At the top of the bank, at the border with the common land, I found the hare. There are no border guards here, only hazel and stock fences. The gates and barbed wire serve a different purpose.

The Hare, though broadly free from man-made borders, was a timely reminder of the borderlines that exist between countries, between cultures, between people and, within each of us.

Filmed in mid Wales, August 2022

Music by Olan Mill

The wonder here in many ways is the unexpected.

The rain arrived and I was forced to take refuge under a hawthorn canopy of blossoms. It was only then I noticed the Redstarts and their home.

Filmed in mid Wales, June 2021

Music by Chequerboard

It was a quiet day. I was positioned in the shadow of a large Horse Chestnut tree. I had been manoeuvring to be as close to the hare in its form as I dared. To my rear the valley and a view of the day’s farming activities.

I was then joined by one of the field’s more permanent residents. It felt like for a moment the two of us stopped and watched the roundup together.

Filmed in Wales September 2020

Music by Chequerboard

The seasonal ebb and flow of the landscape, punctuated by the familiar, brings a cycle of wonder and discovery every year to this part of mid Wales.

Boxing hares to me are synonymous with spring so it was with surprise that I saw two hares square off and do the rounds in early October.

Filmed in mid Wales, October 2020.

Music by Chequerboard

There have always been Tawny Owls here. Heard but rarely seen, it nonetheless has been a reassuring presence. I have counted six individual owls on a single night calling during the winter months.

Two years ago, I bought an owl box and hung it in the large tree in the corner of the field.

This summer a single owl has spent the day’s high up in the canopy of the large tree.

Little appears to go unnoticed.

Filmed in mid Wales, July to October 2019.

Music by Slow Meadow

"What is?"

"The Kestrel is", I said.

The Kestrel is back.

It's been absent from this corner of the common for two years now. Its return is reassuring.

Filmed in mid Wales, September 2018.

Music by Chequerboard

My journey home takes me across a piece of ancient common land. Until recently my sightings of hares have been fleeting or always a long way off.

By a bend in the track, there it was, and reassuringly this time not running for its life.

Filmed in mid Wales, July 2016.

Music by A Winged Victory for the Sullen

"Speculative", was my answer to the question "what are you filming".

I am not instinctively a species counter. I am a watcher though. Savouring moments.

On my rounds of the field, I noticed the flock gathered at the corner of the common. It's out of the wind here. Winter has been late and there hasn't been room in the sheds for these expectant mothers. Each day their numbers have swelled as their lambs have been born in the open. But unlike those born lower down these lambs have no coloured dye donating ownership. They are optic white and share that colour with the underside of the hares that also live in this corner of the common.

Filmed in mid Wales, April 2018.

Music by Phaeleh

"I have been watching this view since I was a boy".

Filmed in mid Wales, between November 2016 and January 2017.

Music by Josienne Clarke and Ben Walker

"I accepted the invite".

The pool is ordinarily hidden from view. Its existence is a topographical surprise. Lying directly behind the farm, approximately 4 acres of water almost touches the sky. It's the crossroad for many ecologies.

Filmed in mid Wales, November 2016.

Music by Olan Mill

"This is the first story from ISFRYN".

I had always hoped a hare may live in the field. I came across it by chance. I was looking for the tawny owl who had been roosting in a neighbouring horse-chestnut tree all summer and there in the long grass of its shade it was.

Filmed in mid Wales, September 2016.

Music by Lisa Knapp