From a newt's pond to Everest, in Welsh.
Galwad Cynnar is a Welsh-language BBC Radio Cymru programme in which a panel and guests talk wildlife and landscape, with phone, text and a Facebook group open for contact. A male newt courting in a pond, long-tongued hawkmoths and waste cleared from the Himalaya get airtime, as does Mike Parker on the book 'Map Addict'.
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Galwad Cynnar is a Welsh-language nature programme from BBC Radio Cymru, and it runs on conversation. A host brings in a panel and guests, reads out a phone number and a text line, and points people to Twitter and a Facebook group carrying the programme's name. Named panellists include Elinor Gwynn and Dr. Prysor Williams. Rhian Brewster joins one programme, Mike Parker comes on to discuss the book 'Map Addict', and Dave Hughes is thanked 'as always' at the end of one programme. The pull of the show is how easily it moves between the very small and the very large. Start with the pond. One contributor describes spending around an hour watching a male newt wave its tail to attract females. The detail keeps coming: newts lay their eggs a little later than frogs, and these ones had already eaten the frogspawn and tadpoles in the pond. Oswyn Williams is credited with sending in a photo of a newt. Then the scale jumps. A speaker from a park recalls Everest being called the world's highest rubbish dump. Climbers spend large sums on the trip, much of it flowing into Nepal's economy, and Sherpas struggled financially once Covid stopped the climbing. The speaker presents the next part as welcome good news: a campaign used the quiet to clear tonnes of waste from four of the highest Himalayan mountains. The story is then brought home to a new campaign asking people to plan, discover and love the park, and to think about where their litter ends up. Insects get the same close attention. Hawkmoths with long tongues, able to reach into a flower for its nectar, are named as the suggested pollinators for a plant a university is working with. Landscape runs through all of it. A stream running down from Pen y Gwryd towards the lakes comes up, and during the same conversation a photo of someone measuring rain on a mountain slope is found and promised to the Facebook group before the programme ends. Maps get a conversation of their own through Mike Parker and 'Map Addict'. Questions reach the panel with a name attached, and the talk stays conversational rather than lecturing. In Galwad Cynnar, a newt's courtship and a Himalayan clean-up belong to the same subject.
Made for: Suits a listener comfortable in Welsh who wants nature talk that stays conversational and gives a pond newt, a hawkmoth and a mountain clean-up the same close attention.
What sets it apart: It is conducted in Welsh on BBC Radio Cymru and puts backyard-scale observation, such as a newt courting in a pond, in the same conversation as global stories like waste on the Himalaya. Photos and messages from outside the studio feed into the talk, and material from it is shared through its Facebook group.
Trafodaeth wythnosol Radio Cymru ar natur a bywyd gwyllt. Radio Cymru's weekly nature and wildlife discussion.
Pond newts or Himalayan litter: your curiosity has a surprisingly wide radius here.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
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A weekly Welsh-language radio discussion about nature and wildlife.
A weekly Welsh-language radio discussion about nature and wildlife.
A weekly Welsh-language radio discussion about nature and wildlife.
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