TV presenter and naturalist Iolo Williams will explore areas in and around the Swansea Valley in the first episode of a new four-part series.

The valleys of South Wales are some of the most iconic areas in the country, and have for centuries been associated with coal mines, pollution, and a scarred environment.

With heavy industry mostly gone, nature is making a comeback. In the new series, ‘Iolo’s Valleys’, Iolo Williams heads out to discover the extraordinary wildlife that’s reclaiming the old coal fields.

In the first episode, Iolo starts by heading along the Upper Clydach river to find a Dipper’s nest hidden beneath a rock overhang. Amazingly, one of the best places to see the scarce marsh fritillary butterfly is an old colliery site near Ystradgynlais. Another surprise is a kingfisher that’s built its nest by digging a tunnel into coal waste. In the Amman valley, a stunning oak woodland that survived the coal industry is full of nesting migrant birds from Africa.

On the hills between Pontardawe and Glanamman, Iolo finds peace within the Bronze Age ring cairn of Carn Llechart surrounded by reed buntings, skylarks and meadow pipits. 

Deep in a conifer plantation in the Neath Valley, Iolo searches for Wales’ rarest breeding bird - the honey buzzard. It’s so rare that only one nest is known in the whole of Wales. 

Further episodes in the series see Iolo come across a black tailed skimmer, water boles, a buzzard, and adders basking in the sun next to a rugby club in the central valleys; sand martins, reed warblers and leopard moths in the valleys north of Cardiff; and near Newport he discovers nesting long eared owl chicks, a mating pair of migrant hawkers and a marbled white butterfly – the Gwyn Gleisiog in Welsh.

The first episode of the series airs at 7pm on Friday, May 17 on BBC One Wales.