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Waxwings on an aerial in Mosborough

Ian Rotherham directs the Tourism and Environmental Change Research Unit at Sheffield Hallam University. Read his observations on other months by clicking below.

Ian and Rony welcome your letters, comments, sightings and records. Phone 0114 279 6699. For your nature sightings and photos...

* The views in this article are those of Dr Ian Rotherham and not of the Ö÷²¥´óÐã *

February-March 2009

:: Wild geese over South Yorkshire

Well it has finally happened - Pink-footed Geese have been streaming over the region in their thousands.

Early on Saturday 14th February there were flocks high over Norton in south Sheffield. In recent years the numbers of wild geese have increased all across Britain. They split neatly into two broad categories; the resident non-natives and the genuinely wild winter visitors.

Almost everywhere there’s a decent body of water you are likely now to see large numbers of the exotic Canada Geese and increasingly the feral Grey Lag, the origin of the farmyard goose.

So go to Rother Valley Country Park near Mosborough, Worsbrough Country Park or Cannon Hall near Barnsley, and you’ll find large flocks of Canadian Geese and it’s fair to say, alien or not, that most people like to see them.

However, the big spectacle is yet to come.Ìý This is the return migration of vast numbers of wild geese from East Anglia and the Wash, firstly to the north-western marshes and then way beyond to Greenland and Iceland.

Winter geese

This is where their far-flung breeding sites are. I’ve been down in Norfolk recently and the sheer numbers of Pink-footed Geese are very impressive. The areas around Snettisham and Dersingham have up to 25,000 plus good numbers of Brent Goose and smaller numbers of White-fronted Geese.

The effect on both local people and visitors is worth watching. As the geese fly out from arable fields where they feed during the day, they head for the seashore marshes and it's quite remarkable.

The sun is setting and the East Anglian sky is a rich mauve hue. Set against this are seemingly endless flocks of geese calling loudly, etched in black against the vivid backcloth. People simply stop and stare; the spectacle is so amazing and this is one of nature’s great spectaculars.

The RSPB are suggesting that the Wash population of wintering Pink-feet is now around 50,000 and they are now making the return trip. As they do so, many are passing over the south-western part of Yorkshire and are worth watching out for.

Look for them much higher than the local movements of Canada Geese and Grey Lags, and often in much greater numbers. Listen for the call, a high-pitched unk-unk and wink-wink-wink. This is different from the call of the Canada Goose which books describe as a repeated and loud wagh-onk.

I can’t really say more but do try it at home. Anyway the next few weeks should see them streaming over Sheffield and Barnsley; so let me know if you see them.ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý

Winter sunset

:: And meanwhile down in the winter woodlands….

My local Tawny Owls started calling again around Christmas time. They are generally one of our earliest birds to begin breeding, but I’m not sure if this counted as late 2008 or early 2009. They are highly territorial, and with good cause; they have to defend an area which will provide food for a demanding family, so they are both vocal and potentially aggressive.

But this did seem early and I would have expected them to be active in January rather than December. But then I did have Mallard ducks courting and mating back in late October. If the weather had stayed mild in early 2009 we might have had a fair number of baby ducklings on local rivers and lakes quite early on. But with the cold weather that will have been put back a few weeks.

The Tawny Owl is our main owl of parks, gardens and of course woodlands. We do have other species across the region, and some of these can be seen in the middle of winter too.

The most remarkable perhaps are the Long-eared Owls which gather in communal roosts. Dense hawthorn areas such as old railways embankments at sites like Old Denaby Nature Reserve and at Rother Valley Country Park, both in South Yorkshire, are typical locations for these birds.

Sometimes you see one owl staring at you with bright eyes and erect ear-tufts; then another, and another and another. You can even get an uncanny feeling of being watched by an unseen observer, and then in the gloom of the shrubs to make out the typical elongate shapes of the motionless Long-eared Owls.

Both they and the related Short-eared Owls arrive here in numbers during winter and often hunt out over wetland and marsh.

A few of both species stay to breed, the former in dense woodlands and especially conifer plantations, and the latter on moors and heaths. Their numbers vary a lot from year to year depending as they do on the abundance of their favoured prey especially voles.

Tawny Owl

My Tawny Owls will also adapt to changing fortunes. In a good year with plenty of food, they may raise three or four youngsters. However, should conditions be less fruitful then they are able to adapt and will limit their brood to just one or maybe two offspring.

For many birds of prey the older chicks simply push their younger siblings from the nest if food is short. Nature is not sentimental.

