nature Diary from otley
SUMMER TIME AND THE LIVING IS EASY
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‘Hal and tow, jolly rumblelow, we were up, long before the day, to welcome in the Summer, to welcome in the May oh. For summer is a coming in and winter’s gone away oh.’
These are the first lines of the May folk song, sung for many years throughout the Country including down in Padstow, Cornwall, where they dance with the ancient Hobby horse. Even in Otley, May Day traditions still survive. For years people have gone to the Maypole fish & chip shop to celebrate, and some have even started Maypole dancing nearby. In Long Preston near Settle they dance too and select a May Queen. Later in Summer, harvest is a cause for celebration too. In early September in my native North Staffordshire, the Abbotts Bromley Horn dance goes from the Church to every pub and big house in the village with antlers a thousand years old. They are reindeer and from Norway, showing our Norse connections.
Around Otley the main deer is now the small native roe. I see them in most woods, but also in fields and on the moors if not disturbed. They will often run away then stop to look at you and assess the danger. May is a time when they can turn up in strange places. The does are about to give birth to their kids and will drive away last year’s kids which have been with them all winter and are now grown. The antlered bucks will not tolerate them in their territories either, and drive them away further. Hence young bucks can turn up in parks, gardens and even streets as well as new woods and moors. Later in the summer they shed their grey/brown winter coats and become a dazzling orangey red. There are red and fallow parkland deer at Harewood and reds at Denton too. Some escaped from there and can be seen in the fields sometimes trying to get back in. Autumn is my main time for watching deer, so I will say more then.
People and wildlife can see May as the beginning of Summer, but Mr Paul Hudson on BBC Look North and other Weather people in general count June, July and August as the three summer months. Whether Spring or Summer, early May can be a magic time for wildlife. Around May day is when I led some of my Woodland Walks in Bradford, Burnley and Bolton to catch the bluebells and wild garlic at their peak. Thirty years later it is still a good time, but they are past their best now by mid May. East Wood was spectacular this year surpassing even Middleton woods near Ilkley and Rougemont, north of the river near Harewood. At present East Wood has fewer shrubs, giving sweeping views. This may change when more holly & hazel are planted for wildlife and coppice. All of these woods are internationally important as we have 50% of the World’s bluebells in our damp climate. Holly and mosses are important too, with the latter being found in the native western woods of Britain, sometimes known as Temperate rain forests. The largest in Scotland is the Wood of Taynish in Argyll where we are going in June for our week’s annual wild sojourn.
It has been a good year so far for tree blossom and wild flowers. On damp grassland the delicate Lady’s smock, cuckoo flower or May flower has appeared with its light purple petals. It is the favourite food plant for orange tip butterfly caterpillars. It has more Vitamin C than orange juice. The male butterfly has the orange tips and the female is white with veined underwings. As the name suggests the flower and the cuckoo arrive together, although one from underground and the other from Africa. They generally need a southerly wind to help them but usually they are calling by early May here. The folk song talking about her coming in April applies more to the south of England. The best place to hear and see them is on trees or small woods by the moors. Meadow pipits are plentiful there and their nests are the favourite target for cuckoo eggs. Elsewhere wetlands are good too with the reed warbler nests being the target. Back in the 1950’s though when I was a boy, cuckoos were so common everywhere that they were paid little attention.
Not all birds have declined, however. The Chiff chaff, a small warbler from Africa, this year has been calling as its name suggests from most trees and woods around Otley including our garden, East wood and the Church yard. On a grander scale the red kite is back in our skies. Due to persecution it retreated to mid Wales and was nearly extinct. Centuries ago kites were in and around every town cleaning up discarded food and animal scraps. Shakespeare wrote: ‘Look to small linen when the whistling kite is about’. In other words watch your knickers on the line as they line their nests with them. To reintroduce them birds were brought in from Spain and Sweden. The Spanish ones were brought to England and the Swedish to Scotland.The latter range quite widely but the Spanish ones spread only slowly. In the 1990’s spare youngsters were brought up from the Chilterns by Doug Simpson, a senior member of our Raptor group, for release at Harewood. The intention was to repopulate the whole of the Dales which they are doing slowly.
