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Iolo Williams explores four historic estates in Wales in this new series, finding out what special places they are for wildlife. These parks are now open for everyone to enjoy but sometimes the wildlife goes unnoticed. Iolo meets with people who have inside knowledge to share, uses his expertise as a naturalist to track down wildlife and finds elusive night time creatures. In this first episode Iolo is exploring busy Bute Park right in the heart of Cardiff. He has a close encounter with a green woodpecker, finds that it's the best place in Wales to see jays and discovers that it's not only dippers and salmon that can be found along the river Taff when he goes in search of evidence of otters.
Iolo Williams explores four historic estates in Wales, finding out what special places they are for wildlife. These parks are now open for everyone to enjoy but sometimes the wildlife goes unnoticed. Iolo meets with people who have inside knowledge to share, uses his expertise as a naturalist to track down wildlife and finds elusive night time creatures. In this second episode, Iolo is exploring ancient Dinefwr Park in the beautiful Carmarthen countryside near Llandeilo. He tracks down rarely seen lesser spotted woodpeckers, uncovers the wealth of wildlife found in Dinefwr's special ancient trees and gets up close to brown long eared bats and badgers.
Iolo Williams explores four historic estates in Wales, finding out what special places they are for wildlife. These parks are now open for everyone to enjoy but sometimes the wildlife goes unnoticed. Iolo meets with people who have inside knowledge to share, uses his expertise as a naturalist to track down wildlife and finds elusive night time creatures. In this third episode, Iolo is exploring an old slate mining family's estate in the Snowdonia National Park. He gets up close and personal with a grass snake, uncovers a rarely seen mammal in the garden and with help from local experts uncovers the varied wildlife found in the wild woodlands surrounding the house.
Iolo Williams explores four historic estates in Wales, finding out what special places they are for wildlife. These parks are now open for everyone to enjoy but sometimes the wildlife goes unnoticed. Iolo meets with people who have inside knowledge to share, uses his expertise as a naturalist to track down wildlife and finds elusive night time creatures. In this final episode, Iolo is exploring the dramatic Stackpole estate in Pembrokeshire. Iolo goes underwater in the Bosherston lily ponds to try and find pike, has a wonderful time spotting otters in the rain and gets a glimpse into the nightlife of the old estate buildings where a large breeding colony of greater horseshoe bats can be found.
Iolo Williams explores Singleton Park in Swansea in the first of a new four-part series of Iolo's Great Welsh Parks. Iolo discovers the wilder side of this urban park when he tries to track down foxes and an elusive parakeet, carries out an experiment on a pair of nest-building long-tailed tits, investigates what the local peregrine has been eating and finds out about the many different types of insects living in the colourful botanical gardens.
Wepre Park is nestled amongst the urban sprawl alongside the Dee estuary in North East Wales. Seeking out the park's wilder side, Iolo Williams tracks down badgers, heads out with wardens as they survey for rare great crested newts, comes within centimetres of a wood mouse and finds a scary-looking giant wood wasp amongst a log pile. It's an important park for the people to enjoy the outdoors, with areas of ancient forest, brooks, ponds and open spaces.
Iolo Williams finds amazing wildlife in a once-abandoned old industrial site turned urban park on the coast of Anglesey. Holyhead Breakwater Country Park is now a pleasant escape for people and a place where he discovers sparrowhawks, little owls and the charismatic chough. He has a magical encounter with a weasel and gets up close to grasshoppers. In late autumn, filming coincides with the tail end of Hurricane Gonzalo, giving a chance to see the grey seals frolicking in wild seas.
Iolo Williams visits his final park of the series and finds himself in the old industrial town of Pontypool in south-east Wales. The park here was given to the community for leisure by the Hanburys, a family of industrialists. It also happens to be home to thousands of nesting bees and the very rare native crayfish. Iolo learns how to identify the sex of maybugs, and discovers that deer have been known to use the park and that otters live in the river.
Iolo Williams explores the wonders of Wales's country parks, starting with the magnificent Great Orme in Llandudno. It is a park full of history and ancient mines, and thousands of people visit the magnificent limestone headland every year for its fantastic views of the north Wales coast, but few visitors are aware of the special wildlife living there. Iolo meets some local experts and finds the Orme's rare moths and butterflies, ferocious stoats and migrating birds.
Nature expert Iolo Williams explores the fantastic Margam Country Park on the outskirts of Port Talbot. Once owned by one of the richest families in south Wales, it features beautiful parkland, lakes and mature woodland with three species of deer, eleven species of bats and other hidden gems.
Nature expert Iolo Williams visits Padarn Country Park near Llanberis in Snowdonia. Created on the site of an old slate quarry, the park is set in a stunning landscape surrounded by the highest mountains in Wales. Ring ouzel, one of the most sought-after birds in the whole of the UK, sing above the old slate tips, and wood warblers and pied flycatchers have established territories in the park's ancient woodland that's remarkably survived two centuries of mining. Hidden in the woodland are derelict buildings, once used to store gunpowder, and the old quarry work levels are favourite places for slow worms - our legless lizards. The trains of the old quarry have also survived and have been lovingly restored by Llanberis Lake Railway. Llyn Padarn is the second largest natural lake in the whole of Wales and is one of the prime spots in Snowdonia for water sports, but by night otters use the lake and the deep water is home to Arctic char fish.
Nature expert Iolo Williams visits Dare Valley Country Park near Aberdare, right on the edge of the Brecon Beacons. It was the first country park in Wales, and the first in Britain to be built on reclaimed land. Up until the 1960s the valley had 19 coal mines and most of the landscape would have been toxic for wildlife. Today it has been completely transformed from an industrial landscape to managed wild parkland. Dippers, herons, cormorants and kingfishers frequent the Dare River and the newly constructed lakes. The thin soil over the old coal tips attracts scarce butterflies, like the dingy skipper, and the smaller insects and ants living amongst the grassy tussocks attract lizards.