Despite the snow and the cold, the woods are livening up and as soon as the sun peeps out there are lots of Great Tits and Blue Tits singing and calling loudly.

Robins, Wrens and Blackbirds are all getting fully into the swing of their spring song, and the Nuthatches are about as well.

I’ve had records of Redpoll visiting garden bird feeders and excitingly there are good numbers of Waxwings around as well. Look out for flocks of a hundred or more around Mosborough and on the Manor.ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý

:: Going wild about South Yorkshire’s hidden heath

North of Sheffield and south of Barnsley is one of South Yorkshire’s most precious wildlife and heritage areas, Wharncliffe Heath.

This really is one of the places to connect with nature and with history, and if you want a day out, it is big. There is the Heath, the Crags, the Wood and the Chase. In many ways the landscape is like the Peak District, and although it isn’t on the Millstone Grit which characterises the Peak’s edges, I always feel that this is an eastern outlier.

The real gritstone is further to the west, a massive rock of sandstone and coarse pebbles laid down under a great river estuary many millions of years ago. Something I still find remarkable whenever I see it is that you can still make out the ripple-marks in the now petrified sand.

Wharncliffe Crags old postcard

Wharncliffe Edge stands proud above Deepcar and Stocksbridge. This was the starting place for Gritstone climbing, with the early pioneer rock climbers, and remains to this day a place of pilgrimage for mountaineers and climbers.

Locked between Barnsley, Rotherham and Sheffield this is a surprisingly wild and remote area. The rugged topography means that it is not for the timid or the less athletic.

The heathland is rough and difficult going should you try to cross it; so it is best to keep to the well-marked paths. Apart from the tracks down from the Edge, the steep scree-slope is tough going; a rocky boulder-strewn hillside left by nature and by ancient human endeavour.

The name ‘Wharncliffe’ is an old name derived from its use as an important site for quern-stone manufacture. These quern-stones were used for grinding corn; hugely important from Romano-British times until the Middle Ages.

It seems that the rock here was so perfect for this use that the area was the most important quern manufacturing location in Roman Britain. The impact of that use probably took a toll on the land and the heathland today results from the erosion and acidification of soil when the original tree cover was removed.

Around 1500 years later the heath is a rich and diverse habitat for all sorts of wildlife and there is the possibility of some exciting animals.

In summer there are Green Tiger Beetles, Common Lizards, Adders, and impressive day-flying moths: Fox Moth, Eggar Moth and Emperor Moth.

But in the depths of winter what we are after here is the deer. There are both Roe Deer and Red Deer in good numbers, and a patient wait pays dividends.

Then, as darkness falls and we slip quietly home, there’s a Fox rangy and alert as it lopes silently across the medieval hunting park of Wharncliffe Chase.

There’s a flock of birds almost geese-like high overhead, but they aren’t geese. These are gulls, Black-headed and Lesser Black-Backed Gulls, on their way to roost on the reservoirs near Stocksbridge. It’s an easy mistake to make so watch out.

RSPB Dearne Valley Nature Reserve and the greening of Barnsley

Barnsley at the time of traveller and writer Daniel Defoe was known as ‘Black Barnsley’.

Believe if or not this wasn’t due to the coal mining and the pollution which almost defined the town and the area during the 20th century.

No, it was due to the amount of heather moorland to the western part of the area and the heathland to the eastern lowlands. The town still has a remarkably rich western fringe including parts of the Peak District, which is hardly the image of Barnsley for those outside the area. There are even tiny fragments of the old heaths, but you have to search hard to find them.

A few years ago I ‘discovered’ the remains of Houghton Common high on the hillside to the east of ancient Grimethorpe (‘the settlement of Grim’ in Old Norse).

Until recently this was one of the most polluted and desecrated areas of Britain and perhaps of Western Europe. But things are changing and indeed they have changed. This is thanks to a very few fanatical local bird-watchers going back now over a period of 30 to 40 years, and then more recently the Yorkshire Naturalists’ Trust as it was called then, and the RPPB.

Ian Rotherham, SY environmentalist

With a huge amount of effort and massive funding to clean up square miles of derelict and contaminated land, the nearby Dearne Valley has been transformed into one of Britain’s biggest and most dynamic bird-watching reserves.

The area now has a ‘visitor economy’ of over 100,000 people each year and rising, and many of these are tourists. What a surprising boost to the local economy that is.

Pete Wall is the RSPB’s Reserve Manager, and he is justifiably proud of what they have achieved. I hope the councillors of Rotherham and Barnsley District Councils are also aware and proud of this most sensational transformation on their doorsteps.