Some people say that there are too many kites and that they will do damage. At Denton in January I counted 53 coming into roost. Several things, however, are worth mentioning. Firstly, they look big but they are mostly wing & tail and weigh only about 1 kg. Secondly, they are so aerodynamic and good flyers that they expend very little energy. Hence they need only one good feed per day. They will take carrion, waste food and occasionally a vole or a young bird, but they eat a lot of worms and insects too. Those roosting at Denton may have ranged up Wharfedale and over into Nidderdale and Airedale during the day. Like northern vultures they roost together and will congregate around a food source.
This year has been the best for hawthorn blossom that I can remember. It is called May blossom too and this year it is well on time. In the past in the North, especially 700 ft up at Haworth where we used to live, it didn’t come out until June. Many bushes that we see now were planted as stock hedges at 5 or even 9 plants per metre. The hedges were periodically trimmed or layed to keep them thick and stock proof. Over the years stone walls or fences may have been used instead. Walls are good for shelter and wildlife too, especially stoats and weasels. They are a feature of much of the upper Dales. Blackthorn blossoms early before coming into leaf but likes limey soil. Hazel, holly and crab apple can enhance hedgerows too. All hedges should not be cut from mid March to late summer so as not to disturb bird nests- many people forget this. The present blossom is fostering squadrons of hawthorn flies as food for martins, swallows and swifts etc. Many ground flowers are needed to equal just one bush. Near rivers too they are a favourite fly for trout and I used to try and imitate them in season when I fished. After that the large May flies are the trout’s favourite. Back in the 1980’s though, on our Dales rivers, they did not appear until June.
Martins and swallows arrived back here earlier this year, but the swifts came on their usual date of 9th May. They are welcome but are fewer each year. On my Staffordshire council estate as a boy in the early 1960’s three of us sat in a tin bath on some waste land. We were a battleship firing stones at swifts above, so numerous that they were German war planes. Somehow we hit one which tumbled to the ground. Immediately we realised what we’d done and regretted it. Fortunately, we soon got it airborne again. This year four returned to our Weston estate as opposed to the dozens back then. Fortunately though, our estate still nurtures hedgehogs, bats and butterflies along our Green lane corridor including the speckled wood & exquisite tiny holly blue that needs both holly and ivy for its lifecycle.
The moors too can be a surprising place for butterflies. On Watson’s lane near Little Almscliffe crag, tiny green hair steaks have been on the gorse flowers by bilberry bushes. The green is so vivid it looks to be painted. As the summer goes on, orange & black small heaths, coppers and gatekeepers appear. As the grasses mature meadow browns and ringlets come out in force. When we were at the Pool Vicarage I mowed just paths to encourage these butterflies. A neighbour accused me of being un English for not mowing the lawns, despite my blacksmith ancestors back to at least 1789. At Haworth in the 1980’s Polish ladies came from Bradford to pick bilberries every summer. They did not want to repeat the hunger of the War. It was hard work for us though and we managed only one crumble per season for our table. Soon after the bilberries in July, the heather bursts into life. First the bell heather comes on the dry rocky areas, then the cross leaved heath on the wet. Finally, the main heather or ling paints the moor purple in contrast to the blond grasses and the white bog cotton. Many butterflies come to feed on it including the big red peacock.
Not all is benign, however. Walking down the track above Nidderdale one heather time, I bent down to pick up a thick heather root. As I did so it started moving and I could see the zig zag pattern of a big black adder. Fortunately it just crawled back into the heather. In 50 years of walking the moors and mountains I saw only six adders and maybe a dozen lizards. They generally keep out of harm’s way. Once though in Scotland a keeper lay on the heather for a sleep. An adder crawled up his empty jacket sleeve and bit him in the arm pit when he put it on. It was fatal, being so close to his heart. Despite this horror story, a walk on the moor at heather time, keeping to the tracks & paths, is a summer delight not to be missed. Britain has 50% of the world’s heather moorland and 10% of its blanket bog. They are special for wildlife like waders and rare birds of prey, plus the environment in general holding back much carbon & water.
