this rare and elusive bird in the Conwy valley. So for the second time in one day I assumed I must be driving around in a van with a huge sign, facing upwards, on its roof saying “Bird photographer approaching destination – make a run for it”.

But I had more joy at my final location, the RSPB Conwy reserve at Llandudno Junction. There has been a starling roost there all winter and on my arrival I was pleased to discover they were still around. There was no wind and it looked like there would be a good sunset, so I found a location where I hoped the birds would be silhouetted against a stunning sky. There was even the possibility of a reflection for good measure! Towards sunset small groups of starlings began to arrive, some time later than they do at Aberystwyth. And they just kept on coming! Several sparrowhawks made appearances and made hunting dashes into the flock. The starlings created tightly-packed balls and ribbons of birds to try to evade them. It was fabulous to watch but set against part of the sky which was too dark to allow successfully photography.

It really was a very large flock by the time they eventually disappeared together into the reedbed. It was almost dark by that time and they had been displaying for some forty minutes since the first birds arrived. It was interesting to compare this with their behaviour at Aberystwyth, where they were going to roost some forty-five minutes earlier. I managed this image as the flock swirled over one the reserve’s shallow lagoons.

Starlings in pre-roost display, RSPB Conwy reserve.

I don’t know if it be useable anywhere else but on the web. It was taken at 6.31 pm on March 10th, using pretty extreme settings for this type of subject – 4000 ASA, 1/160th second and f4.

Finally, just before Easter, I installed part of my Bird/land exhibition in the Visitor Centre at RSPB Ynyshir. It will be showing there until May 30th; but for the full Bird/land experience wait until June 25th, when an updated and expanded version will be opening in the Photography Gallery at Aberystwyth Arts Centre. Watch this space for more information.

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What if…..?

It has been a rather fallow period recently, photographically speaking, but there have been a couple of interesting experiences to recall.

A month or so ago I was snoozing at my desk (er…..editing images on the PC…..) when the phone woke me from my reverie.

“It’s Barry from Hinterland” said the caller.

“Erm, sorry, who is that?” I asked, assuming it was a scam.

“Barry, from Hinterland, you know, the Welsh detective series?”. I brightened up: perhaps they needed a stills photographer…..?

Hinterland is a bilingual TV drama filmed locally in which an unfeasibly large number of people are murdered in north Ceredigion. It has an aura of Nordic Noir about it and is good fun to watch in the hope of identifying an acquaintance or a location or spotting where a police car goes from A to B via C whereas in fact C is in completely the opposite direction.

“Oh, yes, hello!” said I.

“You put your name down to be an extra and we’re wondering if you’re free a week on Monday”.

“Oh, OK. ”

“There’s a press conference scene and we’re looking for photographers with their own kit to come along.”

It sounded interesting and perhaps even fun, so I was keen to take part.

“I think I have a meeting then but I should be able to re-arrange it”

The Monday happened to be the morning of the big storm and spring tide at Aberystwyth, and it wasn’t easy to walk upright between the car and the old County Hall, close to the sea-front, where many of the indoor scenes are shot. It certainly was interesting but did involve rather a lot of hanging around, waiting, and then waiting some more while the scene, which lasted about a minute, was shot and re-shot in English, then in Welsh, then re-shot again, then the audience was shot from two different angles, then the scene where the superintendent leaves the room was filmed from outside the room, then shot again from inside…… There was no heating on and over a period of about two hours everyone involved was getting colder and looking more pale. I wonder – if the scene makes the final cut -whether that will be apparent on screen?

There were three of us and all we had to do was pretend to take pictures while the detective made an announcement from the front of the room. I was sitting in the back row and had I actually been pressing the shutter I would have ended up with a large number of images of the back of the head of the person sitting in front of me. Hardly realistic, but hey….who cares? It’s only TV.

A couple of weeks earlier I had been asked to judge the entries of a photography competition run by a University society. I’ve been a judge in a Camera Club competition and it took up an inordinate amount of time, but this sounded like it would be a one-off, in-and-out event – and I really couldn’t say no. I arrived in good time to discover that I was actually one of two judges, the other being Janet Baxter, another local photographer, who is a direct competitor of mine. For many years Janet and I never spoke, so it could have been very embarrassing for all concerned. But fortunately we get on much better now!

