Glory be to the National Trust; the more I know it, the more I love it

Mighty castles and stately homes present just one side of the National Trust in Wales but there is so much more that often goes unreported. The vast tracts of land and farms, in the uplands and along the coast, don’t just look after themselves; they need to be managed to bring out their best. They are managed for the preservation of rare plants or creatures, for sheer beauty of the landscape or to provide access so that people can get out and experience it first hand. 

Glory be to the National Trust and also to Natural Resources Wales for their support in making this happen. 

In the past year I have been lucky to see this other side through the lens of a camera and to re-live the moments as I edited the footage into films.

Tom Jones

My first assignment was at Penarfynydd Farm where I met Tom Jones the farmer. Penarfynydd is a National Trust tenanted farm 3 miles west of Aberdaron near the village of Rhiw on the Llŷn Peninsula. Twenty years ago the heathland was in poor shape with intensive sheep grazing but today it is looking good with a mixed regime which includes cattle, ponies and a specialist breed of sheep. This is a success story in which both the farm’s economy and a broad range of scarce wildlife have benefitted through multiple partners including Natural Resources Wales, working as an effective team. Penarfynydd is living proof that farming and nature conservation does not need to be a compromise. This is what Tom had to say about it:

My next assignment was to do with species rich grasslands. Since I was born 60 years ago 99% of species rich grassland in Wales has disappeared; victim of modern farming and gardening practice. But great things are happening at a dozen National Trust properties to champion these grasslands, to restore hay meadows brimming with wild flowers and to inspire people to have a go with their own pockets of land.  The result is beautiful and creates a paradise for bees, butterflies and other insects.

Dave Swanton

To raise awareness of this project, which is supported by Natural Resources Wales, I was asked to make films at three of the properties; Powis Castle, Erddig and Bodnant. It was a privilege to meet the gardeners, to see and hear how they manage their grasslands.

Steep terraces rise up from the Great Lawn to the red Powis Castle on the skyline. Giant topiaries and manicured lawns at the top, then lush herbaceous borders and, on the lowest slopes, trees and shrubs in a sea of tall grass packed full of ox-eye daisies. The wild, natural flora complements the formality and landscaping. Dave Swanton explains:

We managed to attract the attention of Country Life and had a small news item about Powis Castle and its grasslands published in a summer edition of the magazine.

I’d not been to Erddig before, really impressive but a different look and feel to Powis. Over 2,000 orchid spikes were in bloom on the canal banks near the great house  – up until the 1980s these would have been mown down the moment they lifted their heads out of the ground. Glyn Smith explains:

At Bodnant we did not go to the usual places but started in Old Park Meadow which was only recently opened to the public. Here, as at the other properties, I was introduced to the wonders of yellow rattle, a magic ingredient which reduces the vigour of the grass, creating pockets for wild flowers to colonise. Bill Warrell explains:

Suitably inspired I bought a 500g bag of yellow rattle seed and sowed it in different parts of my lawns and grass banks last autumn. It needs to be done at that time of year so that the seeds are exposed to winter chills, a prerequisite for germinating in the spring. Would putting them in the deep freeze achieve the same purpose?

Orchids at Erddig

If my lawn does indeed take off into a hay meadow it’ll need mowing in August so I joined in a scything workshop that was organised at Bodnant and learnt about snath and peen. A snath is the wooden handle of a scythe onto the end of which is fixed the razor sharp blade of a scythe, in our case an Austrian scythe. Keeping it sharp is of the essence; rubbing a wetstone repeatedly over the top of the blade, then removing the burr on the underside, every two to three minutes.

But after a day of scything, sharpening alone will not be enough, and it will be time to peen your blade. This is a cold forging of the steel; using a hammer to strike onto a peening rig, the final 4 mm of the blade is beaten outwards to give a thin profile which is then ready for sharpening.

Why does it need to be a wetstone? In sharpening, the stone is taking off dirt and metal which would gunge up the stone unless it is kept and washed in a pouch of water.

In summer 2015 I will publish an article about the Bodnant hay meadows in The Countryman magazine. You can see the art of scything at our workshop in this short film, Tai Chi with a Blade:

In late summer (2014) I started another series of films covering five very different sites and types of work. The first was Gupton Farm at Freshwater West; best known as Wales’s premier surfing beach and to some people as the film set for Harry Potter or Robin Hood. Many others know it as a beautiful beach for holidays or a great space to walk the dog. What’s not so well known is that it’s home to Gupton Farm, a 400 acre farm that’s at the forefront of pioneering work to accommodate rising sea levels and climate change.