Rivers and ponds can be a delight in summer too. Besides the usual kingfishers, dippers, trout, grayling and otters, it is the season of dragonflies. These vary from the small blue or red damselflies to the large blue and green Emperor. The ponds at Gallows Hill nature area and Timble Ings are good for them, but so are the slower reaches of the River Wharfe near Knotford Nook. On the north side a permissive path goes from Wharfe Meadows Park nearly to the River Washburn junction. I often go slowly by bike which is quicker than walking and silent for wildlife. After seven weeks of dry to mid May, the rivers, reservoirs and ponds are low and there is talk of drought. The moors have notices to guard against fires. The summer of 1976 became a scorcher and Staffordshire was more like Spain than Spain. The Government appointed a Minister of Drought and soon after it started raining. By late September much brown was back to green, although some trees did suffer. In Britain the winds shape the weather, but do vary quite often.
Dragonflies, martins, swallows and swifts bring another Summer visitor from the south. This one is a hunter, the hobby, like a slim peregrine falcon with a red undercarriage. Incredibly it can hunt all these species. They can be seen around Timble Ings and sometimes the lower Wharfe. Their stockier cousin, the peregrine, has a name which means traveller, but it nests on cliffs and high buildings like York Minster. Malham cove has been a good place to see them, but this year three chicks have died. Early July I walk down the dry valley above to sit on the Cove and watch the peregrines and young flying below. Unique whitebeam trees grow on the limestone crags, the yaffle or Green woodpecker feeds on ants in the wood below, and the purple Wild mountain thyme releases its aroma from the path-side rocks. There are few better places to spend a summer’s evening.
A close second though is looking for nightjars at Timble Ings or Stainburn forest. They arrive from Africa in late May and stay until early September. I like to look for them on a warm evening some time around Mid Summer’s Day in late June. They lay up during the day camouflaged on the forest floor but come out at dusk to hunt moths and other insects in the clearings. The male calls his territory with a churr that sounds like radio interference at night. They are the size and shape of a small bird of prey and fly stiff winged like the balsa wood gliders once loved by kids. Often they will fly around to check you out, but can be induced also by clapping above your head with a white tissue between your fingers. Believe it or not, this imitates another male clapping his wings with white patches on. Half way up Norwood edge turn right onto the gated road towards Lindley. After one gate park up by the forest corner and walk the track to the dead tree. The path to the left will take you to the zone with smaller trees. Cover up well and wear good shoes or boots. Take a spray for midges if too calm. I start with organic citronella but use nuclear strength Jungle formula if they’re bad. A midge hood would work too. Roe deer, hares, kestrels, ravens, woodcock, owls and track side heather, orchids and toads can be a bonus if the nightjars are not playing. Sometimes the toads and nightjars lie on the track for warmth. I take a stick too in case of werewolves or hobgoblins, but a friend and a torch would work as well. You are safer though there than in Otley or Leeds. At Timble there might be a few people about. Park up near the water collection compound and follow the track for about a mile to the big glade near the moor. Don’t go though if it’s too cold or windy- go another time. Enjoy the summer.
Keith Wilson. MSc Environmental Forestry , Bangor 1990. MICFor. Retired.
Wildlife Friendly Otley, Denton & East Wood volunteer.
Keith is old Welsh for Man of the Forest- who knew?
Any comments, questions and/or wildlife sightings would be welcome.
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SPRING: THREE STEPS FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK
Most people are keen to greet the Spring after a long sometimes dark and cold Winter. There is some uncertainty about when it might begin, though. The Spring calendar quarter begins on 1st March, but on my wife Rachel’s birthday the 9th March, it sometimes snows. The Equinox around the 21st might be a better start, but in 1963 when I was ten, snow and ice lasted from Boxing day until the end of March. First the ponds froze and we walked across them ( don’t try that at home), then the streams and rivers, and finally the edge of the sea. Many birds, including kingfishers and barn owls, perished. I saw my first barn owl then flying across a snowy Uttoxeter Racecourse in my native North Staffordshire. I did not see my next until 1988. Maybe they have learned to adapt now, as in recent years I have watched them near here dive into several inches of snow and emerge with a vole. It shows that they hunt as much by sound as sight.
