Iolo's Anglesey
Iolo Williams explores Anglesey by land and by sea to look for the rich diversity of wildlife on Wales’s biggest island. He also discovers why it has some terrific rare species.
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Ep 1Episode 1
Iolo Williams explores the wildlife of Anglesey. Wales’s largest island is renowned for its coastal beauty, but it also has fantastic marshland and heathland with spectacular wildlife. Iolo watches breeding marsh harriers - majestic birds of prey that have only recently started to nest in Wales. He finds stoats, grey seals and lizards. He also visits Puffin Island to find the only breeding site in Wales for eider ducks. On a disused railway line, he finds breeding adders.
Ep 2Episode 2
Iolo goes by boat to Ynys Badrig, an offshore island which is the northernmost point of Anglesey and Wales, and the potential site of a new gannet colony. He explores a stunning wood at the centre of Anglesey, with carpets of spring flowers and native red squirrels. He watches peregrines on the Menai Strait, and on wetlands near RAF Valley, he finds nesting sand martins, spots otters and has a rare sighting of a bittern.
Ep 3Episode 3
Iolo Williams explores the wildlife of Anglesey. Wales’s largest island is renowned for its coastal beauty, and also for the spectacular wildlife that can be found in its sand dunes, rocky cliffs and surrounding farmland. Iolo finds colourful day-flying moths, beautiful orchids and brown hares. He heads out to the Skerries Islands and visits Wales’s only Arctic tern colony. Along the way, he also encounters a fox and comes across a small owl with its chick on an abandoned farm near Holyhead.
Ep 4Episode 4
Iolo heads out to sea to look for Risso’s dolphins. Underwater, an artificial reef has formed from an old shipwreck. He finds roosting bats at an old priory, and dragonflies and beautiful rare plants on Anglesey’s fens. On the Alaw estuary, he gets a rare sight of Britain’s smallest bird of prey, the merlin, as well as Brent geese overwintering on Anglesey.
