The red kite is Wales' national bird, and Blaen-y-ddôl is a perfect base for birdwatching, and for visiting.

  • Bwlch Nant-yr-arian, where red kites are fed daily


  • The Kite Country centre at Gilfach


  • The RSPB reserves at Ynyshir and Dinas


  • Tregaron Bog (Cors Caron) National Nature Reserve. 


Though we specialise in accommodation for walkers, Blaen-y-ddôl's facilities and setting make it just as suitable as a base for birdwatching. Our library includes many books on birdwatching and other aspects of natural history, and we have information on all the nature reserves in the area. Our new sun-lounge is hung with bird-feeders, so our guests can watch the local bird life at close quarters. The most common visitors are tits - great, blue and coal - and chaffinch, but we also regularly get great spotted woodpecker, nuthatch, greenfinch and siskin. A winter visit from a blackcap was our most unusual. Elsewhere in the immediate locality, apart from such ubiquitous species as robin, blackbird etc., we see kingfisher (rarely), dipper (occasionally) and goosander (fairly often) down by the river; kite (of course!) and buzzard, redstart, pied flycatcher, and a variety of warblers.



Mid Wales is sometimes referred to as Kite Country. It was the only area of Britain where this beautiful raptor held on into the 20th century, after years of persecution by gamekeepers and egg collectors. Measures to protect the survivors and their offspring, starting about a century ago, permitted a gradual recovery in the numbers, and now there are over 100 breeding pairs in Mid Wales. Consequently, sightings now are happily an everyday occurrence, and very few of our walkers fail to see at least one.

 

 

 

 

Gilfach, owned by the Radnorshire Wildlife Trust, is a "farm that time forgot". Neglected for decades, it escaped the agro-chemicals and intensification which impoverished the wildlife of Britain after World War II, until it was bought by the RWT in the late 1980s. They have restored the magnificent farmhouse as a visitor centre, and during the breeding season it has live video camera coverage of several bird nests on the reserve.

The cliffs of the Ceredigion Heritage Coast offer yet another habitat, where a wide range of common sea birds can be seen, as well as less common species, rarest of which are the cliff-nesting chough (around 2 dozen pairs in Ceredigion) and the peregrine falcon. There are also stonechat and wheatear in the summer, and turnstone and purple sandpiper in the winter.