Beacons Air Lift

If you're following me on Facebook or Twitter, you would have read already that on Wednesday I got the pleasure of exploring the mountains of Talybont in a Helicopter as part of a project to repair erosion on the local moorland. The task required traffic control, both on the ground and on the mountain, which was surprisingly busy considering we were in the middle of nowhere. 

I was lucky in that I got the upland part of the challenge which meant riding up and down in the Helicopter. I was also lucky enough to be able to bring my camera and phone from which I got just about enough footage to put together a little video for you all to watch. As you can see in the video, the bags being transported were pretty large and full with stone, soil and surprisingly water, which added excess weight that did make it pretty challenging for the Helicopter. 

We managed 38 passes which, given the conditions, was pretty impressive. The ending was a bit sketchy with fog getting too thick for the pilot to find us on the mountain top, he actually had to ditch the last load of rocks further down the mountain to make sure he had the best chance in bringing us back down. Either way, the day was very successful but still lots more bags to go up.

I had a fantastic time, it was my first time in a Helicopter and hopefully not my last. It is a great project and for a great cause, we need to look after our uplands / Moorlands. It's taken hundreds of years to form the way they are and our moorlands are our first defence from flooding. 

14.09.16 - Brecon Beacons National Park air lifting stone to repair upland erosion along beacon path

Too much to talk about!

Please take the time to listen with a good pair of headphones (if you have a pair of course). Sound Quality doesn't get much better than this. It's a short recording of an evening chorus on my local moorland/woodland which was painted with the passing by of off-road bikers. Something that we're getting a lot more of lately. A group of 20 Bikers travelled from London just to rip up OUR local moorland... Very frustrating. 

In other news, it was nice to see 3 Oystercatchers stopping off this evening for a rest during their spring Migration to their breeding grounds. They looked very tired but were also very un-settled about staying with quite a lot of cars buzzing by the damn wall. You need only pop your head over the wall for them to fly off and circle the area before settling again. 

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While you have your headphones on, this recording was taken during the evening chorus and before the Motorbikes turned up so I managed a fairly lengthy recording of this Robin. I did however capture a plane in the background which is near impossible this day and age to get anything but with planes going over every 5-10 minutes no matter where you are. 

This next recording deserves a blog post of its own to be honest as I could talk about this for hours. It's a manipulation of a Skylark recording that shows just how complex their song actually is. By slowing down the recording, you can pick out individual beats like it was a peace of music. Yet, even having slowed this recording 7 times slower than its original speed, the rhythms are still extremely fast and hard to comprehend! It's a drummers dream to reach speeds this fast and something we will never achieve as human beings without the aid of computers. Yet again, out-trumped by the natural world and we clearly still have a lot to learn, even with something that we consider a very human trait, after-all, we invented music right? I think not ;)

Upland Specials

I seem to be surrounded by development lately.. with South Sebastopol well on its way and further destruction in our upland habitats from 4x4 vehicles, I'm starting to see a lack of appreciation for our local habitat in general. With the comforts of modern society and everything we've come to cocoon ourselves in our day to day lives, who needs a variety of habitats? When people do want their wild fix, they prefer to watch nature from a distance, rather than getting their hands dirty and appreciating the ground they step on. Habitat is so underrated and it's down to lack of knowledge and understanding. We should all know the basics about the world we live in, it should be drilled into us from birth how important habitat is to our wildlife and ourselves: How industry has effected our landscape but also how nature is fighting back and using some of our darkest hours to their advantage. We paid a heavy price in the valleys to industry but it's not like we've turned a new cheek! We still neglect our land, our environment and every delicate treasure we have on our doorstep. Below are two species that are quite delicate in their daily needs, both are a lover of Gorse Bushes and due to cultivation and pressure in the farming industry, many of our upland farmers are cutting this down to maximise growth of grassland for their live stock. (This is what ecologists mean by habitat loss). I approached one of the 4x4 drivers about them driving on the moorland and their response was 'it's just grass'... This goes to show how un-educated people really are because it's far from just grass! It's a very complex ecosystem made up of thousands of specialist plant species and you need only look closer to work that out. I didn't get mad at that person though because it isn't their fault, it starts with the Government and with parental teachings, it starts with the foundations of living in Wales and something needs to change for people to start appreciating the land we live on. A spark is needed and I hope I live long enough to see it happen, otherwise, it's going to be a very sad story for generations to come and whats worse is, they won't even know what they're missing. 

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Save Our Moorland!!

Forgive me for expressing a bit of anger, but what gives anyone the right to destroy our moorland for selfish pleasures? It infuriates me to see 4x4 vehicles tear this specialist habitat apart like its nothing. If only people were educated in the right way, maybe then they'd realise just how much damage they were causing. It's destruction will be felt for 100's of years down the line as once the peat is exposed on the moorland it can take generations and generations for it to re-heal itself and may not heal at all! It will take hundreds of years to fix the damage that took these idiots 5 minutes to cause. Measures have been implemented to try and stop them, some of which you can see in the photo below. The middle access point has been blocked but as you can see, you block 1 access point and they create another 2. How can we stop this activity from destroying our Moorland? Well, I think I know just the thing and I'll be focusing heavily on that this year and for however long it takes to secure our moorland. If there is one hope in all this, it's that I'm aware of it and I won't rest until my local moorland and many others are secured. 

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Many of our ground nesting birds have already been effected by habitat loss and persecution and if it continues, the iconic sound of our uplands will forever be lost. Today only a few Skylarks were present when the skies used to be full of them. I honestly don't think that these people realise just how delicate our landscape is. We hold the power to both destroy and maintain and if we don't take action now, we will let a small handful of people decide the fate of our moorland for generations to come. Listen to the short recording below, now imagine the sound of 12 motorbikes, gunshots and 4x4's doing donuts in the background. Between that and plane noise, we've lost what once was a place of peace, tranquility and solitude and replaced it with the sound of neglect and sadness as the wheels churn up everything special about Wales.

Between that and fly-tipping, our uplands are really paying a heavy price. Take this picture below. I'm sure the frogs don't mind the extra cover but in reality, rubbish like this can cause a list of problems and especially in high quantity like this. The frogspawn in the top left is in the only art of the pond that was clear; the rest being a pile of rubbish. 

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I'm beginning to think that people just don't care for our land anymore. Perspectives need to change and that really has to come from the Government. Higher and more frequent fines need to be dished out and vehicles need to be seized. It's time we stand up for our forgotten landscape and start paying attention to the details in life that actually matter.