The UK is the sixth windiest country in the World (please don’t ask me the top five), and perched between the mild Atlantic and the cold North Sea, our weather can literally depend on which way the wind is blowing. The Atlantic brings the warm Gulf stream often to save us in winter, while the North Sea which brought the Vikings brings the East wind to chill even in Spring. In 1981, it was a warm sunny Easter, but on 8th May a NE wind brought six inches of snow to us in Haworth. Fortunately, the strengthening sun put paid to it in a few days.
This year cold winds first from the North, then from the East slowed our Wildlife friendly Otley Toad patrol on East Busk lane. If mild and moist they will start moving from the woods and fields to their spawning pond around early March. They don’t like it dry and cold, however, and will stay put in the fields and woods. Nevertheless, on the night that I helped out, five of us collected 320. We go armed with high viz, gloves, a plastic bucket and a torch. Sometimes the much smaller male hitches a ride on the spawn laden female. They emit an endearing squeak, a bit like geese in the far distance. The chance of a newt, bats, tawnies and a barn owl over the fields add to the atmosphere. Youngsters with their parents love it. Last year we rescued 2,300 with few road casualties. This year with the cold winds we have reached only 1700 so far. Before he started the Patrol three years ago Neil Griffin, WFO Trustee, had counted 300 dead on the lane. We’ve got to be winning and local drivers are friendly and considerate.
With a good couple of days in early March some frogs landed in our back garden pond. Despite the odd snow storm, Rachel’s birthday on 9th March is the day that they often spawn. Jim next door, a keen angler, has a huge fish pond stocked with all sorts. As usual the frog croaking from there was like an Alabama night in a film. It gives a lie to the view that frogs, newts, and fish can’t live together. It reminds me of a Bradford tackle shop assistant telling me years ago that: Fish don’t read books or, as they say in Ireland : You never know when the rage will take them. The rage hasn’t taken our little water dragon newts to return yet to our pond. So to see some I bike down to Gallows Hill reserve by the Wharfe below Otley. Leaning on the rail fence by the small pond I watch down as they wiggle up to breathe and omit an air bubble. I am told that common smooth, palmate, Great crested, and even escaped Alpine newts are all there. I just see two kinds, however, small ones and big ones. Eft, the name for young newts, still with external gills on their heads, is one of my favourite words in the English language.
Gallows hill have created a new pond near the orchard with help from the Town council. Hopefully it will soon colonise with aquatic wonders. The river too by the far end can be good for otters at dusk. I have seen them during the day down at Knotford nook and Pool bridge. Jim has even seen one catch a 10lb salmon. One was photographed on Christmas Day 2010 fishing from a log in the frozen river above the weir.
The Gallows hill stone stile feeders attract a range of birds including the bonny nut hatch and reed buntings. I saw a dipper recently by the hydro electric cork screws but I see fewer kingfishers. Hopefully, it is because I spend less time at the water than when I used to fish. Mention of newts has reminded me that I worked at Nell Bank near Ilkley for two years 30 years ago before I became an environmental forester . The pond there was superb for palmate newts. The ancient woods were great for native bluebells etc and the river still had native white clawed crayfish before the dreaded American signals came. One late summer I came back from the Pyrenees to be told by some visitors that they had helped by finding newts in the woods and putting them back in the pond. They did not understand that the woods is where they hibernate. The newts must have thought: Here we go again. I raised money for the big pond in the field lined, with North Staffordshire clay, and we planted many native trees. My young Grandson, Ted, has started going, but I must return too to see how they’re doing.
Blue bells are now out at our East Wood near Weston. Like wild garlic and the bonny white wood anemone, they are indicators of old woodland. Being on the damp Atlantic margins , the UK has half the World’s bluebells. Also we have half of the World’s heather moorland. This makes much land around here of international importance. The upper wood has native, oak, birch and rowan, but in the lower much of the native ash, hazel and wych elm has been replaced by sycamore. Imported from Europe in the 16th century sycamore was widely planted in the Pennines as both pollution and exposure tolerant. It has a poor range of insects compared to oak but a high biomass including aphids, feeding many young birds in Spring. Until 1984, it was used as choc wood in the coal mines. Also it is used for making violins. Another invader, rhododendron, we attacked mercilessly in February before bird nesting. Twelve volunteers and two Protect Earth ninja warriors from the SW worked to create 21 habitat piles of the cut invader. More holly will be planted as a safe evergreen native shrub with hazel for coppice.