Freshwater West

Through appropriate grazing in different seasons the National Trust’s tenant farmer, Chris James, is working in partnership with Natural Resources Wales, to help the landscape respond in a natural way. As sea levels rise and squeeze the narrow coastal strip, once arable fields are being encouraged to revert to dunes, thereby providing effective defences against flooding and extending scarce habitat.

Beyond the dunes is a rare fen meadow, a haven for all sorts of flora and fauna and a vital feeding ground for overwintering birds. Through anticipating change, this habitat will be saved and migrated inland; and it’s being done without compromising the financial viability of the farm. Jonathan Hughes, General Manager for the National Trust in Pembrokeshire, explains how it all works:  

I went back again in the winter when the land was thoroughly waterlogged and amongst other things we saw large numbers of lapwings and other species feasting on the grains from the silage and the many insects and invertebrates. Birds and cattle, farmers and ornithologists - all in harmony; perfect!

Jonathan Hughes, General Manager for the National Trust in Pembrokeshire, describes and shows what it looks like in winter:

In the Gower I made a film about Cwm Ivy. For hundreds of years there has been a sea wall at Cwm Ivy but climate change and rising sea levels mean that it is no longer a defendable position. The wall has been breached and on a regular basis salt water flows into what used to be a SSSI freshwater marsh. Whilst we have lost the freshwater marsh, we have gained valuable new saltmarsh.

The outstanding issue is that the sea wall forms part of the Wales coastal path and at present walkers are needing to take a diversionary route.

Alan Kearsley Evans explains the situation in this short film and the plans for a bridge over the breach as well as aspirations for this becoming a site for ospreys.

Wetting the Migneint. The Migneint, a vast, upland bog, between Ffestiniog and Ysbyty Ifan, is much wetter than it used to be. Over a series of years the National Trust has been working with Natural Resources  Wales and several other partners to block drainage ditches; the oldest were put in to ‘improve’ the grouse shooting for the Victorians and the more recent ones to ‘improve’ grazing and productivity.

Pete the Peat - extracting a core

Anyone who has walked in the Migneint will know the tug and squelch of the peat bogs but it’s been unnaturally dry for many years. What might at first have seemed an improvement has been an environmental ‘own goal’ resulting in the loss of thousands of tonnes of peat which is a great store for carbon. Without water, new peat can’t form and dry peat oxidises, releasing CO2 into the atmosphere.

Another consequence of ditches is that rainwater rushes off the uplands contributing to floods downstream in the Conwy valley.

Andrew Roberts from the National Trust explains the finer points of building 30,000 dams and Pete Jones, the Peatland Ecologist from Natural Resources Wales, extracts 500 years of history from a core of peat.

Dolmelynllyn is for lovers of the lower plants. The ancient woodlands around Dolmelynllyn are a Mecca for lichens, liverworts and mosses; the so-called ‘lower plants’. Students travel hundreds of miles to see the rare specimens, just a few miles north of Dolgellau, many of which have disappeared elsewhere a long time ago.

Red-eyed shingle lichen

The magic formula is an abundance of rain, the temperate Celtic rainforest, fresh air and sensible management by the National Trust with help from Plantlife and Natural Resources Wales.

Rhodri Wigley, the lead ranger for the National Trust at Dolmelynllyn, and Dave Lamacraft, from Plantlife Cymru, explain what’s so special and how they care for it.

The coastal heathland of North Pembrokeshire is hardly prime agricultural land and without grazing, it would soon become overgrown; bad news for walkers, also for birds such as chough and for several rare plants.

Andrew Tuddenham

For many years the National Trust has made use of wild ponies to keep the heaths under control but now the focus has switched to grazing by Welsh Blacks. Not only do they do a better job, they also provide valuable food helping to offset the costs of conservation.

Until recently the cattle were overwintered in a number of small barns scattered across the area. But now all over-wintering has been brought under one roof at Southwood Farm; much more efficient and making it feasible to breed and build up the herd.

Traditional field walls ripped up in the drive for greater productivity are being replaced to allow greater management of grazing land, moving cattle in time to avoid turning fields into mud baths. New footpaths are being introduced connecting with the nearby coast path and there are plans to create a bunkhouse. And for bedding the cattle are enjoying the local heather and gorse harvested with a Ryetec Flail Collector to create fire breaks on the heath.