It turned out to be a very interesting experience. The entries (about thirty of them) were printed and displayed very cheaply (frames courtesy Poundland…..). But there was a theme – “What if…..?” – which gave plenty of room for interpretation, and added another dimension to the competition. The entries varied from the frankly terrible to the quite professional looking. As far as judging was concerned we had to consider two separate aspects; firstly the images themselves, and secondly, how well they illustrated the dilemmas chosen by each photographer. Janet and I made a shortlist of five and went for a coffee to discuss the winning entries.

We’re both very experienced landscape photographers and it may have been that we were more critical of the landscape entries. Whatever – there was only one pure landscape in the final three. Another was a street scene including a couple kissing passionately, which was either brilliantly seen and captured, or very professionally posed. Another on the short-list stood out from the other entries by a country mile, though. It was a gritty, black-and white, head and torso image of a middle-aged woman with only one breast. It was completely honest, not in any way designed to titillate or shock, and quite challenging to look at.

“What if ……… I live?“.

I felt it was a very brave image, it was brave of the photographer to enter it, and brave of the organisers to show it. Janet said that she knew of women who had lost a breast and that they suffered in silence. We went though the motions of discussing the rest of the short-list but neither of us had much hesitation in awarding first prize to this photographer. It turned out that she is in fact a photography student, and a number of years older than the average undergraduate. The image was part of a series that she was doing of the woman – her own mother – as she recovered from surgery.

We returned to the Hall. The organisers were there to meet us. It had been discovered that the street scene with the kissing couple was actually stolen from the internet and the “photographer” was passing it off as their own. A hasty re-assessment of the prizewinners was required. You would expect members of the University Christian Union would be a little more honest than that, wouldn’t you?

In search of starlings at Glastonbury and Aberystwyth

Last weekend Jane and I headed off to Glastonbury for a few days. It’s an unreal place. If ever you needed to visit a personal transformation coach, an angelic reiki practitioner or a shamanic hairdresser, make for Glastonbury. It would be easy to sneer at the apparent pretentiousness of it all, but that would be unfair. While there may be some charlatans involved, I’m sure many of these people are quite genuine in their thinking; and I sometimes think how comfortable it must be to live according to a ready-made belief system. It was curious to note the vigorous campaign for the retention of the last remaining bank (Barclays, if I remember correctly….) in the town, though.

An extensive area of former peat workings near Glastonbury has been reclaimed to create a cluster of wetlands and reedbeds, now known as the Avalon Marshes. These are home to several rare bird species, notably bittern and great white egret. The latter was fairly prominent at the Ham Wall RSPB reserve, and I photographed one on a beautiful, still, winter’s morning with warm light and a hint of frost on the ground. The former lived up to its reputation for skulking. But arguably the biggest draw on the Avalon Marshes in winter is its huge starling roost, which I spent three evenings trying to capture. For roosting, the birds have a very large area to choose from, and they can move from one site to another on a daily basis. Even the local birders and photographers admit to being unable to predict what they are likely to do next. On my first visit I found a likely looking foreground at sunset and hoped a flock would fill the sky with interesting shapes. Needless to say it didn’t work out how I had hoped, but there was the above; I’m not sure yet if the image works or not.

On the second night, from a different location, I watched as huge flocks gathered over farmland and in trees to the east against a dull background; and later, with mounting disbelief, as a continuous stream of starlings moved from one section of reedbed to another. The process lasted some 15 – 20 minutes; there must have been millions of birds altogether. But it was a frustrating encounter; they flew too low over the ground to photograph successfully. On the third night I sought out the trees where they had gathered the previous evening but again the results were disappointing.

Back in Aberystwyth, decent sunsets have encouraged me to visit the starling roost three times this week. Tuesday was just the most gorgeous winter evening; cloud had largely cleared during the afternoon and there was no wind. The starlings must have felt it too. For a few brief moments a flock briefly indulged in one of their spectacular ribbon/bracelet formations before dropping in under the pier. At last! Something to write home about……

For the last couple of months my camera bag might have been a door stop for all the use it has had, so it was good to pick up the camera again….. even if I could barely remember what some of its buttons were for! But the experience did remind me how important it is to be familiar with the controls of your equipment. A few seconds delay and confusion can mean the difference between getting the shot and missing it. And which shutter speed would blur the movement of birds in flight most successfully? I just couldn’t remember. But there is one thing about trying to photograph wildlife – it teaches you patience.

