Category: Meetings

Saturday 17 February, 2024, at Miners Welfare, Arundel Street, TREETON
—Festival of Amateur Natural History—
10.30am—3.30pm

The South Yorkshire Natural History day is taking place on Saturday 17 February with a programme of talks and displays on nature and wildlife in South Yorkshire. No need to book in advance; just turn up on the day. It starts at 10.30am and ends at around 3.30pm. All welcome; no need to book.

There are talks on Farmland Bird Surveys in Rotherham, 35 years on; White Letter Hairstreak Butterflies; Tawny Owls; Saving Swifts; Insects/Botany on Brownfield Sites; and Water Plants and Bank Stabilisation in the canal at Thorne.

Details can be found on the Sorby Natural History Society website: sorby.org.uk/south-yorkshire-natural-history-day-2024/

Reasonably priced food (sandwiches, cakes and biscuits) and hot drinks will be available at all breaks, and there’s a bar at lunch time.

Getting there! —Treeton Miners Welfare, Arundel Street, TREETON, S60 5PW.

Treeton is a village accessed via the A630 Sheffield Parkway. Arundel Street is found when coming from Catcliffe, turning right straight after the traffic lights over the railway bridge (Or, if coming from Aughton, turn left before the traffic lights) by Cohens Chemist. Then go to the end of Arundel Street, where there is plenty of off-street parking.

‘Aspects of Biodiversity in Barnsley’ was a presentation given by Peter Roberts at the Barnsley Nats meeting at Barnsley Town Hall on Wednesday 25 January, following the AGM. His presentation included lots on the landscapes, habitats and wildlife found in Barnsley. He touched on the problems they face as well as on what we should do to conserve them. Peter also covered the importance of wildlife records and the role of the Barnsley Biological Record Centre.

His talk was based on the information in the Barnsley Biodiversity Action Plan. Have a look, it’s online at http://barnsleybiodiversity.org.uk/ Comments welcome!

The records that Barnsley naturalists and others provide are really helpful. Let’s carry on recording the wildlife of Barnsley.

Wildlife on the Yorkshire Coast, a presentation by Geoff Carr on Wednesday 23rd November was fascinating. Geoff covered a whole stretch of coastline with great images of the birds and other wildlife to be found. He pointed out for us the slippages down the cliffs that have preserved former grassland habitats now lost above the cliffs. A great talk that provoked a lot of discussion.

Barnsley Nats talks are back! Ron Marshall gave a stimulating talk on wildlife in Scotland at our first indoor meeting for two years, on Wednesday 21 September.

Illustrated by fantastic photographs, Ron took us from Ardnamurchan to the Hebrides, from the Cairngorms to the Shetland islands.

He shared with us his experiences of pine martens and otters, ptarmigans and mountain hares, and a considerable range of birds of land and sea.

A great commentary Ron, giving us an insight into the behaviour and characteristics of Scottish wildlife. We can’t wait to visit the places you told us about.

Wednesday 4th March
The wildlife photographer, John Gardener, will be with us again. With a compilation of wildlife photographs.
There are always great images and John gives quite some insight into both the wildlife and how he takes the photographs.

On Wednesday 5 February, we have a presentation on ‘Hedgerows in the Landscape’ by Catherine Artindale. It covers their history and importance in the landscape as well as their natural history. 
Catherine led two very popular and informative field visits last year – to hedgerows in the Stairfoot and Hoyland areas. Where we tested out the Hooper hypothesis on dating a hedgerow.
It will be interesting to hear more, from Catherine, about this topic.

Room 11, Barnsley Town Hall, 7 pm, Wednesday 5 February Experience Barnsley Entrance. The security staff will advise you on the room number; if we have had to move for any reason.

Wednesday January 22nd.
With the diversity of our members personal topics being so vast, this is a highly interesting evening. Filled with short talks, photo and video clips, as well as hands -on samples for us to observe. Fell free to add to the evening or just come and see what others have brought along.

Our members presentation evening was, as usual, action packed with a wide range of topics. Both hands-on and projected images.
May I offer a very big thank you to everybody for their presentations.