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The Springwatch series is now over and the reserve will slowly get back to normal. The production village is full of vans and vehicles; equipment is packed away and our overflow car-park is full of lorries waiting to take away portacabins, tents and production vehicles. The live studio will be transformed...

The last day of the Springwatch series has finally come and some of the stars of the show have timed things to perfection. I was watching the web cams at lunch time and lo and behold, despite my low expectations, one of the common sandpiper chicks hatched! Over the afternoon more hatched and as I...

What a traumatic few days it’s been. As you’re all probably aware, mid-Wales suffered a storm of almost biblical proportions at the end of last week with 5 inches of rain falling in just 36 hours. The damage to local villages was horrendous with many properties evacuated and millions of pounds...

Despite the fact it's June, there seems to be little let up in the wet and wild weather we've been having over the last week with Ynys-hir looking particularly atmospheric on last night's show. The weather has already taken its toll on some of our Springwatch favourites, with six of the ten...

It's been a bit of an emotional rollercoaster on Springwatch this week. A high note was the fledging of the remaining blue tit chicks on the Springwatch mini cams yesterday. If I'm honest, I was starting to get a bit worried for them, especially as the weather has felt more like autumn than spring...

In true British bank holiday style, the weather has turned poor here again, with rain yesterday and more rain forecast for the rest of the week. Early nesters, like most of the blue and great tits on the reserve, have fledged their young, but it'll still be difficult for the adults to find enough...

Well, what a springwatch week it was! Superb photography ranging from underwater filming of pike, close ups of insect life and moles underground. Badgers and foxes, pine martens and boxing male and female hares (as well as jumping mice in the mammal stump). The mini cameras on site have shown a great...

There's been some incredible wildlife footage on Springwatch this week. The nest cams have brought us all the action from inside blue tit and chaffinch nests, we've seen the first ever footage of moles underground and last night Springwatch cameraman Lindsay managed to capture some brilliant...

Although not a regular Facebook user, I had a quick look at the BBC Springwatch page this morning and was dismayed to hear of the overnight death of 'runtie', the smallest of the nuthatch chicks. Although I know this happens often in nature it's still sad news. Programmes such as Springwatch...

It's day three of Springwatch and there's plenty going on. The Springwatch team have been busy around the reserve, putting up loads of new nestcams. Hopefully we'll get introduced to some new faces tonight as well as catching up with some of the familiar ones. I even spotted a camera bobbing...

The second day of BBC Springwatch is here and, after watching last night's programme, I can't wait until 8pm tonight! It was a fascinating and informative programme throughout, but I particularly enjoyed the underground filming of the moles - a species I rarely see though evidence of them here...

With only a few days left before the live shows start, the production village is now complete and the producers and presenters arrived yesterday. Last night, a 'welcome to the community' event was hosted in the mess tent at the production village with good numbers of the local community turning...

From 4pm on Saturday 6 th August to 4pm on Sunday 7 th August 2011 we had a BioBlitz at RSPB Ynys-hir. Experts and novices joined forces to count as many different species as they could on the reserve. It was an exciting 24 hours of events looking for birds, mammals, fungi, moths, insects, plants and...

I know you’re all eager for news of the progress of the nests we watched on Springwatch! The oystercatchers were checked on again this week and they are still sitting tight on their rudimentary nest on top of the 8ft stone wall. We first started watching the oystercatcher’s nest on the...

Almost three weeks have passed and the last episode of the BBC Springwatch series was broadcast last night. It has been a thoroughly enjoyable, exciting and educational journey for all of us here at Ynys-hir reserve and has made Springwatch addicts of us all. We little realised, many months ago now...

I do not often blog about birds off the reserve but today I will. Congratulations to the Dyfi Osprey Project, run by the Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust, on the arrival of the first osprey chick to hatch from that site. The Dyfi Osprey Project is based just a few miles north of Ynys-hir and is well...

Here we are at the end of the first week of Springwatch at Ynys-hir. All I can say is...WOW.. what a week we have had at the reserve. The build up since last summer, when the BBC team had a good old look at the site and said - 'Oh yes, this looks pretty good' - to today, after a week of amazing...

How lucky we are to have such a wonderful team of volunteers here at the reserve! Photo credit: Eleanor Bentall (rspb-images.com) We quickly realised that existing staff would not be able to cope with the anticipated increase of visitors to the reserve whilst BBC Springwatch was on site and we...

Well, the first live broadcast of springwatch went out on the air last night and what a superb programme it was! The aerial shots of the reserve were brilliant and I particularly liked the shots of parts of the reserve taken in February and then again in May; the contrast between the bare, grey, starkness...

The first ever Ynys-hir newsletter is here with news and events listings to keep you up to date. You can download a copy now by clicking on the blue link below. Ynys-hir Spring Newsletter 2011.pdf Cylchlythyr RSPB Ynys-hir Gwanwyn 2011.pdf If you have problems downloading the file we will...