Everyone’s a winner it seems! Here’s Andrew Tuddenham explaining the background and the plans for the future:

In the Autumn I enjoyed the two day Heathlands for the Future seminar organised by the HLF Llŷn Landscape Partnership (Partneriaeth Tirlun Llŷn). There is so much being done - I wrote up the event as a series of 5 x blogposts:

Heathlands – walking the talk

Farmers; not scapegoats but partners in conservation

Heathland Bedding

A 'new' boat for the Aberdaron Regatta

State of the Choughs 2014

There is so much material from all these stories that I am converting it into a presentation about the NTs conservation work in Wales; the first booking is with the Flintshire U3A.

Heathlands – walking the talk

During the morning of 8^th October, in a jam-packed Rhiw Village Hall, we heard lots about heathlands, as you’d expect in a seminar titled ‘Heathlands for the Future’. Then in the afternoon and the following morning we got to walk the talk; seeing and experiencing some of the work underway to restore 5 coastal heathland sites in Llŷn. This is part of 26 projects within the much larger HLF Llŷn Landscape Partnership (Partneriaeth Tirlun Llŷn). 

Euros Jones of NRW and Arwel Jones, the project manager for Partneriaeth Tirlun Llŷn, explained that what started off 10 years ago as a conservation project has now taken on a community and economic dimension with a diverse range of partners. The initial funding of £500K from 2004-09 was followed by £1.7m from 2009-15 and hopefully there will be more beyond. Listening to the speakers it sounds as though Llŷn, the triangle from Nefyn to Pwllheli to Bardsey, is ahead of the game in ‘integrated natural resource management’, the new wave of conservation strategy. The partners are pursuing an ecosystem approach and have demonstrated great achievements; but ecosystems need long-term nurturing and now is the time to drive on with it. You can get a flavour of the diverse range of projects from the Llŷn AONB website.

Jan Sherry, heathland ecologist for NRW, and Hilary Kehoe, the heathland project co-ordinator, set the heathland scene. Coastal heathlands, and their dependent species, are in decline due to changes in land use and farm economics. What’s left on Llŷn is a narrow strip of varying quality constricted by improved land; but things here are getting better. 522 Hectares of land have been embraced by the project achieving improvements in vegetation structure through cutting and grazing. Instead of a dense mass of leggy heather and gorse there is now a varied structure which not only looks good but benefits prized species such as chough, linnet and the adder. 

Burning the heath was investigated as a possibility but the conclusion was that the gorse returned rapidly at the expense of heather and other vegetation. Cutting with a flail was better and even more so after a low cut when the cuttings were removed.

Seedbanks varied from site to site; whereas Mynydd Tir Cwmwd had lots of heather seeds Mynydd Bychestyn had barely any. Seeds were collected and spread with the help of local schoolchildren – what looked like a Somme battlefield two years ago has regenerated with masses of heather and minimal gorse. As if to prove a point an accidental fire on a nearby patch had the opposite effect and has seen a resurgence of gorse.

3 year old heathland bedding

As well as agreeing plans for reduced burning and more grazing, which benefit nature, there has been a lot of work to investigate how to improve the economy of the farms. To add local value 19 farmers undertook training in food hygiene and butchery and 5 of these have gone on to process and market their own produce. By-products from the heathland management include heathland bedding which saves time and money and you can read more about this here.

After the tea break Sharon Parr wowed us with what’s going on in the Burren LIFE Project on the west coast of Ireland. There are many parallels with the work here on Llŷn with lots of common sense ideas for making things work on the ground - you can read more about this here.

Fortified with sandwiches and cakes galore we heard a short presentation from Reg at the RSPB about the UK chough survey and the importance of Llŷn which is home to 14% of the UK population. Llŷn chough do not exist in isolation and their destiny is inextricably linked to the populations in Snowdonia and Ynys Môn. The extent of the research and conservation work is immense – this is truly a landscape scale species. You can read more about this here.

Lichenologists don't mind a drop of rain

As the storm clouds gathered we wrapped up in waterproofs and headed across the road to Mynydd y Graig and Penarfynydd Farm. Unfortunately Thomas Jones the farmer was unable to show us around and by the time we reached the trig point on Penarfynydd the lightning was all around with heavy horizontal rain lashing us. Some descended quickly back whilst others plodded on to see the Golden Hair Lichen. The large rocks on which it grows have been fenced in to prevent the ponies getting too close and in particular to stop them scratching their flanks on the extremely rare Lobaria Amplissima.

