Wild May at Fforest Fields

May is wild here.

The land around Fforest Fields, the Edw Valley, Aberedw Hill, Gilwern Hill and the old tops of Carneddau is bursting into life. It’s not subtle, it's noisy, messy, a bit tangled. And it’s beautiful.

You don’t even have to try that hard.

Walk slowly, sit by a hedge, listen to the river for a bit, and you’ll find it.

Curlews bubbling across the moor.

Hares sprinting across fields like they’re late for something.

Butterflies flickering out of the grass like scraps of sunlight.

Here’s just a handful of what you might stumble across this month, or what might stumble across you.

Curlew

Up on Aberedw Hill or drifting over Gilwern, you might hear them first, a bubbling, lonely call pouring out over the land.

Sometimes there’s just one, floating high against the clouds. Sometimes two or three, lifting together over the rough fields.

Where: Rough pasture, marshy corners, upland edges.

Lapwing

Creaky calls, crazy tumbling flights, flashes of black and white over the fields.If you catch one of their mad display flights in the Edw Valley fields below Gilwern, you’ll remember it.

Where: Wet fields, rough meadows, valley floors.

Skylark

If you can hear them, that endless, tumbling song filling the sky, you know you’re in a good place.

Look up: they’re up there somewhere, almost invisible, singing their hearts out over all the hilltops surrounding the Edw.

Where: Open grassland and hilltops.

Pied Flycatcher

Little black and white jewels darting through the woods.Fresh back from Africa, already busy picking nest holes and chasing each other through the oaks along the Edw.

Where: Old oak woods and riverside trees.

Wood Warbler

You’ll probably hear them before you see them, a high, silvery cascade like a spinning coin falling to the floor.

They love the mossy, half-forgotten oakwoods along the Edw.

Where: Open-canopy, damp oak woods.

Brown Hare

Big, golden-eyed, fast as a whip.

You’ll see them if you’re quiet, especially early or late, sprinting across a rough pasture, sitting up like a statue in the long grass.

Sometimes it feels like they’re watching you before you ever notice them.

Where: Fields, hill margins, rough pasture.

Great Crested Newt

Hidden away in old ponds and puddles at the field margins, living quiet lives under the waterline.Huge for a newt, black, and silver-speckled, almost prehistoric if you catch a glimpse at night.

Where: Farm ponds, scruffy pools, field edges.

Hedgehog

Shuffling through the dusk, snuffling under the hedges, quietly minding their own business.If you’re lucky, you’ll hear them before you see them, the small rustles of a life lived low to the ground.

Where: Gardens, rough ground, under hedgerows around Fforest Fields.

Dingy Skipper

Small, grey-brown, scrappy little butterflies you might mistake for a moth, but they’re survivors, flicking low over rough banks and stony paths.

Where: Scrubby grassland, sunny banks, quarry edges.

Small Heath

Soft, buff-coloured butterflies that flicker up from the grass at your feet. You won’t see them from a car. You need to walk, and they’ll find you.

Where: Short turf, sunny clearings on the hills.

Down by the Streams and Ponds

If you wander towards the water, the world changes again, slower, softer, but just as full of life if you’re paying attention.

Water Vole

If you’re patient (and lucky), you might see the water vole, Britain’s gentlest riverbank dweller.More likely, you’ll find a neat little pile of chewed grass, or the silent plop as something slips into the water ahead of you.

Where: Soft-banked streams and ponds along the valley.

Otter

They’re there, sliding through the river at dawn, leaving footprints and spraints tucked into the quiet places. You might not see one. But knowing they’re close is enough sometimes.

Where: Edw River and quiet tributaries.

Adder

Sun-warm rocks, patches of bracken, wide views and silence — that's adder country. You have to be lucky (or very patient), but they’re out there, soaking up the first real warmth of the year.

Where: Heath edges, sunny slopes on Aberedw and Gilwern.

Common Lizard

Little sparks of life darting across the path when the sun’s high enough.The hills are stitched with them if you’re moving slowly enough to notice.

Where: Dry stone walls, sunny grass banks.

Kingfisher

A flash of electric blue low over the river.

Gone almost before you even know it was there.

Where: Still pools and slow bends on the Edw.

Grey Wagtail

Bright yellow, tail bobbing furiously as they skip over the rocks and shallows.Their fast, flashing flight matches the quickness of the streams they call home.

Where: Rocky streams and riverbanks.

Bats

When the sky finally dims and the first stars start to prick through, the bats come out.

Pipistrelles flicker along the tree lines, bigger bats swoop over the ponds.The sound of a real Radnorshire summer evening just beginning.

Where: Woodland edges, lakes, and around old farm buildings.

You Don’t Have to Look Hard — Just Look Kindly

Fforest Fields and the valleys and hills around it aren’t just landscapes. They’re homes, full of wild lives unfolding quietly all around us.

Some of them are bold and easy to spot. Some of them are shy, slow, secret.

All of them are part of this place, part of the great messy choir of May.

So walk slowly. Sit down for a bit.

Look long enough and you’ll see it — the land shaking itself awake after the long winter, alive and astonishing.

If You Spot Something

We’d love to hear about it.

If you’d like to slow down with us this spring, we’d love to welcome you. Book your stay and come and find your wild May.