Category: Field visits

Saturday 14th March
On this field visit we will be led by Doug Brown; looking at the trees in Cawthorne Park.
With the recent restoration work in the park it is expected to still be muddy in places. Please dress for the weather
The meeting point will be the main car park at Cannon Hall; SE272079, post code S754AT. Meeting for our usual 10am start. This is a pay and display car park, £1 for two hours and £3 for all day. For anybody travelling by bus you need the 94 route from Barnsley. This is a limited service on Saturdays. Please check time with the service operators; it is a approximately one hour travel time and then a walk to the meeting point.

On Saturday 8th February, we have a field visit to Rockley. Our leader for this will be Geoff Jackson. There is usually plenty to see on our, now annual, visit to Rockley. As the weather is some mild just now we could be in for some early sightings.
We will be meeting at 10:00 am at the car parking area for Rockley Furnace on Rockley Lane which is opposite to the entrance to Rockley Abbey Farm S75 3DS (Grid Ref. SE337020). Please take care not to block any of the residents access when parking. If needs be please park under the MI flyover and walk back down to the meeting point

The area is usually quite muddy; please dress for the weather; boots, hats, gloves etc…

Our field visit on the morning of 11 January is a circular walk along Barnsley Canal and Wilthorpe Marsh.

We are meeting at 10am in the car park down Smithies Lane opposite The Fleets (a former pub now a Barnsley College sports centre).
Grid Reference: SE346078. Postcode S71 1NL.
If the car park is full, there are local side streets. Bus number 12 runs regularly down Smithies Lane: the 09.37 and 09.52 buses from Barnsley Interchange get there for 10am.

Looking forward to seeing everyone

This field visit will take place at the Anglers Country Park . Our group leaders for this field visit are Colin and Linda Graham. Colin and Linda will be giving us an insight into the Gull Roost at this park. This is a popular area for winter ducks too.

We are meeting at 1 pm in the main car park at Anglers Country Park, Haw Park Lane, Wintersett, WF4 2EB, grid reference: SE375153.
Good footwear and warm clothing may be a good idea. The cafe there will be open when we arrive.

We do have a later start time for this field visit of 13:00.

Fungi

Our next morning field visit is to the area around Worsbrough Reservoir country park looking at the fungi there.
Geoff Jackson is leading the walk from the main car park [grid reference SE351033] on Park Road along the track on the south-side of the reservoir towards Shaw Bank wood and Rockley Old Hall.
Meeting at 10 am. All welcome.
Please note the car park has a small charge. 

Our next field visit is on Saturday 12 October to Wortley Hall Gardens and Parkland where the ancient trees will attract our interest alongside other natural history.
The leaders are Doug Brown and Barry Tylee (Friends of Wortley Hall).
We are meeting at 10 am with parking alongside the drive on the way into Wortley Hall grounds.
The Grid Reference for the meeting point is SK312995: The postcode for Wortley Hall is S357DB

There are twenty six acres of grounds to explore at this former stately home, so we should have an interesting field visit, like we usually do.

Many thanks to our leaders, Doug and Barry, on what proved to be a fascinating walk; their combined knowledge is immense. Barry gave us a brief insight into the history of the grounds before we set off. The walk was aimed to be a look at the tree that had been planted over the last 200 years. An arboretum of many American trees which contains a Giant Redwood, a Brewers Weeping Spruce, a Bald Cypress and Black Locus. We had a good look at the grounds possible oldest resident,a Sessile Oak which is estimated at 350 to 500 years of age. One of the group said “if trees could talk what interesting stories would they be able to tell”. This set me thinking too; what could these trees have witnessed. So I intent to provide some additional information; my personal view on on the events that they have lived though along with some fact about the species . We had many other interesting observations too; morel, stinkhorn, fly agaric and jellyear mushrooms and a ladybird larvae to name a few.

A field visit to Wortley Hall gardens and parkland led by Doug Brown (Barnsley Nats) and Barry Tylee (Friends of Wortley Hall Gardens).

Meeting at 10am on Saturday 12 October; parking on the drive on the way into Wortley Hall

For those interested, Tom Higginbottom is leading a Plant Gall field visit at Newmillerdam; 10.30 start.  Details -including contact info for Tom are given at https://www.britishplantgallsociety.org/events.html .
The meeting point is in the car park; which operates a Pay and Display system. so please have some change for this; estimated at £1.70. Please bring a packed lunch if you want.

There is also a drop-in bioblitz at Cannon Hall country park: http://www.cannon-hall.com/bioblitz .

Apologises for the short notice on these two activities. These are not our organised activities, so please refer to the links for correct information.

This is an addition to our Spring/Summer Programme.

We are continuing our ‘looking at a hedgerow with a Naturalist’s eye’ series on the evening of Wednesday 7 August – with a walk with Catherine Artindale along Stead Lane, Hoyland Common. Again we will be testing the Hooper Hypothesis on dating an hedgerow. This field visit should put our knowledge to the test too. Those of you who helped with the hedgerow survey we conducted in March near Stairfoot will know what an interesting evening it will be. We will be hearing a little about its history as well as looking at the plant species and wildlife of the hedgerow. We will draw our conclusion; the age of the hedge, using the Hooper Hypothesis guideline.

The level of this walk is easy, with plenty of time for discusing our conclusion and resulting age of this hedgerow.

Our walk takes us from Stead Lane towards Skier’s Spring Wood. We are meeting at 7pm at the junction of Stead Lane and Warren View, in Hoyland Common [post code S74 0BZ; grid reference SK361999]. There’s enough road-side parking.
To get there, go down Sheffield Road (the A6135) through Hoyland Common and turn off into Parkside Road, which is the third road on the left from the Hoyland Common crossroads. Then take the second road right which leads to Stead Lane, where you turn right again to get to our meeting place.
Looking forward to seeing you.

Following an excellent field visit walk along the Mucky Lane hedgerows and through Dearne Meadows on Saturday, we are meeting again this coming Wednesday evening for a field visit to Barrow. Again this should be a highly interesting evening with many of our usual flora and fauna favourites to spot; and hopefully something new too.

We are meeting at 7pm and parking in Edmunds Road just below the Boatman’s Rest pub where a footbridge crosses the river Dove and leads to Barrow along Dark Lane and Powder Mill Lane. Leader Ron Marshall
Grid reference SE 361035 Post Code S70 4TD.
After our walk some of us may retire to the Boatman’s Rest!
Looking forward to seeing those who can make it.

We had to take a slight change of route on the actural walk. Having had a bad thunderstorm earlier that made for some tricky ground. We still had plenty thought to keep us occupied. Amoungst our finds was a horseraddish; which I beleive is the first we have spotter this year.