It wasn’t quite the dream day to visit this stunning farm but you can learn more about it here and see a film of Thomas Jones talking about different aspects of the farm.

Before dinner we all had a chance to look around the excellent £1m Porth y Swnt visitor centre which opened last June and is home to the 2 tonne optic recently removed from Bardsey Lighthouse. Dinner in Tŷ Newydd was complete with ‘son et lumière’ as the thunderstorm continued and high tide waves rolled up to the hotel.

Tim Jones from NRW had the challenging task of talking to us after the feast of local produce. Key points he made were the need to get community and economy into environmental projects and this was clearly the case on Llŷn. Instead of looking at sites in isolation we need to look at and work on whole landscapes and the newly announced ‘area natural resource management trials’ at Dyfi, Tawe and Rhondda were looking to learn from Llŷn.

Some hours later we were back in the same restaurant for breakfast and once more the tide was up, with big waves rolling in. No surfers but a seal, treading water, bobbing up and down whilst looking into the hotel, just metres away. Earlier some guests had seen a baby seal on the slipway – presumably the only safe place to be parked while mum got on with the fishing.

We took the O Ddrws i Ddrws Llŷn Coastal minibus to Bryn Poeth where Kevin Roberts talked to us about heathland bedding and then walked around the coastline to see the Ryetec flail collector in action. Along the way we saw areas where the heath had been improved, areas where bracken used to be rampant and which were now clear of it thanks to initial spraying and subsequent grazing by cattle. There was a marked difference between the two sides of the fence where cattle can and can’t graze – the side without the cattle was a dense mat of vegetation, several inches deep and not receptive to seeds. As we walked into another field it was explained how this used to be heathland up until the 1970s but that it had been ploughed up just days before being designated as an ESA (Environmentally Sensitive Area) – ironic that legislation to protect should be a catalyst for damage.

Compared to the Pembrokeshire heathlands, Llŷn has few plants that are given the chance to flower, due to the uniform grazing of sheep, but there had been a big increase at Bychestyn this summer through grazing with cattle. It was great to see the Welsh Blacks on the edge of the coast with the wild sea and Bardsey beyond. Obviously it was the wrong time of year for us to see flowers but we did get to see Prostrate Broom on the edge of the windswept cliff at Pen y Cil.

Our walk ended on Mynydd y Gwyddel which is farmed by John Williams. The top of the mountain is popular with people coming from the nearby car park to enjoy the view and maybe have a picnic. It’s also where you can see the Spotted Rock Rose, very rare, found just here and on Anglesey. The mountain is grazed only by sheep at present but if the fencing and water supply was improved, then John would graze it with cattle from October to July taking them off for calving and bulling during the busiest time for visitors.

John explained that he would not be going into Glastir as the rules prescribe just 37 sheep during the winter whereas he has a flock of over 150; at this stocking level the unit would not be viable and the site would become overgrown. 37 might be an appropriate stocking level for inland, mountainous areas, but Llŷn has its own climate with resultant vegetation growth; what we need is an area-based approach as opposed to a ‘one size fits all’. The intention of Glastir is to improve the landscape but if John followed the rules he would be rewarded for damaging it! This is one of those situations, as in The Burren, where farmers need to make the decisions and be rewarded if and when they deliver a positive outcome such as species rich grassland. An arbitrary number at an arbitrary date makes no sense in this situation. This site would benefit from a higher level scheme that would reward positive management, such as the scheme in place on Penarfynydd.

Putting structural diversity into the heath

Back at Aberdaron, after sandwiches and soup, we wrapped up the seminar with a discussion. 64 people had signed up for the seminar and most of them had been able to attend at least part which goes to show that ‘heathlands for the future’ is a popular topic. Jon Hudson from NRW said that he had plenty of ideas that he wanted to take back to Pembrokeshire.

Glastir was discussed and we agreed that we needed to lobby for positive change through farmers and if possible take a roadshow to Cardiff. Having said that we felt it would be a good idea to get Carl Sargeant to visit while he is new in post. There was agreement that the partnership should be using the work as a case study to show to politicians and to help shape and influence future environmental schemes.

