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 17,000 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. 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 sighings in the meantime please let us know.

 

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 ?