Author: Barnsley Nats

Our next field visit is to Phoenix Park near Thurnscoe. It’s a general nature ramble on a restored colliery site, now managed by The Land Trust. Grasses, wildflowers, hopefully insects if warm enough, birds and woodland.

We’ll meet as usual at 10am and stay until around 1.00pm.

Meet at the main car park for Phoenix Park on Barrowfield Road, Thurnscoe. Three words: //save.prepared.perfected [!!] Grid Reference: SE461052. There are brown signs to Phoenix Park from the A635 roundabout junction with the B609.

A joint field visit with South Yorkshire British Naturalists’ Association.

Our field visit on Wednesday 24 May was to Netherwood Country Park and Nature Reserve, at the side of the river Dove, between Wombwell and Darfield.

As well as the river and large ponds, there are open grassy areas, scrub and a bit of woodland. Not much in flower yet but it was good to identify what was there, as well as other wildlife.

We managed 13 birds including Chiffchaff, Blackcap and Willow Warbler. The young of the Greylag and Canada geese were a delight!

Our nine insect species included Red & Black Froghopper, the Soldier beetle: Cantharis rustica, Redheaded Cardinal beetle, and 7 spot and 14 spot ladybirds as well as Early bumblebee, Red tail bumblebee and Common carder bee.

Of particular interest were the Oak Current Gall, the gall wasp of which creates oak spangle galls in a later stage; and a spiral gall on some fantastic Black Poplar trees.

On our field visit on Saturday 13 May to New Hall Farm, between Ardsley and Darfield, David and Helen Rhodes showed us their approach to arable farming which aims to encourage wildlife whilst ensuring their farm is viable; they maintain hedgerows and hay meadows, and have a variety of features that support birds, insects and other wildlife. It was a really interesting visit.
More later.

Our Saturday 22nd April field visit to Adwick washlands, was led by Linda Graham in association with Colin and Linda’s birdwatching group. It’s a familiar area of farmed fields transformed into wetlands, wet grassland and marshes; a rich site for breeding waders including Avocets.

A total of 56 bird species were seen, the highlights included Lapwing chicks, many Avocets on eggs, a Spotted Redshank, 2 Bar Tailed Godwits, a Sandwich Tern, a House Martin, 2 Sedge Warblers, a Reed Warbler and a Kingfisher.

Now with SSSI status, its mix of reedbed, fen, scrapes, marsh, meadows and wet woodland makes Carlton Marsh a great place to visit, in any season. 

It was quite quiet when we visited; we were pleased to see the two Whooper swans, as well as mallard, moorhen, gadwall and almost 20 teal; and in the bushes some dancing long-tailed tit. And of course we looked at the fungi, lichens and plants.

A highlight was searching for over-wintering herald moths!

https://www.ywt.org.uk/nature-reserves/carlton-marsh-nature-reserve

Here is our programme to September 2023.
From April it consists of fields visits on Saturday mornings and Wednesday evenings.

There are two indoor meetings: a talk on ‘Rewilding’ by Chris Tomson on February 22nd and a talk on ‘True Bugs’ by Stuart Foster on March 22nd.

You can see the programme on the ‘Programme’ page. To see it here without downloading it, just click on the blue link.