Marker post at the source of the River Severn / Tarddiad Afon Hafren
The Pumlummon hills in mid Wales give rise to two of Britain's longest rivers, the Severn (Hafren) and Wye. On the Eastern slopes, at an altitude of around 600m, Hafren's source lies in an area of boggy peat, where reeds, Hare's-tail Cotton Grass and other bog loving flora abound.
Here, I've assembled a sequence of five recordings made near to the river's source, on a walk across the open moorland on a breezy summer's day.
We begin on the leeward side of an area of slightly higher ground, over to the left in the above photo, with microphones nestled amidst the heather out of the brunt of the wind. Skylarks soar in the sky above, and a few Ravens fly by giving their characteristic throaty calls. Moving down to damper ground, in the undergrowth, bees and other insects buzz, with Meadow Pipits high above.
It's been a cold dry season and much of the peat is cracked & shrunken but, walking down towards the edge of the marshy area where the gound starts to fall away, I finally hear a tiny trickle at the bottom of a narrow channel cut into the peat. Meanwhile, "the cold mists roll in", as I say on my recording log. Fortunately, today it's just a patch of low cloud which quickly passes.
Walking a little further downhill, I pass a pair of nesting Wheatears. They probably have some young recently fledged, & are clearly agitated by my presence as they fly to & fro excitedly, giving their "wheet-chack" calls. Further down the hill, as the peat bog drains into the stream, the water gurgle becomes more identifiable, and we settle down to listen for a while.
Recorded: 2021-07-01 1300-1600
Location: 52.4940, -3.7349
Download full length recording:
20 min, 45MB, .ogg format
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