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Thoughts from a wet and windy Welsh hilltop.

I cannot remember such a long period when the weather has been so discouraging for the outdoor photographer. Days….. weeks!….. on end of cloud, rain and gales – and today is no exception. I’m shocked to discover that I’ve barely taken a decent photograph since the beginning of October.

But I can’t just blame the weather for that. In my last post I wrote how my priority over the summer was to work on images for new postcards. How one needed to visit the popular locations and somehow come up with something new. I eventually realised I was just going through the motions. I really was re-visiting the same old places and taking the same old photographs.

So as much as the weather really has been disastrous it was a partly a conscious decision to lay the camera down and give myself a break. This happened to me big time about twenty years ago. I put down the break-up of a relationship partly or largely to the fact that I saw myself as a photographer first and a human being second. There certainly were other factors but being an outdoor photographer does involve leading a very unpredictable lifestyle. Whatever…..after a few self-imposed months of keeping the business running and no more – certainly no actual photography – I picked up the reins more or less where I had left them. In my experience one’s creative side continues to develop even if putting it into practice actually takes a back seat for a while. After a few months break from photography I’m sure – well, fairly sure -that I’ll return to it with a bunch of new ideas and attitudes.

I hope it does, because I’ve recently had a very positive discussion with a publisher and author about a new book. There’s still plenty to be finalised, particularly the financial side of things, but I’ve come to the conclusion that my sanity is now more important than my bank balance! So even if it doesn’t pay very well, I’ll still do it.

In a post earlier this year I wrote about how I missed an opportunity to photograph the Northern Lights. Since March I have gained a better understanding of why and how a faint aurora – even an invisible one – can actually produce decent photographs. The reason is this : there are two types of sensor in the eye – cones and rods. The cones are colour sensitive, but the rods, which are 1000 times more sensitive than the cones and far more numerous, do not pick up colour. So our eyes do not perceive colour at low light levels. The sensor in our camera is equally sensitive to colour at low or high intensities so it will record what the eye cannot see.

A couple of evenings ago I received an “Aurora Watch” amber alert. To my surprise yet another cloudy day actually improved to an evening of clear periods and showers. There was quite a powerful moon but the northern skyline looked a bit odd. I couldn’t be sure whether it was a pale glow that I was seeing or some cloud hugging the horizon. I eventually realised that I would have to take some photographs to be sure if the aurora was present or not.

I set the ISO at 3200 and the meter gave a reading of 8 seconds at f4. When viewed on the camera’s LCD screen the first image immediately showed that there were vertical bands of purple in the clear sky which were completely invisible to the naked eye. I took a few more images to confirm it and then called it a day. On viewing the images this afternoon on the PC monitor it became clear that amongst the cloud on the horizon there had also been a green glow. The very localised orange glow on the horizon is usually visible to the naked eye as pale and colourless but the camera’s sensor has picked up its colour; it must be street lighting from a nearby village reflected off low-ish cloud. The image has of course been processed, but not to an excessive level – no more than I would expect on a typical landscape. This had been the real thing and without the camera I would never known!

Technically and artistically it is rather poor. I should have taken more care with placing the tripod and weighing it down, and the telephone pole in the foreground is hardly an attractive feature. But I’m treating it as a learning experience and hopefully there will be an opportunity to do better in the future.

Seasons Greetings to all from a wet and windy Welsh hilltop!

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This looks like a winner to me.

Following the completion of the Bird/land project I realised it was time to step back from bird photography for a while. My bread-and -butter income still comes from the sale of postcards and some of them were beginning to look a bit tired. Rather than reprint them again I decided to spend some time replacing them with new designs. So it was time to put my landscape photographer’s hat on again……

Taking photographs for postcards must be easy…..right? Well, er…..no! Somehow one must be able to sum up a well-known location in just one image, the sense of the place, if you like, and ideally in a way that has not been done before. Take the Brecon Beacons, for example. They may not be the most dramatic mountain range in the UK but they are very popular. I had seen a photograph on a flyer for a holiday cottage rental company showing a former farmhouse idyllically situated in the foreground with the main peaks behind it. It looked like it would be worth searching out the location. When I eventually found it, I couldn’t believe it was the same place. The original photograph appeared to have been taken from well above ground level, and there was a string of electricity cables and phone lines running to the house. It had been photoshopped out of almost all recognition!

