Consultation of a Kind-2

As promised, a first instalment of the exchanges around responses to the draft of the SWT management plan. Normal coloured type is my original comments, blue is SWT's response, and red is my reaction to the response.

5

I am opposed to chemical herbicides being used on the site. These could be acceptable in a very few tightly controlled circumstances given genuinely competent usage.

Which is precisely what’s planned.

By SWT??! competent?

But evidence so far suggests the organisation is poor, communication is defective and flawed and users of the site do not trust SWT to use chemicals safely.

What evidence? Allegations such as there are taken seriously and unless you can substantiate these I can do very little.

Evidence has already been produced (and brought to the attention of the Reserve Manager) in relation to the mass poisoning of birches. This action was taken with no notification to users of the site, nor even to the RAG!! This was poisoning on a large scale. It was also incompetent because the poison was allowed to run down the sides of the trees and kill off the vegetation at the base and around. Why has there been no response to the complaint, even during the ‘evaluation’ we requested and were promised in 2005?

There should certainly be no spraying of bracken anywhere near places where wild fruit is harvested. There is only one way to reduce bracken effectively around bilberry – by pulling.

On this scale?

If you don’t like the scale then I suggest you don’t do it, or just do a small amount. I’m not asking for this to be done. If you cannot address the bracken without poisoning let nature deal with it by shading out as recommended by experts in bracken and DEFRA.

You could come and join us to help do this – we do have bracken pulling planned in – the glade in the woodland and possibly on top of Lenny Hill.

I have done much pulling of bracken around bilberry, probably more than anyone else apart from G.N. (local resident), but I choose to do it, as I say, adjacent to paths and around the fruit producing shrubs working in from the paths. This has a valid and comprehensible recreational purpose and means something to people compared to the rather sterile exercise SWT go in for.

We’ve been doing it for 5 years and it has had some effect though obviously it doesn’t eradicate it. Plus there is only a certain amount of time anyone can pull bracken before it becomes boring and tedious.

Which is why I do it the way that I say, pulling a bit each day. It works. If SWT came round to my idea of a site worker instead of a herd of cattle and an ineffective centrally based 'site team' this would be easy. I’m not interested in pulling huge areas of bracken where a better solution would be to allow trees to grow to shade it out. What SWT are doing is encouraging bracken by cutting mature trees. I can show you where.

Please get in touch at the beginning of July as we’ll have planned it in by then and can let you know (if not before).

No thanks. I don't believe I'm anti-social but I’ve learned that keeping company with SWT staff and members can lead to unfortunate results - such as being insulted, misrepresented and defamed.

All H & S precautions are taken when spraying takes place but you are welcome to receive a COSHH assessment from us if you wish – or you can look on the internet for a standard one.

You can have all the qualifications you like but what really matters is valuing and respecting the site on its own terms.

Consultations of a Kind

Early morning flossies (still in sleeping bags).

Back in December SWT sent round their proposed management plan inviting comments from those who had asked to see it, with a very tight deadline for people to respond. As doubtless anticipated, because of the timescale Christmas and New Year etc., not many would bother to send in comments especially as the ill mannered dismissive attitude of SWT staff was calculatedly off putting.

Nevertheless Blacka Blogger did contribute to a response albeit knowing there was very little point. The only point in fact was simply that if nobody did comment then SWT would come back at some future date with a statement to the effect that “there’s no excuse for people complaining. They should have spoken up before, when they had the chance”. We’ve been around long enough to know the style of management that is here being described.

Anyway there is nothing to suggest that there was much response from anyone else (apart from something from the archaeology person at PDNPA) so we might be able to claim that a large proportion of responses indicated opposition to, for example, cattle grazing and use of herbicides on the site.

When asked for SWT’s reaction to the comments made an email was received betraying fairly typical evidence of impatience and intemperance from the SWT officer responsible. I will try to give something of a flavour of this in posts to come. Some of the points had been discussed apparently at the latest SWT Blacka RAG meeting. This meeting we had not attended because we were excluded, having been given the choice of sending one representative if he/she undertook to swear some kind of binding oath to only speak about those things SWT allowed us to talk about (even though none of SWT’s cronies would be under the same injunction).