I was there recently and you have immediate access to flocks of 20 or so Goosanders, hundreds of geese and swans, and masses of Shoveller Ducks, with Teal, Gadwall, the stunningly beautiful Goldeneye, and plenty of Cormorants too.

Overhead wheel thousands of Lapwings and Golden Plovers and as the suns sets groups of Wigeon flight in with their glorious high pitched whistling calls.

A few weeks ago Keith Kitching of Dronfield sent me a record from him and his wife at Rother Valley Country Park; a view of two male and three female Goldeneye Ducks.

These are a really very beautiful and rather special bird and I saw a group at RSPB Dearne Valley also doing the head bobbing and throwing back which are typical of their courtship display.

RSPB Dearne Valley Visitor's Centre

Twenty years ago they were very much a winter bird of the upland reservoirs to the west of our region, but now they seem to be a lowland visitor too.

Soon though, they’ll be heading back north to their breeding grounds. The wildlife has certainly returned to Black Barnsley, so let’s celebrate it.

:: Cuckoo or not?

Well I just have to finish with this one. One of my callers to Ö÷²¥´óÐã Radio Sheffield last time was very excited to report a Cuckoo in the Gleadless Valley; in January a most remarkable record.

Now I didn’t really have time on the programme to discuss this in detail though at the time I did say that although I wasn’t there to see or hear the bird, I did have serious doubts.

Cuckoo © Sam Shippey

I’d earlier mentioned that the Wood Pigeons and Collared Doves around Norton had been getting a bit frisky and were also starting to call loudly in the trees and around the gardens of the area.

So I want to just go through my thoughts and the logic behind my conclusions. Now there is a problem with a record like this, especially one where the viewer or listener is absolutely and genuinely convinced of what they saw and heard. It is also something we have all done at some point but most birdwatchers won’t admit to, when we get it wrong.

So, I hear you ask, why am I so convinced that this wasn’t a Cuckoo?

Well firstly, there are several birds which make a loosely similar ‘coo coo’ call; in which case simply hearing the call is not enough. The Wood pigeon does what the books describe as: ‘coo-coo-cu-coo’, and the Collared Dove: ‘coo-cooo-coo’.

I think you are beginning to get my drift, and both these species will be actively calling in January and February. Starling can also do good Cuckoo impressions.

But hold on you say, didn’t the caller say that she not only heard this bird on several occasions, but her friend saw it on a tree branch in the woods and observed it making the noise. I think most people would recognise a Wood Pigeon – big and plump – even at a distance.

A Collared Dove however, on a branch perhaps against the light of the sky behind it could look distinctly Cuckoo-like. They are a similar build and both have the smooth feather texture typical of the adult Cuckoo.

The Dove has the long Cuckoo-like tail and the head shape is not dissimilar. Interestingly they are almost the same size with a Collared Dove about 11-12 inches in length and the Cuckoo 12-13 inches.

Surely though it might be possible for an early Cuckoo simply to have arrived in a rich wildlife habitat like the Gleadless Valley? I’m afraid that the answer is simply no it isn’t. The reason is that whilst the Wood Pigeon and Collared Dove eat seeds and grain, both abundant during the winter months, the Cuckoo is an out and out insectivore.

Collared dove

Their favourite food is in fact big hairy caterpillars, and we just don’t get them in winter, and a Cuckoo would starve. So, my dear Watson, the ‘Gleadless Coo-Coo Bird’ is not a Cuckoo, but a Collared Dove.

Perhaps we can discuss this a bit more on the next Ö÷²¥´óÐã Radio Sheffield Walk on the Wild Side Phone-in on Thursday 19th February from 1.20-2pm. I might even do my famous Cuckoo impression!

Dr Ian D. Rotherham, writer and broadcaster, directs the Tourism and Environmental Change Research Unit at Sheffield Hallam University. He can be contacted via Ö÷²¥´óÐã Radio Sheffield or by his dedicated email: ianonthewildside@ukeconet.co.uk

He has written a book all about the issues discussed on Ö÷²¥´óÐã Radio Sheffield - 'Ian On The Wild Side of Sheffield and the Peak District'.

:: Dr Ian D Rotherham directs the Tourism and Environmental Change Research Unit at Sheffield Hallam University. He has written a book called Ian On The Wild Side of Sheffield and the Peak District. Ian and Rony welcome your letters, comments, sightings and records. Phone 0114 279 6699. For your nature sightings and photos...