A Thing of Rare Beauty

This inspiring structure is one of Sheffield Wildlife Trust's numerous successful projects on Blacka Moor. It is positioned so as to be perfectly visible from various points and regular visitors can hardly contain themselves in their rush to renew acquaintance with its charms after even a short absence.
It's name tends to change with the whim of the beholder, but I currently call it the compost shrine. Because SWT's original purpose for it, before it became a monument in its own right, was as a composting facility.

The observant will have seen that there is a notice pinned to one of the uprights. Here the plot thickens because this is our first real introduction to a desperate struggle which is being waged between the Philistines (SWT) and the regular visitors.

Notices have begun to appear pinned to the wooden structure declaring discontent with what the managers are doing and about to do. No sooner do they go up than they are torn down which is odd because experience suggests that SWT rarely visit the site, being largely content to go about their business at workstations in their smart HQ; but perhaps the fine spring weather has drawn them away from their desks.

Spring Flowers

These delightful flowers are fighting for attention with the fly tippings and distasteful litter thrown out of cars whose owners never get out. They are at the car park at the Stony Ridge end of Blacka Moor. Coltsfoot is one of the earliest spring flowers to show itself and the leaves follow much later. Apothecaries found that it was
excellent for dealing with chest complaints particularly for clearing a persistent cough.

The highest part of Blacka Moor has been given over to sheep grazing for some time. Just for the last two weeks the sheep have been absent. Soon they will doubtless reappear with scores of lambs suitably daubed with a tasteless shade of dye. It is a blessing for the moment to be able to walk untroubled by their insistent bleatings and the ever present feeling that the place is set aside for agricultural priorities. More of this anon.

This part of Blacka is the flattest section of the site and is close to the bog called Cowsick. Here you can occasionally see red deer browsing early in the morning.

This was Blacka Moor this morning at about 8am. Not the prettiest of views in the mist today, looking down on Lenny Hill, but this is one of my favourite spots.

Why a Blacka Moor Blog?

I spend a lot of time on Blacka Moor.
To me it's a special place. It changes with the seasons and over the years. And it has its secrets.
Unlike the other wide spaces on the west/south-west edges of Sheffield large parts of Blacka have been mercifully left alone for 60 years or so. Now all that is changing and I fear it will be for the worse. There is a new breed of interferers who think of themselves as conservationists. I prefer to think of them as managers - land managers. And they have some of the same characteristics as other managers in our increasingly managerialist culture. They want to control everything. To me they are the enemies of everything I enjoy about wild countryside.

This site and this blog is dedicated to celebrating the best of Blacka Moor and at the same time to exposing the unimaginative dealings of these modern philistines who don't know that they are damaging something precious.

Red deer browsing

I've found 8 am to be a good time to have a chance of seeing deer on Blacka. They seem to enjoy the wildness of the place with a mix of fairly dense woodland and young birch (dismissively referred to as scrub by land managers).