I ddarllen y blog yma yn y Gymraeg, cliciwch yma os gwelwch yn dda
In conservation work, we are often trying to turn back the clock, to a time when nature was more diverse and our priority species were more abundant. This applies rather aptly to Moel y Gaseg Wen. Moel y Gaseg Wen is a small, 200 acre or so, piece of moorland in Mynydd Hiraethog. It is unremarkable in many ways, but probably one of my favourite parts of North Wales Moors.
Image by Stephen Bladwell: Golden plover on Moel y Gaseg Wen.
Turn your thoughts back. What were you doing and what was going on in 1999? For me it was a year where my music taste broadened dramatically, helped in no small part by going to my first proper festival and seeing the Red Hot Chilli Peppers live at Temple Newsom. Also, I remember seeing the Matrix in the cinema – yes that was 18 years ago! For me it was a year of independence where I started growing up. On Moel y Gaseg Wen that year, there was a pair of breeding golden plover, not too unusual given they were fairly widespread at that point. Sadly however, in the following four surveys from that point up until 2013 there were no breeding golden plover recorded on the site at all.
Prior to 2013 RSPB Cymru had started trying to solve the problem of golden plovers as a breeding bird in Wales. Having witnessed declines over a 20 year period of about 80% in some of their former strongholds, it was getting desperate and something needed to change. Our first project was to get work done on the ground involved Moel y Gaseg Wen and two other sites in North Wales Moors - one nearby on Hiraethog, and one on Ruabon moor. Breeding birds turned up on all three sites in the first year, immediately after cutting the blanket bog/dry heath over the winter season of 20113/14. Breeding plover have since turned up immediately after first management at five sites where there were none before.
That first project entailed a programme of cutting works over a four year period, with last winter being the final year. Golden plover have been breeding at Moel y Gaseg Wen every summer during the project, and this summer, for the first time, we’re delighted to announce that two pairs now call the site their home. It may take a while to pick them out, but one of the pairs is complete with three nicely fattened chicks.
Image by Stephen Bladwell: A family of golden plovers on Moel y Gaseg Wen.
We’ve now turned our attention to maintaining the habitat we created, and exploring whether it can be replicated by others. A lot will depend on whether we can keep breeding success high enough across the Wales sites and help improve the golden plover’s fortunes in the future.
In many other ways, the world seems rather more complicated and challenging these days, but on this partly forgotten corner of upland Wales, there are now more pairs of breeding golden plover than there were when the world seemed strangely scared of the Millennium bug and the best selling single of the year was by Britney Spears.
Maybe it’s not all so bad.