Whilst on the lookout for a new viewpoint I’ve spent hours driving and walking around the narrow, high-hedged lines between the Beacons and Brecon. Every so often I would catch a glimpse of the view I wanted through a gap or a gate but on closer inspection there was always a snag. I eventually narrowed it down to a couple of fields, through which no public right of way existed. A friendly farmer gave me permission to cross his land to reach the spot but on the two occasions I was there during the autumn conditions were just not good enough. So that particular view will have to wait for another year. And even then, I have a horrible feeling there will be a snag there too.

What I did find earlier in the year after many hours searching, was a view of the Beacons from the graveyard at Brecon. The image may not have a great deal of merit in an artistic sense but as a postcard it looks like a winner. I’m not sure yet what I’ll use as a caption!

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Final thoughts on Bird/land…..for now……..

Well, Bird/land closed just over a month ago and I have to say in many respects it was a success. Feedback was excellent; visitors were particularly complimentary about how different the work was to anything that I had previously done. Print sales were also very good and much better than I was expecting. As a result I have just sent a cheque for £140 to the RSPB towards reconstruction of their hides at Snettisham in Norfolk. I had hoped to make multiple visits to Snettisham during the course of the project to photograph the countless thousands of waders which congregate there but a storm surge of December 2013 destroyed the hides. So my small contribution will benefit conservation generally and bird photographers in particular.

What has been disappointing is the almost complete lack of coverage I have received in the press and the photographic media in particular. I suppose the exhibition did fall between two stools – not really bird photography, and not landscape either – so it was difficult to categorise. And, of course, it was in a small town in mid-Wales and who could even pronounce its name? But not for the first time have I believed that there is a prejudice amongst the English media about all things Welsh.

All is not yet lost, however. I have agreed to display some of the work at RSPB Ynyshir, my local reserve, next spring. And on a much larger scale the whole exhibition will be shown at Aberystwyth Arts Centre for two months next summer. I am hoping to be able to expand it to fill the larger photographic gallery there but that will be subject to receiving further funding from the Arts Council of Wales. So watch this space for further information about dates, etc.

The image above is one of only two singles in the exhibition. It has sold really well and only one remains at the time of writing. How I wish I’d offered an edition of ten or more instead of just six! It is so difficult to know how to sell photographs. Over the summer I noticed an exhibition of really rather average black-and-white landscapes in a bookshop in Hay-on-Wye, in an edition of 295. Only in the photographer’s wildest dreams would anywhere near that number be sold. A short edition would, I hoped, create a feeling of exclusivity around the work, and thus increase sales. But I think I may have misjudged it. Just one of the lessons I have learned over the last few months!

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The digital darkroom is our friend.

Mawddach estuary from the New Precipice Walk (processed image) — Mawddach estuary from Llwybr Foel Ispri

It has been a dry and sunny October so far and our new solar pv panels have been getting an excellent work-out in the couple of weeks since they were installed. The landscape photographer has other priorities, of course, and wall-to-wall sunshine is not necessarily one of them, even in autumn.

Earlier this week I managed twenty-four hours around the Mawddach estuary in north Wales – truly one of the UK’s most stunning locations. For the life of me I just cannot understand why more photographers don’t head for the Mawddach! Over the years I’ve got to know a few spots which are easy to get to and provide great views down or across the estuary and I suspect they make me a bit lazy. Why search for new locations when the ones you know so well usually deliver the goods?

The first location I tried was the New Precipice Walk (Llwybr Foel Ispri), high on the north side of the estuary about two miles downstream of Dolgellau. It is possible to drive along a gated road to within a few minutes walk of this fabulous spot and I was there in good time for sunset on Monday. One needs to be aware of fairly subtle changes in the landscape as they take place; for just a few minutes the brilliant sun illuminated the estuary and its wooded banks without overwhelming the eye of the beholder. I could see the potential for a good image but only if extreme levels of contrast could be handled in some way. Stacking my 1- and 2- stop ND grads I took a few frames but the images looked very disappointing on the LCD screen. Messy and badly exposed. Why bother? Sunset itself proved to be a damp squib so that was that for the evening.

