THE LURE OF THE WILD

Purple Arctic-Alpine flowers and bluebells colour a craggy habitat that’s home to one of the Brecon Beacons wildest views, says

- Fergus Collins

Of the many rewards that come from working on BBC Countryfile Magazine, the greatest is discovering new places to walk. From editing or reading the rambles gathered by our army of writers, to chance conversations with those working to save a particular landscape or species, I have accumulated enough treasures to write a book... or a magazine, come to that.

For me, nothing beats the thrill of stepping off a train or parking the bike or car and putting that first foot forward into a new landscape. The wildlife-rich wilder and more the better. I am rarely disappointed.

It's not just the adventures, it's the lasting memories and emotions that offer sustenance in darker times. I quite often daydream of a walk I took on Solway Firth to a backdrop of bugling geese, or the orchids flowering on a Wessex chalk

Or perhaps the time I sat on a promontory on the Anglesey coast, listening to choughs and curlews while waves crashed below.

A SPECIAL DAY

More recently, I have captured some of these adventures on the Plodcast, our nature and countryside podcast. I hope you will tune in and enjoy some of these deeply uplifting and inspiring connections to the countryside we all love.

For now, though, I want to take you back to one of the first discoveries I made on BBC Countryfile Magazine. I was chatting to presenter and naturalist Mike Dilger and he mentioned an unspoilt crag in the Brecon Beacons where he had encountered ring ouzels - a mountain-loving species of blackbird with a gorgeous white bib. A bird I had never seen. The place was Craig Cerrig Gleisiad, a national nature reserve but with surprisingly little written about it.