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Open Day - 9th March 2008

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Occasionally extra reports will appear here.


Payback time for Iolo

In November 2006 the naturalist and Welsh TV personality Iolo Williams gave an information packed illustrated talk to a full house of DNS members at Connah’s Quay Civic Centre, so it was only fitting that the debt of gratitude be repaid.

When Deeside Naturalists’ Society programme secretary, Ron Plummer was contacted by an outside broadcasting crew from the BBC asking for his assistance it was an offer he could not refuse.

The BBC had been given Ron’s details by Iolo who was part way through filming a natural history series to be shown in spring 2008.Ron was invited to take part in an episode about black grouse (Tetrao Tetrix), their habitat and mating display, or lek.

One of the best sites in Wales to see black grouse is on Ruabon Moor, it was here that Ron met Iolo and the camera crew at 05:30 on a wet and misty morning late into November. The group entered the forest at Llandegla and filmed the black grouse at lek as the dawn broke.The lek is a display ground where the male birds, black game, congregate to “strut their stuff” and compete with each other in a series of false charges, hops and dances, for the enjoyment of the admiring females, grey hen, prior to mating.

The dominant males usually hold centre stage at the lek whilst the younger males patrol the periphery, watching and learning.

After a break for lunch, and to see if the weather would get any better (which it didn’t), the party returned to the forest where Iolo and Ron were filmed chatting about black grouse in general and their part in the overall bigger picture of wildlife in Wales.

It was 3pm. by the time filming was complete and all the equipment safely packed away.

Cold,numb, soaking wet and covered in mud the group returned to their cars and said “Good-byes”.

All this to film the habits of a chicken sized black game bird, we must be mad.

Maybe so but after nearly 20 years of watching their secretive ritual the black grouse is still top of my “Best bird to see in Wales” list, said Ron.