Ongoing funding for Llŷn was discussed. The ecosystem approach has been trialled and now we need a long term project to drive this agenda forward. Landscape management is not only good for nature, it can also help develop the tourism offer and contribute to maintenance issues around the coastal path. What we’ve got is ‘ready to go’, a solution and not a pipedream.

There had been promising words from the Fund for Nature but nothing concrete yet. LIFE funding had been considered and this may be a sensible route for future funding. Interreg was discussed without much enthusiasm – it’s a shame that The Burren is not on the east coast.

It was felt that Llŷn should aspire to having a Pembrokeshire level of branding; this is slowly happening through the #Ecomuseum brand. See also www.ecoamgueddfa.org

All in all an excellent seminar, a catalyst for networking bringing many parties together, well organised by Hilary Kehoe and members of Partneriaeth Tirlun Llŷn (Llŷn landscape partnership).

State of the choughs 2014

It’s 10 years ago since the last UK census of choughs and they’ve just been counted again. Are things getting better or worse? Reg from the RSPB presented some of the survey findings at the Heathlands for the Future seminar on 8^th October.

Two thirds of the UK population are in Wales and Llŷn is a very important component, home to 14% of UK choughs. Numbers in Scotland and Northern Ireland have declined and Wales is showing signs of decline with a 48% reduction in Snowdonia and disappearing in Montgomeryshire. In Llanberis there used to be over 65 birds but now they number just a few. On Llŷn there are between 53 to 60 pairs and numbers here are starting to reduce. The only habitat where there are signs of increase is in the sand dunes.

We are fortunate to have the passion and dedication of Adrienne Stratford and Tony Cross who have been ringing and recording choughs in mid to north Wales for the past 23 years. In that time they have ringed 5,000 nestlings, 150 adults and recorded 130,000 sightings. Within Llŷn 1,280 nestlings and 38 adults have been ringed.

Adrienne and Tony have written a report which hopefully will be published soon. One part of the analysis records the first year movements from Llŷn showing long distances of up to 60km – the adults take their youngsters back to the flock or roost from which they themselves originated.

On average males travel 10km from their place of birth to where they breed and the females travel 23km. By spreading themselves out they reduce the risk of in-breeding.

Another analysis looks into their feeding habits with soil and dung invertebrates a key component. After breeding and around July the birds head up into the mountains to feast on bilberries coming back down from August to October to feed on leatherjackets, the larvae of crane-flies. It’s the cow-pats (and pony-pats) that provide the best larder during the winter months.

In late spring I had the privilege of meeting Adrienne in a disused quarry building on the north Wales coast where last year she’d installed a nesting platform from bits of old planks.

A pair of choughs had taken up residence, added heather, lined it with sheeps’ wool and produced two beautiful chicks. They were plucked from their nest into a pillow case, brought down a ladder, ringed, sexed and weighed before being returned to the nest. A couple of times the adults came and shouted insults at us but it was as if they knew the score; it’s that time of year again. As for the chicks, they were quite chilled out and happy to beg food with their plaintive cries and open beaks.

I was surprised to see the tangerine orange colour of their legs. Eventually these and the beak will turn to red.

To Adrienne the choughs are a long running soap opera. She knows their relationships and family histories and 2 of them are now 19 years old. 

Glory be to the Wales Coast Path!

Common Blue!?

After cappuccino at the Whistling Sands beach café we didn’t see a soul for the next 3 hours. Along the way so many wild flowers, birdsongs and sounds of the sea, snails galore and stunning blue butterflies in one section; how could they possibly be called Common Blue? A pair of peregrines swooped along the cliffs and as we approached Mynydd Mawr we were into the land of the Choughs, with their bright red beaks and legs and cat-like calls.

As we skirted the almost sheer cliffsides the term ‘views to die for’ came to mind.

At eye level, in a windswept sloe tree, was a nest with vibrant looking caterpillars of the Lackey Moth.

Lackey Moth

About 7 hours later, singing the praises of the Wales Coast Path, we walked the final stretch along the beach to the Tŷ Newydd hotel. My first delight was a pint of Brenin Enlli, sitting on the terrace, looking back on where we had walked. For supper the crab salad, with a shared portion of chips and mayo, was perfection, topped only by the room. With its mini balcony looking onto the beach beneath, the sea so close, we could have skimmed stones from the bedroom. Falling asleep with the door wide open was noisy but great.

The following day we walked the section including Penarfynydd where we saw a hare run across the top of the ridge above the farm. That made 3 of the Llŷn’s ‘Big 5’ – chough, peregrine and hare but alas we failed to see porpoise and grey seal.

