Due to the extreme wind conditions and incessant rain, the field visit to Ingbirchworth Reservoir on Saturday 7 December has been cancelled.
Our next field visit is on Saturday January 11 for winter birds at Adwick Washlands.
YNU AGM in Barnsley on Saturday 16 November with blue plaque unveiling and presentation by Jeff Lunn
A special meeting was held on Saturday 16 November at the Library@the Lightbox. Barnsley Nats hosted the Yorkshire Naturalists’ Union (YNU) Annual General Meeting and naturalists gathered from most of the areas of Yorkshire.
As part of the event a Blue Plaque was unveiled by the Mayor of Barnsley opposite Barnsley Town Hall.
The photograph shows the Mayor, Mayoress and Young Mayor together with Linda Burgess, Chair of Barnsley Civic Trust, and Jeff Lunn, President of the Yorkshire Naturalists’ Union.
The blue plaque commemorates Thomas Lister, Quaker, Poet and Naturalist, who was Barnsley Postmaster on the site from 1839 to 1870. As well as being President of Barnsley Naturalist and Scientific Society for 20 years, he was a prominent member of the Yorkshire Naturalists’ Union. Thomas Lister attended the first YNU AGM held in Barnsley in 1884, 140 years ago! A good reason for welcoming the YNU back!
Before the blue plaque unveiling Peter Roberts gave a presentation covering highlights of the history of Barnsley Nats and the story of Thomas Lister: his bird reports in the Barnsley Chronicle and the stories of the Barnsley Nats’ Museum have been celebrated in Eldon Street Heritage Action Zone, not least by Simon Armitage, the Poet Laureate, and his band LYR.
In the afternoon, Jeff Lunn, 2024 YNU President, gave a stunning presentation with the title: ‘A Sense of Place, A Sense of Purpose’, covering his life in conservation and full of anecdote, humour and interest.
The Dawn Chorus
On May the 10th we will be heading to Worsbrough Reservoir, we have yet to confirm the meeting point. As the saying goes ” the early bird catches the worm”. This walk is a 5am start to listen and see the birds as they start their day, and hopefully spot other animals that are not usually about later in the day.
There are activities at the Mill later in the day, starting at 10am; to celebrate the Mills 400 years history. If anybody wants to make a longer day of their visit.
Up and coming field visits …
Whitwell Moor field visit, Saturday morning, 12th April
Whitwell Moor above Stocksbridge was the place for our field visit on Saturday morning, 12th April. We were looking for the wildlife on this former grouse moor and saw breeding lapwings, curlews, stonechats, and lots of others.
With the end of management of this site, it’s becoming better for wildlife. The views are fantastic too! Thanks Chris for taking us again to this fantastic place and pointing out the highlights!
Up and coming events
This Saturday our walk take us to Burton Bank; on the look out for signs of Spring. Meeting at 10am the walk will be around two hours. We have already emailed members of the meeting point, along with some background information on the area. Drop us an email if you want to join us.
And on Wednesday the 19th, for our last indoor meeting, we have a presentation entitled Yorkshire’s Birds & Wildlife; by our guest speaker John Gardner.
Everybody is welcome.
Spring is in the air – Our next field visit (15th March)
Pictures of wood anemone which will soon be flowering and a hoverfly on its own little bit of sun. These are just two of the many finds for spring: Which is the aim of our next outdoor field visit. There is a change of date from the programme and now will be on 15th March.
If you want to join us please drop us an email for the meeting time and place. [email protected].
February 19th
Sorry for the late posting regarding our next indoor meeting.
This will take place this Wednesday (19th Feb) at Worsbrough Common Community Centre, on Warren Quarry Lane. Starting at 7pm and to finish at approx 9pm.
The presentation is by Jeff Lunn on his work on ‘The Garganey Trust’, which is close to the RSPB site Wombwell Ings, which we paid a visit to recently. While there we spotted thirty nine species of birds.
Jeff has done a few talks for us in the past and our regular members know these to be entertaining.
‘Costa Rica by bike’ and AGM
On Wednesday 22nd January, we can look forward to a talk on ‘Costa Rica by bike’ by Graham Shepherd, followed by our AGM: 7pm at Worsbrough Common Community Centre, Warren Quarry Lane, S70 4ND.
Christmas Social
Wednesday, 18th December is our Nats Christmas Social when our members can enjoy a natural history quiz, music and time to get together and chat. If any of you has something of natural history interest to show and tell us about, there will be time for this too.
Worsbrough Common Community Centre, 7pm, Wednesday 18 December
Bees, Beekeeping and the Asian Hornet
Asian Hornet. Photo: Creative Commons (BY 2.0 UK) -Jean Haxaire
Our Barnsley Nats talk on Wednesday 20th November had Gordon Madden, secretary of Barnsley Beekeepers Association and a Barnsley Nats member, gave an illustrated presentation on ‘Bees, beekeeping and the Asian Hornet’.
Gordon had brought along various items of beekeeping equipment and his talk provoked a lot of interesting discussion.
Fungi field visit at Wortley Hall
Wortley Hall parkland is the place for our fungi field visit on Saturday morning, 9th November. We are meeting at 10.00am. Leader Doug Brown
To park in the Wortley Hall grounds – follow the road in, turn right just before you get to the Hall and drive up and park on the right – Grid reference: SK31199953. ///witless.mingles.realm. Car-share if possible.
The grassland at Wortley Hall is particularly good for fungi. As well as fungi we will be looking at anything else we spot in these autumnal days.
Gardening for Wildlife talk
Interested in attracting butterflies and other pollinators to your garden? Hedgehogs and other wildlife too? Then this talk by Will Tomson was for you!
Will Tomson, a professional gardener and garden designer, gave an illustrated talk –Gardening for Wildlife– on Wednesday 23rd October. It was very interesting and informative, and provoked a great deal of discussion and question.
Stairfoot field visit on Saturday 12 October
Claypit and woodland at Stairfoot former brickworks.
A small group of Barnsley Nats visited the area of the former Stairfoot Brickworks on Saturday 12 October.
Return of our Winter indoor meetings
Our winter programme has been published for both indoor and outdoor meetings. Look for the ‘programme’ page on this website! Here are some tasters of what is coming up.
The indoor meetings will include our Christmas get-together on December 18th; with the ever popular (fun) quiz, compiled by Jill. We will be starting off with Gardening for Wildlife on October 23rd. And we also have a presentation on Bees, Beekeeping and the Asian Hornet to look forward to.
Our next outdoor field visit on October 12th takes us to a local nature site at Stairfoot. Then on November 9th, we have our annual fungi walk. A chance to share knowledge into the fungi we observe, as we often find over 20 different species. This often sees many of us on our knees for a closer look at what we find and get some good photos.
As usual our outdoor meeting may change from the published visit, as they all depend on a successful reconnaissance of the group leader for the day. And of course the British weather can have an impact on our walks too.
On Saturday November 16th the YNU (Yorkshire Naturalists’ Union) will be having their AGM in Barnsley. at the Library@the Lightbox. Barnsley Nats are hosting the event. There are two presentations and a blue plaque is being unveiled.
Information on our meetings is also emailed to people on our email list. To be included please drop us an email at [email protected]