Spring comes slower on the moors above Otley. Even when warm in the valley, the winds can feel like the Jet stream is anchored over them. Volunteers have been busy on Denton moor. Last winter we planted 60,000 native trees & shrubs to increase woodland just below the moor. This winter into spring we installed leaky dams to slow water run off and planted many thousands of sphagnum moss and bog cotton grass plants. I was honoured to plant the last ( 24,000th.) cotton grass with a gold coated dibber in late March just before the nesting season. Nick and Cal Bailey, the owners, are very friendly and committed to the environment. They lead the charge on most activities. All the woodland has been surveyed for potential bat roosts. One warm evening going to a Wharfedale Naturalists meeting in Ilkley, I looked over the bridge to see a dozen bats hunting insects. Like the dipper they point to a healthy river, but we must remain vigilant.
As I walked up to the moor last week a cherry tree in blossom was buzzing loudly with bees of all sorts. Otley Parish Church, where I am the self appointed Leaf Master General, has a number of cherry and a horse chestnut tree all in blossom now, before many of the ground flowers have got going. Wild bees in the south wall and formerly in the old twisted willow, will be glad of the blossom. Red campion and ox eye daisies sown by WFO will soon take their turn.
Over the winter we collected 42 big green bags of leaves off the paths etc, and pruned back ivy, bramble and fallen branches from graves & walls. Where we cleared leaves off the grass lots of celandine & violets have appeared. Chiff chaff warblers, back from Africa, are calling in the trees. Peacock, speckled wood and orange tip butterflies have become active. The splendid sulphur yellow Brimstone has been seen by some but not yet by me. I look forward too to the Holly blue, which depends both on holly & ivy.
I return to the moors most days, if the weather is fit, to watch for birds of prey and waders. As Spring has arrived I have shed one of two hats and various layers. Now common raptors like red kites, buzzards and kestrels are usually about. 50 years ago there were only a few kites in Wales and buzzards were there, and in the Lakes & Scotland only. Near dusk short eared, barn and long eared owls can be seen. I sometimes vole squeak with my lips to draw them closer to. Between January and now few barn owls were seen . Fortunately , some have started to show . Hopefully they will use some of the nest boxes put up by the WFO Owl group at Denton and elsewhere. The raven, osprey, tiny merlin, peregrine, hobby and bigger goshawk are looked for too by our 30 strong Raptor group, but our main quarry is the rarest bird in Britain. To mention its name to you even, I would have to shoot myself. A few visit our moors in the winter but go elsewhere to breed. We would love them to stay local. Hunting low over the moor or dancing in the sky there are few better sites. We need to protect them.
Waders like curlew, lapwing, red shank and golden plovers have been back on the moors for a few weeks. Up to 500 curlews can winter in the fields near Ben Rhydding bridge. Fewer go down to the coast now with the milder winters. With the variable weather they can move up and down between the moor and the in-by fields. At Denton we are looking to remotely identify nests then protect them against predators with expansive electric fencing. We may be a stronghold for curlews, but they still need help. Recently I've seen 140 whooper swans resting while heading back to Iceland in Spring from the warmer Winter in East Anglia : Gouthwaite, March Ghyll, Hoodstorth and Knotford nook. With yellow & black bills, upright necks and buggle calls they are magnificent. Last week coming off the moor I saw an arch predator, a stoat, in white ermine. He wasn’t clear whether it was Spring or Winter still. He should be ginger again soon. In a couple of weeks May will bring the swallows, martins, swifts and cuckoos to the edge of the moor. Hawthorn blossom will paint the hedges white and Summer will not be far away. Join me next time to find out more, such as how to conjure the ghostly nightjar from the forest If you have any comments, questions or sightings in the meantime please let us know.
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Keith Wilson. MSc Environmental forestry( Bangor 1990) . MIC Foresters( retired). I was a mature student even then.
PS Keith is old Welsh for man of the forest- who knew ?