Glory be to the Wales Coast Path!

Hell's Mouth Porth Neigwl

Penarfynydd Farm

Penarfynydd is a National Trust tenanted farm 4km west of Aberdaron near the village of Rhiw on the Llŷn Peninsula. Twenty years ago the heathland was in poor shape with intensive sheep grazing but today it is looking good with a mixed regime which includes cattle, ponies and a specialist breed of sheep. This is a success story in which both the farm’s economy and a broad range of scarce wildlife have benefitted through multiple partners working as an effective team. Penarfynydd is living proof that farming and nature conservation does not need to be a compromise.

You can read the rest of this blogpost or you can listen to Tom explaining what it's all about:

Tom

It is very much a mixed farm where Tom Jones, the farmer, manages 850 ewes, 70 beef cattle and contract rears around 100 dairy heifers.  His wife Sharon also rears pigs which are sold direct through farmers markets and in local shops. Spring sown cereals such as barley and oats are grown for winter feed and when the hens are laying, locals and passers-by on the Wales Coast Path can buy eggs at the farm gate.

The farm has a mixture of improved and unimproved land, which includes land outside NT ownership. The unimproved land comprises two large areas of steep, rough coastal grazing, Mynydd Penarfynydd and Mynydd Graig, with a smaller area of coastal slope at Porth Ysgo.

Importance for Wildlife

These coastal habitats are of international significance and designated as a Special Area of Conservation (SAC) and a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). In particular Mynydd Graig is one of the best and largest remaining examples of heathland on the Llŷn, where heathland declined by around 50% between 1920 and 1998¹. On the exposed coastal fringes, whipped by high winds and salt spray, are communities of maritime plants such as spring squill, sea thrift and, clinging to rock ledges, the nationally rare golden samphire.

Penarfynydd and Mynydd Craig are designated for chough with two pairs breeding in the coastal sea caves. They feed on the invertebrates in animal dung and can sometimes be seen guzzling yellow meadow ants whose nests dot the unploughed grasslands. In autumn and winter, when the choughs have finished breeding and form mixed groups, small flocks come to feed on the site. 

These chough have been studied for over 20 years; one of the breeding females was raised in Port Dinorwig, and probably met her partner when he travelled from Llŷn to roost over winter in Snowdonia.

Golden Hair Lichen

 The wonderful mix of heath and grassland, coastal habitats, bracken, flushes and pools makes for an incredible diversity, including dark green fritillary (using violets under the bracken for breeding), adders tongue fern, adder, palmate newt, brown hare, peregrine falcon, yellow hammer and meadow pipit. The striking, bright yellow, golden hair lichen takes advantage of basic rock outcrops, across the ridge of Mynydd Penarfynydd, created during volcanic episodes over 400 million years ago.

As Tom says, ‘it’s designated for just about everything!’

Sheep reductions

Over 20 years ago Mynydd Graig and Mynydd Penarfynydd looked very different; the sites were used all year round and heavily grazed by sheep with vegetation only a few centimetres high.  In winter, as the grasses died back and lost their nutrition, the sheep would seek out the sweet tasty shoots of heather.

As part of a Section 15 management agreement² with Natural Resources Wales (NRW) sheep numbers were reduced and excluded altogether during autumn and winter. In the short term the removal of winter sheep protected the heathland, the structure of the vegetation became more diverse and suppressed heather was released. But this summer-only grazing regime was not enough to keep on top of the tougher, coarser species and the heathland and grassland habitats were becoming engulfed by gorse and bracken. 

As the coarse, unpalatable species spread, sites such as these become less relevant to farms and this is often the point at which these sites become abandoned, or trapped into unsustainable burning cycles in an attempt to clear the gorse and stimulate a flush of grass.  Both the wildlife and farms lose out.

Ponies

In 2006 10 ponies were introduced to Mynydd Penarfynydd to help tackle the coarse vegetation and nibble on the gorse to keep the heathlands more open.  These ponies, a rare breed from the harsh environment of the Carneddau, are used to grazing on poor quality vegetation and ideally suited to life on Penarfynydd.  Whilst they generate no income for the farm Tom says they pay their way by keeping the vegetation in better condition for sheep. He likes having them around and, although they are shy of adults, they have made friends with his young children. They also keep the turf shorter, which helps foraging chough, and provide the all important source of dung close to the nest sites of the chough.