Back home a quick look at the RAW files (see above) instantly confirmed my earlier judgement. But on a later viewing I had a play with the image using Lightroom’s development sliders – exposure, shadows, highlights, blacks and whites. Adding a square crop and a tweak to the colour balance, it only took a few blinks of the eye to come up with the top image, and I’m really pleased with it. The digital darkroom really is our friend!

I spent the night at Cregennen Lake on the south side – another firm favourite of mine and subject of just the second post in this blog. It is a truly dark place and I spent a couple of hours searching the northern skies unsuccessfully for an aurora. Following a disappointing dawn at Cregennen I returned to Llwybr Foel Ispri. The first burst of autumn colour in August and early September is still accompanied by the vivid greens of summer. By the end of October and well into November trees lose their leaves in a riot of colour if we are lucky. But in between the colours of the autumn landscape can seem muted and rather tired. There’s a kind of tawny wash to it which doesn’t really inspire. Autumn colours and bright sunlight might seem to be a recipe for success but it’s not just a matter of turning up and pressing the shutter.

I had no great expectations for this visit but realised I had two of everything in the van (tripod, camera body and lens). I decided to have a go at a selfie – or, to put it another way – photographing the landscape photographer in his habitat. Quite easily done when you have the gear with you and the time! It was great fun for a while and involved me running at full tilt from one tripod to the other as the self-timer wound down. The images needed some quite detailed processing – removing uneven saturation of the sky caused by a polariser for one thing – but once again Lightroom has done a great job.

I also photographed myself in a Tai Chi stance at the same spot. If ever one needed an uplifting outlook this has to be the place.

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In the footsteps of Richard Wilson (and Bill Condry)

Yesterday I planned an early start to climb Cadair Idris. I woke drowsily. Did I have the energy to “do Cader”? The long drag up Mynydd Moel was almost vertical, I seemed to remember. The forecast was for sunshine but that is no guarantee of good light. After procrastinating for an hour or so I left the cocoon of my van and felt the cool morning air on my face. I would go for it.

My viewpoint was to be high on the slopes of Mynydd Moel, overlooking the corrie lake of Llyn Cau and the cliffs of Craig Cau which tower vertically over it. The foreground would be gorgeous with heather at this time of year. By the time I arrived the sun would be at right-angles to my angle of vision, allowing my polarising filter to be most effective. I was travelling as light as I possibly could, carrying only enough food, water and spare clothing for the day and my miniscule Panasonic GX7 kit. I left the tripod in the van. Only two hours of climbing lay between me and my destination.

The first half hour took me steeply up rustic stone steps through oak woodland. A mountain torrent tumbled downwards alongside the path. A few years ago I would have done this in one go, pausing only at the gate at the top of the woodland. Yesterday I needed a break every few minutes. At the gate I emerged on to moorland but it was steeper than I remembered. I forked right and crossed the stream. The mountain gradually became more prominent. I had prepared myself mentally for the agony of the final relentless three hundred meters of height gain, so it perhaps wasn’t quite as bad as I had feared. By 10 am I was at my location. Visibility was good but there was no cloud at all to diffuse the sunlight and add texture to the sky.

Over the next two hours I took over thirty images. I’m still new to the GX7 and I sometimes struggled with its controls but it is definitely an improvement on the GX1. The battery lasted just three hours, as it had on its first outing. Pathetic! I found the focal length range of the kit lens (14 – 42 mm or 28 – 84 equivalent) slightly limiting. I’m not a fan of ultra-wide angles but I do like a 24mm lens. Tiny wispy clouds materialised and disappeared over a couple of minutes, but somehow never quite the right shape or in quite the right place. Oh, the joys and frustrations of being a landscape photographer! By mid-day, though, I felt confident that I would have something to show for my efforts, and it was with a sense of achievement that I reached the summit of Cadair Idris in time for my picnic lunch. The descent was laborious but uneventful.

Llyn-y-Cau by Richard Wilson, painted in 1774.

That evening I was attending a writing workshop at a bookshop in Machynlleth, where I casually picked up a book – The Mountains of Snowdonia in Art by Peter Bishop. It almost fell open at the page showing the painting Llyn-y-Cau, Cadair Idris, by Richard Wilson (1774), reproduced above. To the contemporary viewer it looks astonishingly primitive, but it must have been painted close to the spot I had been earlier in the day.

