Natural History in Barnsley
There is a good show of flowers on the TPT at Thurgoland, as spotted by Doug; in amongst the Yellow Rattle, Bedstraw and Crosswort was the rarer Dyers Greenweed. Dyers Greenweed is visited by many butterflies and moths including the Green Hairstreak. He also heard a Cuckoo calling.
As good a time of year as any to be out and about looking at our wonderful nature. To find out more drop us an email or join us on a walk or at a meeting; anyone with an interest in nature is welcome to come along.
As you can see, our programme carries on in September with a field visit and the first of our winter indoor meetings at Worsbrough Common Community Centre.
Our Barnsley Nats programme from September 2025 to March 2026 has now been published. Lots of interest!
Details of each meeting will be sent out by email about a week before each event. Make sure you’re on the email list!
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.
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.
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]
Tony Hindley, former President, Secretary and a Honorary Life Member of Barnsley Nats, has recently died. His funeral – ‘a celebration of a life well-lived’ was held in a packed Cawthorne All Saints Church on Tuesday 2nd April 2024.
Tony was a longstanding member of the Society, joining as a young man; he stepped down as secretary when he was 80 but carried on coming to meetings —the dapper gentleman at the back— until he became too frail. He made a surprise appearance with his wife Cynthia at the Christmas Social in 2022 .
Annefie and I saw him just before this last Christmas, full of stories of Barnsley Nats over the years. As a young teacher in Barnsley he taught a number of pupils who became members of Barnsley Nats.
Tony Hindley (on right) at the Barnsley Naturalist & Scientific Society 150th Anniversary in 2017
In 2017 he joined the 150th anniversary celebrations of Barnsley Nats. In 1958 he was photographed as a 30 year old at a presentation to Ralph Atkinson on Ralph’s 21 years as secretary.
Our thoughts are with Cynthia, friends and family.
Peter Roberts
Our next field visit is to the Monk Bretton Priory and Barnsley Main areas on Saturday March 9th, and our next indoor meeting is on Wednesday 20 March, a talk on Wildflower Meadows.
Barnsley Nats brings together people who share an interest in natural history and the wildlife of the Barnsley area. We have a programme of meetings and field visits throughout the year. Monthly indoor meetings take place from October to March at Worsbrough Common Community Centre. Field visits take place on the first Saturday morning of each month and on Wednesday evenings replacing the indoor meetings in the summer. See our programme page for details. Details for each event are also provided on this page.
On Wednesday 24 January, it was our AGM: 7pm at Worsbrough Common Community Centre. Alongside the AGM was a review of our last year, illustrated by images of field visits in all weathers; followed by a film on developments in the Dearne Valley and at Carlton Marsh. Plus time to talk to each other and have a discussion.
The committee is losing some members and we would very much like to see some new faces. The Society can only continue if members support it!
Are you willing to lead a field visit?
Or keep a record of what we see?
Can you suggest a new site for a field visit?
Can you recommend a speaker?
Or suggest a topic for a talk or ID session?
Would you be willing to help plan the future programme of field visits
or talks and other indoor sessions?
Are you interested in taking on some administrative jobs?
Just let us know!
Here are the notes of the annual general meeting together with the report of the activities in the previous year: …
A major discussion at the AGM was on the financial implications of having to change our venue for indoor meetings.
We came to the conclusion that for the following year (2025) we would have to raise the personal subscription to £15 in order to pay for room hire and external speakers. We will start collecting 2025 subscriptions in October 2024.
We previously agreed to keep this year’s (2024) subscription at £10 and most members have already paid. If you haven’t paid and wish to stay a member, please pay your subscription as soon as you can.
If you attend some of our meetings just occasionally and do not wish to be a member, you may wish to make a contribution at the meetings you attend.
I would like to thank everyone who contributed to the excellent Nats Christmas Fuddle. I hope that you enjoyed it as much as I did.
We are now looking forward to next years programme of indoor and field meetings, so till then a Happy Christmas and New Year.
All the Best, Doug and Jill
Thanks to everyone for coming to our Christmas Social yesterday and making it such an enjoyable event.
Thanks to Jill for a very enjoyable quiz. The nature table with rocks, lichens, beach finds and a 1950’s collection of eggs, kept people interested. Thanks too to Alan for downsizing the contents of his book shelves. And then Dennis showed us his invertebrate collection; yes all alive and fascinating.
Many thanks too for all the delicious food which was brought and sampled, a very good end to an enjoyable year of field visits and nature talks.
Wishing you all a happy Christmas and see you again in 2024, with our first field visit to Adwick Wetlands, on Saturday January 13th.
Our Barnsley Nats monthly indoor meetings are at
Worsbrough Common Community Centre (Vera Mawby Centre)
Warren Quarry Lane, off Park Road (A6133), Barnsley.
Post Code: S70 4ND
What Three Words: ///daring.medium.weds
There’s parking in the Centre Car park and on the Warren Quarry Lane roadside.
The Wednesday evening dates for our talks (at 7pm) are:
Wednesday 25 October 2023: A Carrion Crow in Close-Up by Steve Byers
Wednesday 22 November 2023: A Birdwatcher’s Year by Ron Marshall
Wednesday 21 February 2024: Ancient Woodland Inventory Review by AWIR Project leaders, Nick and David,
Wednesday 20 March 2024: Wildflower Meadows by Chris Tomson.
Our Christmas Social is on Wednesday 20 December 2023 and our AGM on Wednesday 24 January 2024.
Our full programme including field visits can be seen on our programme page, see tabs above or go to: barnsleynats.org.uk/programme/
Last year we had a field visit to Barnsley Main Colliery Site and recorded a large number of species. On Saturday 3 June from 11am until 2pm, Barnsley Main Heritage Group have an open day. Barnsley Nats intend to have a stall there.
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.
