Natur Cymru Spring 2015 - Issue 54

Publication date: 17^th March 2015

Cover price £4.50, or quarterly by subscription £18 pa (individual) or £32 (group/organisation)

Dragonflies in Wales – from the records ● Brian Walker & Claire Install. Findings from the new Dragonfly Atlas.

Recording the water-bird splendour of the Dee Estuary • Neil Friswell & Colin Wells. Thirty years of the Wetland Bird Survey on the Dee Estuary.

Y Tywyddiadur – sychder eithriadol 1887 yng Nghymru a thu hwnt • Duncan Brown & Twm Elias. Cofnodi tywydd yng Nghymru (rhan 3).

Common terns at Shotton – a Welsh success story • Peter Coffey. Wales’ common tern breeding colony.

Teifi Marshes nature reserve – from water shrew to water buffalo • Nathan Walton. The wildlife of a much loved wetland reserve.

The Argent and Sable moth and its association with bog myrtle in Wales • Andrew Graham. Revealing an intimate association between an insect and its foodplant.

Tŷ Newydd – an environment to write about • Robert Minhinnink. The National Writers’ Centre of Wales and its sense of place.

60 Years Ago – the story of a National Nature Reserve • Peter Walters Davies & James Robertson.

The struggle to save Cors Fochno from agricultural reclamation.

NODWEDDION ARFEROL / REGULAR FEATURES

Green Bookshelf ● Kathryn Birch, Jim Latham

Discoveries in Science ● Kath Slade. 3D slide collection at Amgueddfa Cymru/Nat. Museum Wales

Nature at large ● Ceri Morris. A Pygmy sperm whale is stranded in Caernarfon Bay

From the garden ● Bruce Langridge. I name this field… Cae Tegeirianau

Tribute to Ziggy Otto • Charlotte Gjerlov. Natur Cymru author and inspirational conservation biologist

Islands round-up • Geoff Gibbs. News from Skomer and Skokholm

Life lines ● Anthony Barker. Offshore early warning network

In my front garden ● John Crellin. Life on the street

Buglife ● Craig Macadam. Riverflies and their importance to wetland ecosystems

Woods and forests ● Christopher Matts. Can Ancient Woodland benefit farmers?

A visit to the Dyfi Biosphere Reserve



An intrepid band of members from North Wales Wildlife Trust braved heavy rain, road works on the A470 (and even a minibus with wet seats!) on Saturday to visit two jewels of the Dyfi Biosphere Reserve, namely Cors Fochno (Borth Bog) and Cors Dyfi. The latter is perhaps better known (at this time of year) as the home of the Dyfi Ospreys.

Cors Fochno is a fascinating raised bog on the edge of the Dyfi; the centre of the peat dome is indeed 9 metres above the floor of the original forest which covered the floodplain. Part of the western side of the bog was ‘reclaimed’ when the Afon Leri was canalised after 1820; in Natur Cymru #17 Mike Bailey describes how these fields were restored to the Bog around 20 years ago. On Saturday Mike (CCW Site Manager) gave us a conducted tour along the boardwalk at the northern edge of the reserve; much of the rest is best seen from a hot-air balloon! He showed us otter tracks over the path, and produced a floating board covered in water vole droppings (see photos). Mink are now largely absent from the site (Mike thinks the otters may have seen them off) and the water voles are back.

After lunch at the picnic tables at the Ynyslas Dunes Visitor Centre (the weather had relented by then), we headed back towards Machynlleth on the A487 (more road works here) to see the Ospreys at Mont Wildlife Trust’s reserve at Cors Dyfi. Emyr Evans writes about this site in the latest Natur Cymru. An adult brought in a fish to feed the surviving chick - two had died earlier in the season and this one had to be fed by hand for a short while, as it was too weak to hold its head up. It's doing fine now (see their website). A water buffalo dozed in the marsh, while Siskins and a Redpoll took seed from the feeder in front of the hide.

What a day!

Mike with the Water Vole platform