I recalled that in the book Heart of the Country I had included one of William Condry’s “Guardian Country Diaries” alongside an earlier, and quite different, image I had taken of Craig Cau and Llyn Cau. Bill’s text is extraordinarily perceptive. He had searched for the spot where the artist must have stood to make the painting, but failed to find it. He explains –

“Wilson aimed to represent the scene in only the broadest outlines. For that was the way things were in his day: artists quite happily moved cliffs, woods, waterfalls, even whole mountains a bit to the left or right in order to make the picture more picturesque.”

He goes on –

“If the public has learned to appreciate the wild lonely uplands of the world, it is largely due to painters like Wilson and the travel writers who were his contemporaries. Poor Wilson. His paintings may be worth a fortune now but he died long before his work was widely acclaimed. As someone wrote later: ‘Scarcely half a century has elapsed since death relieved Wilson from the apathy of the critics, the envy of rivals, and the neglect of the tasteless public'”

To my eyes the painting has been cobbled together from three elements. Firstly, the vista from close to my viewpoint; secondly, the grassy dome called Moelfryn, which the artist has placed in front of the lake, although it is actually about half a mile to the south; and thirdly, a large dose of artistic licence. In those days so few people ever visited the Welsh mountains that no-one would have been any the wiser.

More from Cwm Idwal.

Last week I posted about my eventually successful visit to Cwm Idwal in Snowdonia. But alongside the story of the photographs there was a quite different narrative running in parallel.

On my first visit to the Cwm, amongst the huge boulders below Twll Du, I came across some small brown birds. I quickly twigged that they were twite, which, strangely enough, I had been reading about the previous evening. As far as British birds go they are probably the supreme example of the “little brown job”. Visually there are no distinguishing features at all unless you can see the pale pink rump patch, but they do have a distinctive twanging call, which confirms their identity. At first it was just a couple of birds, then a juvenile begging food from a parent, then a bird leaving a possible nest site and finally a flock of 15 – 20 birds.

On my return to Idwal Cottage I looked around for someone to report my sightings to. There was no-one but a girl from the National Trust, who “thought she had heard of twite” but that was it. While I drank my coffee I noticed the nearby organic burger van, whose owner, Gwyn Thomas, the local farmer, was conversing with customers. My partner has worked with him so I went over for a chat. Eventually I brought up the subject of my sightings. To my surprise and delight he is quite an authority on twite! Along with several other farmers in Nant Ffrancon he grows a seed crop for them to feed on during the autumn before they move down to the coast for the winter. I’m sometimes not a great admirer of farmers but this man is a star!

During our conversation a car drew up alongside and the driver came over. I recognised him but couldn’t put a name to the face. Gwyn left me with him and a tentative conversation began. I wondered aloud if I had seen him on TV. “No, I work on radio…” he replied. Not really a great help! “I did a book with you!” he added. It came to me in a flash. It was Dei Tomos, the author with whom I had worked on the Welsh version of “Wales at Waters Edge”. I buried my head in my hands in embarrassment! To be fair though, it was hardly a collaboration and we had only met once, and he couldn’t place me at first either.

The social aspect of my weekend continued the following morning. Back at Ogwen Cottage after a third unsuccessful visit to the Cwm, I was drinking coffee by my van. A familiar figure appeared. It was Martin Ashby, owner of Ystwyth Books in Aberystwyth, and one oldest and most valued friends. He was with his mate Nigel Dudley and just about to set off on a long walk up in to the Carneddau. I reluctantly turned down their invitation to join them.

On my return home I reported my twite records to the BTO Officer for Wales, Kelvin Jones. He told me that twite are declining steeply in Wales, and there is a project going to try to reverse this. Apart from the feeding project mentioned above birds are being ringed on the coast in winter in the hope that sightings in summer of ringed birds can reveal more about their movements. Although I had not seen any rings it seems my sightings had been the first this summer! The rarest breeding bird in Wales may actually now be twite, he said. (Does that make them rarer than osprey, I wonder……)

Just a note on the photograph above. While dull, cloudy conditions are usually the kiss of death for most “big” landscapes, they can be ideal for details within the landscape. This lovely rowan tree was just below Ogwen Cottage.

To read more about Gwyn Thomas and his work in Cwm Idwal, click here.

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