I intend to post excerpts from this peculiar correspondence in order to illustrate what is going on behind the scenes. Readers can then make up their own minds. Please let me know what you think.

Graves Park and St Luke's Hospice

This issue resonates with those of us who walk on Blacka Moor. A section of the park has once again been threatened with a plan which seeks to use it for a purpose for which it was never intended. As charitable land covenanted to be used as a public park this should simply not be allowed to happen. Very much the same thing has happened to Blacka Moor, which was hi-jacked by the vested interests of the conservation lobby who saw job opportunities in changing its use from a public open space and pleasure ground to a nature reserve. ( see LINK)

The Friends of Graves Park have been campaigning in my view in a very balanced and responsible way on this issue. It is crucial that they are supported by all who see this as a matter of principle, knowing that the council has previous form in flouting the clearly stated wishes of those who have benevolently given to the people of Sheffield.

Wadsley and Loxley Common

A letter in this week's Sheffield Telegraph reminds us that it's not just on Blacka Moor that valuable green spaces are being despoiled by professionals. It is seemingly a badge of faith for those who manage green spaces to refer to birch trees, even mature ones, as 'scrub' especially when this native tree spreads onto or is simply adjacent to land which has once been 'heathland'. It's this that enables conservation professionals to make common cause with other managers and come up with schemes which finish up making favourite walking places less welcoming and frankly just a mess.

I walked over Wadsley and Loxley Common recently and littered everywhere there were felled mature birch trees waiting to be transported and incinerated. Not the kind of industrial process that adds to one's enjoyment of a country walk.

Perfect Sunday Morning

Yes it was cold, but what is that beside the natural landscape and wildlife to be sampled early on a Sunday morning? After watching the stags at close range yesterday it was delightful this morning in the same place to come across the hind and calf not seen together for two months. I feel sure they are the same although I'm revising some of my assumptions about the hinds I've seen more recently. When you see them together it's somehow difficult to think that they may often be apart and/or in the company of stags.



This I'm now pretty certain is the calf born on Blacka last year. Is it possible to conclude from this picture that it's a female?


Again they were relaxed with our presence, to such an extent that the hind was performing a grooming contortion more often seen with dogs.

Beautiful Beasts?

What should be said about Sheffield Wildlife Trust? At times I lead towards feeling a touch sorry for them before remembering so much they've done that leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Perhaps simply laughing is the best approach.

Not long ago they put a piece in the local paper with the headline "Beautiful Beasts of Blacka Moor". Now looking back over recent postings here what animals would anyone think were being referred to?

But you would be wrong. Not red deer but farmed cattle!! Think about it. The deer are wild, our largest wild mammal, are majestic in appearance and independent in habit, come and go at their own will, avoid people and cause no difficulties for anyone; they are here all the year and raise young in Blacka's characteristic wild woods. Cattle were brought here for the first time less than a year ago, are not wanted by the local people and users of the moor, and have brought with them the enclosure of the site with barbed wire and the erosion of Blacka's special soft footpaths.

Wildlife Trusts claim to be scientific and rational organisations, but what is this one up to? Let's be honest, it's pure shameless propaganda that treats people like children and insults our intelligence. They want to take on the role of mummy, who knows we don't like the evil tasting medicine so she pretends to taste it herself, while all the time talking about how yummy it is.

Good Lord protect us.

The Early Birds

Some mornings are certainly better than others and the last two have been pretty bleak with a bitter east wind that's had us hurrying back for the porridge.

But the compensation comes eventually and this morning was both beautiful and eventful. Hard frost on the dead bracken followed by bright sunlight and calm air, bringing out five stags the largest being, I think, a ten pointer. We sat down in the bracken for five minutes watching them. They may be losing their antlers soon. The biggest stags lose theirs first. Another point of interest was one of the smaller stags which I realised I had seen several times before: he has one antler, his left one, while the right side has a black line above the eye, perhaps a scar from some fight.

Later as we came up the hill we were ambushed by a young black labrador.


She and Bertie romped and chased oblivious of the presence of the deer who only made off after loud shouts from the owner wondering where her charge had gone. Another grand sight of the steam rising from their backs in the early sun.



Eventually we made for the bird feeding station rather later than usual. The birds had grown impatient and came 300 yards out onto the moor to hurry us along as a blackbird began tuning up in the woods.