Planning Ahead

It's good to report a late flowering of Mountain Cranberry again. That could lead to fruit just a couple of weeks before Christmas as it did last year. Get recipes and jars ready for a better accompaniment to festive dinners than expensive imports from America.

Blackberries are now in season. It takes some searching to find good sized berries but for the determined picker they are around.

Bilberries don't seem to have survived in quite the numbers expected and I'm at a loss who to blame. Maybe complain to the RSPB for not providing enough falcons to scare off the pigeons?

I've been told that some spraying has been going on lately. If that's so what's happened to the policy of plastering notices up everywhere beforehand warning bilberry pickers that their harvest could be coated with Asulox?

Lookout

He seemed too pale for a mature kestrel so most likely an immature bird. His non-standard behaviour suggested that too.

Gallery

3D art comes no better than that seen this morning. You can't call it webcasting because that term has already been taken.

The public, at least in London, flocks to exhibitions of contemporary art. If curators could transform these abstract displays into their spaces I'm sure they would.

But, however transient, they belong here.

Random Treasures

 
It can be a decision where to look when searching for natural treasures. Do you examine the middle distance, further off still or down on the ground?

No difficulty when spectacular events are hard to ignore. Webs covered with water droplets picked out by early sunlight can't be missed.

The more tidy specimen could easily have escaped attention and that would have been the end of it. Being across the path it was saved by the (non-proverbial) legover.

Bright red is always a thrill when half hidden by dullish greens and one spot had a largish colony. Little gnomes were absent but snails and slugs had found them.

Almost as striking as the red is the colour of new baked bread.

Eyes are the most compelling find on the ground or in the crevices of stone walls. Tempting to think it's always the same one but unlikely.

Disfunctional (2)

Another example of the scarcely believable wrongheadedness in SWT’s management is revealed by the way that the managers dealt with that old chestnut of an issue, the bog flowers. I’ve mentioned bog asphodel a number of times here. There is one particular spot on Blacka which has for a number of years produced a quite spectacular display of these flowers in July. Once SWT brought cows onto the site this display was trashed on a yearly basis through trampling and defecation. There were still flowers around dispersed in other parts but the utterly magnificent spectacle was gone and the visitor experience was severely diminished. 

Sitting in their offices well distanced from the outside world SWT caught wind of this threat to their management policy. This could damage their reputation as a supposed wildlife friendly organisation. So they collected together some of their number and came out with clipboards to count the ‘spikes’ of the plant. Their story is now that there were some 1600 spikes of bog asphodel on Cowsick. This then is the way they intend to deal with this issue. It has never been my contention that the plant was wiped out by cows but they have tried to turn it into that. They could themselves have come along and seen the situation but as we know their interest is not in the natural beauty of the site and when challenged come back to the bean-counting biodiversity defence that has stymied all debate on the quality of the natural world they are responsible for and its appeal, or lack of it, to real people. The future of natural sites like this relies on people coming along and loving what they see. SWT's management does nothing for that it's grounded in a lack of lack imagination and affection for natural beauty, the Gradgrindism flaw.

Having said that, who believes these people? They have lied their way through the past 12 years of management here and done their level best to put themselves beyond scrutiny and accountability. Who else would have sent a group of heavy footed employees to trample across a sensitive natural site just to prove a point that had never been contested? The answer is – only those who know they are struggling to justify their existence.

Top of the Range Disfunctionality

Those who’ve got management roles in the conservation industry locally are, with one or two significant exceptions, decent honest people with whom it’s a pleasure to talk over issues. So what is it that blinds them to what’s obvious to the rest of us? Does it come down to that indefinable thing ‘the system’ or that even more vague concept ‘the culture’? I feel constantly drawn towards trying to analyse this, only to shake my head sadly each time and think the world in my lifetime has moved beyond rational scrutiny.

A couple of things to illustrate the point: this is the first …..

I was talking with Blacka’s new Reserve Manager, Nabil, a very nice fellow who patiently listened to an oldie in full lecturing mode. “Look at this” I said, showing him part of the right of way path that becomes so muddy that for more than a year people have walked over to the side trampling the very best site for wild flowers on Blacka (made worse by the bovine crop and crap trashers in summer). “This needs some flagstones –just a couple of metres”. 

His response was orthodox present day management:

“You’ll be pleased to hear, Neil, that money is available now through Nature Improvement Areas grants to put this right”

“Why can’t you do something now – or better still six months ago?” say I.

“Money” he says.

My reply was somewhat intemperate perhaps. The gist: If this place belonged to me I would have done something within a couple of hours of noticing it, to prevent the damage. Why does SWT have to wait, year on year for national grants to be available and not even attempt a temporary fix?

It's the management model. Your focus is on bringing in central funds, So you put together a list, adding to it month after month while doing nothing apart from the usual bureaucratic stuff that never gets properly evaluated. Then, when a government grant becomes available you're ready to put in an application straight away. Dealing with the problem on the spot might actually disrupt this. So nothing gets done day by day and month by month, the managers attending meetings, writing reports and applications for grants.

Scrutiny and accountability are words that South Yorkshire seems only just to have discovered though some of us have been banging on about them for years. The public sector does not like these words and will take steps to avoid them or remove all effectiveness from them. Ignoring the examples all over the press at the moment that put the spotlight on governance failures in this region let's look at what this blog is about. On Blacka there has been a concerted managerial agenda to emasculate the Reserve Advisory Group. It's not liked precisely because  of its capacity to hold the managers to account. What manager would not avoid being held to account if he/she could get away with it?

The amazing thing is that SWT, when viewed purely as an administrative unit, can probably be seen as functioning normally. All sorts of boxes can be well and truly ticked. It's only when you start to look at what it's supposed to be doing on the ground that you see abject failure.

Bracken Refuge

Three hinds have been the most likely deer to be seen in recent weeks. They know the secret places where humans are unlikely to go. Access does present problems for us that deer seem able to cope with. I do venture in the bracken even in August from time to time, but we like to see our feet touching the ground. Simply trusting there's firm and level ground won't really do, so it's tentative deliberate progress.

Their feet are made differently so looking down is not a requirement. I had hoped this group would produce some calves this year, but that was not to be.