Cattle

Mynydd Graig, which has been occupied since the Bronze Age and has medieval field systems, is an enormous site needing a large number of animals to make an impact on the vegetation.  30 Welsh black cattle were introduced in 2009, helped by a Section 15 management agreement with fencing, water supply and bracken control works.  Originally these animals were from the family’s breeding herd but, since taking over the farm, Tom has been tweaking the system. 

Supported by the Llŷn Coastal Partnership³ some fencing for a particularly tricky bit of the coast has been added, a water trough was moved to resolve the problem of cattle creating a quagmire on the coastal path, and an additional trough helps spread the cattle across the site.   The biggest change was a decision to move away from putting cows and calves on the site; Tom now buys in low value store cattle from the uplands and sells them on after one year.  This system is producing good margins with the animals remaining on Mynydd Graig all year without any supplementary feeding.    

Bracken control has helped to increase the area of grazeable land available to both cattle and sheep with sheep on the site during the late summer but removed for the winter. This mixed grazing regime is ideal for chough, heath and the coastal habitats. The cattle help prevent the bracken from returning and have successfully grazed the rank grassland.  They have also made some in-roads into opening up the heathland and, as part of his Glastir agreement, Tom will be experimenting with small-scale burns, to help break-up the vegetation and entice the cattle to graze there and keep even more of the heath open.

Utilising Mynydd Graig in this way has provided an entirely new income stream for the farm which does not place any additional demands on the rest of his enterprise. 

Aberdale Sheep

Although sheep grazing at the wrong time of year can be damaging to heathland it should be part of the mix; sheep are particularly important on coastal grasslands where the diversity of flowers depends upon grazing. Around Llŷn there are numerous examples of coastal grasslands where grazing has been abandoned or is under-utilised. 

Aberdales are prolific breeders

Using the same principles as he applied to Mynydd Graig with cattle, Tom has been looking for ways to improve his margins on the unimproved coastal land at Porth Ysgo.  He is currently working with Innovis, a company which provides Aberdale sheep, a breed which was developed to help farmers make more efficient use of poorer marginal land.  The experiment is working well with 197% scanning rates and savings on feed costs. Because the ewes cannot be grazed on good land, without the risk of producing too many lambs, the Aberdales need to be managed entirely on the marginal land. Even though they are tupped on the least productive ground, the Aberdale flock can still maintain a high output of lambs which is critical to the bottom line.

Rotational Cattle grazing

Strip grazing

Tom has also been experimenting with rotational grazing on his improved land and has produced a Farming Connect (Welsh Government Knowledge Transfer Programme) case study to share his experience with other farmers.  60 dairy heifers graze on 12 acres in total; they graze 1 acre at a time and are moved on every 24 to 72 hours.  This system leads to better soil fertility, healthier plants with deeper roots and better balanced mineral content for animal nutrition and an increased ratio of dry matter quantity to palatability. 

For Tom this means better liveweight gains and greater utilisation of his improved pasture. This style of management also reduces the need for expensive fertiliser inputs. In nature conservation terms the use of fertiliser can have a big, negative impact by adding atmospheric nitrogen to habitats which rely on being poor in nutrients for their diversity and richness. 

The approach

The management of Mynydd Graig and Mynydd Penarfynydd has been supported through a mixture of agri-environment schemes, Section 15 management agreements and capital works such as fencing and bracken control funded by the Llŷn Coastal Partnership. Using Section 15 to top up agri-environment schemes was the key in supporting the introduction of cattle and ponies.

Through working with the partnership the farm has been able to draw on a broad range of expertise for working on the management of designated sites. Most importantly there has been a two way dialogue between the farm and the partnership to develop solutions that work in the real world.

References

1.       Changes in the extent and fragmentation of heathland and other semi-natural habitats between 1920–1922 and 1987–1988 in the Llŷn Peninsula. Stevens 1992

2.       Section 15 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981

3.       Llŷn Coastal Partnership - a long established partnership of statutory agencies, environmental and community organisations; led by Gwynedd Council and including NRW, National Trust and RSPB. Cadw’r Lliw yn Llŷn project ran for four years before the landscape partnership was successful in gaining a Heritage Lottery Fund grant for a range of projects including heathland management and new walks linked to the coastal path.  The HLF has now entered its final year. http://www.ahne-Llŷn-aonb.org/36/en-GB/Landscape-Partnership