The Grazing Argument

Much could be said about this. Should this land be grazed following a top-down prescriptive plan with clear targets or should we simply allow nature to go its own way enabling surprise and delight? In this post I'll allow the facts to speak for themselves.

The grazing enclosure at the top part of Blacka is grazed year in year out with sheep and more recently has also had cattle for part of the year. Last year both were absent for a lengthy period - not planned by Sheffield Wildlife Trust who want livestock there, but down to problems with the grazier. I have argued for many years that farm animals destroyed the appeal for visitors. The evidence is clear below, showing the land in 2010 after no grazing and in 2011 with grazing, but you can see a full slideshow at this link:


The first pictures showing this year with sheep on the land:




Below are pictures showing the same land after no grazing for several months:





The slideshow is available on clicking the picture below:

Gradgrind Lives On At Sheffield Wildlife Trust

Readers of Dickens will remember one of his characters, Mr Gradgrind, for whom material things were so important that they blinded him to qualities that called for imagination and vision such as appreciation of beauty, poetry and compassion. He appears in Dickens' Hard Times a quick guide to which is available here for those who are not widely read - I guess that includes most conservation workers.

Observation over many years suggests that to the workers and managers of SWT what matters is not the beauty or character of the countryside but the blind adherence to conservation dogma and targets. It is of course easier to follow this line if you don't actually know the place well. The policies that are being pursued are formulated remotely by committees of distant bureaucrats manipulating the current orthodoxy and then applied over the whole country with little reference to individual sites and their users.

Take grazing for instance. A line has been taken and stuck to whatever or wherever the circumstances. Our countryside must be farmed - that's what the countryside is for, and that means putting livestock on it. So, whether the farmers themselves are intelligent, thoughtful and sensitive - and one or two of them probably are, or narrow minded thickos, they are to be in charge of managing the landscape. When they own the land that's hard to oppose. On public land it's another matter. So why do we have to accept all this farmification and livestock grazing on Blacka? Blacka is public land and SWT may have been given a lease of 30 years on it by our utterly stupid council, but wasn't there a time when we might have expected people in charge of what they called a 'nature reserve' to care first about the natural beauty of the place and not blind dogma?

One of the unfortunate spin-offs of the current concentration on Biodiversity Action Plans (BAPS) is to dehumanise our interaction with the countryside. All becomes a matter of what can be measured or rather converted into statistics, however dubious those may be - and they can be very suspect indeed. And to quote statistics you don't need to actually know the site, understand its character or respond to nature and the elements at all. Philistines can do it very well.

I challenge anybody who is inclined to disbelieve me to visit Blacka and disagree with me if they can. Please use the comments facility.



Incidentally I've had some praise for the above picture which I now believe to be my most successful photo yet. Nevertheless the view it gives still fails to fully represent the pleasure of being present when the pattern itself was being created, something that sums up much of the experience we get from being in managed countryside and that for which wildlife trusts are responsible. In fact I'm thinking of asking the wildlife trusts whether they would wish to purchase the rights to this picture. It most certainly would be a much more suitable image than their present logo of a badger.

Harrassed by Strangers

Just for once I'll put in a word for a tolerant senior citizen never known to complain on his own behalf. When you're 91 years old (equivalent), arthritic, with declining powers of hearing and vision and you've walked a place all your life, it's a bit rich that you arrive one morning on what you've always taken to be your own patch only to be set upon and given the once over by a bunch of aliens with no understanding of how to behave. This is another unhappy result of failings by the UK Border Agency and its local office.

Turdus passim

Mistle thrushes (Turdus viscivorus) in large numbers all over the moor. Song thrush (Turdus philomenos) singing in the woods. Three rival blackbirds (Turdus merula) in and around my own back garden singing uncomfortably loudly and competitively. The mistles usually appear in such numbers in July as soon as there are enough bilberries. This year they're a lot earlier.

Sadly it will now be Turdus passim along the paths as cattle have arrived. I knew I should not have written my recent post.

Early to Flower

Everything's early this year. Bell heather is now out on Lenny Hill and even ling.


Blackthorn's fruit is developing well.Wild rose blooms on the south side of Lenny Hill.



This is the time of year to choose one's favourite arrangement of common wayside border flowers. Mine must include cow parsley, buttercup, plantain, sorrel and red clover.

Being Bothered

Sheffield Wildlife Trust's notices about cattle on the moor have now been up for two weeks if not longer. I found five of them within a very short walk. They state that cattle are grazing on the moor. They are not. Last year similar notices were put up. No cattle grazed the moor during the whole year. One previous year (2008) similar notices were pinned up and no cattle appeared until July. Now I certainly don't want cattle on the moor They are alien to everything I value about the place. But I question the behaviour of people who mislead the public with this level of casual indifference. What kind of people can they be? Once again as with all dealings with SWT there's an attitude problem. A kind of carefully struck pose telling of indifference to what the public and their critics think. Is it that the notices are just 'going through the motions' and that they do it just to cover themselves if the farmer does happen to bring his beasts here and there's an incident? In which case why can't they communicate better with him and notify the public when it actually happens? Whether it's 'can't cope' or 'can't be bothered' the verdict has to be worse than useless.

Hindmost

The biggest difference this year has been the number of hinds seen on the moor and around. Sometimes it's been a large party and other times twos and threes. Obviously they've come from somewhere and it's not just a sudden increase in the whole regional population.
My suspicion is that as they move around more of the deer from surrounding areas are discovering that Blacka satisfies three main requirements: more lush and varied vegetation, greater cover and their need for bodily warmth. This is borne out by observation of the places where they've been seen lying down. Blacka is well set up for absorbing the early rays of the sun from the east and a bright start to the day with a brisk cooling wind reveals them to be occupying the best sun traps.
Four mature hinds observed in the last two days may be new to Blacka. Unlike the regulars they are all of an age and have a different way of reacting to disturbance. Three distinct groups were present this morning some in the open and some in the woods.