Winter

This winter may hold surprises yet but so far it's been moderate. There have been frosts on Blacka when down below has felt mild and lately some strong winds that kept us in the woods.

Just a few years ago there was a much more wintry experience here. Pictures taken on Blacka then can be viewed here.

Message

Christmas 2013 is the tenth anniversary of seeing red deer on Blacka; at any rate it was the week before Christmas 2003 when I first saw them walking over Cowsick towards the woods and nobody has come forward to say they had seen them earlier than that. It would be idle to deny the importance of this event in changing our perception of Blacka.

Before then I had opposed the increasing management interventions on this longtime unmanaged space, instinctively feeling it was not just undesirable but actually deeply wrong in what was supposed to be a place reserved for nature. Men trying to control nature and getting money for doing so seemed a kind of exploitation out of place here. Everything that had changed during the years since management wound down was the best of Blacka.

Then the deer arrived, our largest wild animal, earth-born with beautiful hinds, innocent calves and magnificent stags. At a stroke we could see what Blacka should really be – a haven for genuine wildlife in which the birch and oak encroaching on the moor were at least as important as the birds and beasts. I refute any suggestion that this is sentimental; there should be real predators out here too. 

From 2003 on we would never have any patience for managers with office driven targets whose first thoughts about anything wild were “how should we control it?”.

Satisfying Everybody?

Yes I do hear people say they like the moors as they are, treeless and monocultural. It's what they're used to seeing and one shouldn't underestimate the shock to the system when preconceptions are challenged and misconceptions exposed. The propaganda has its effect as well. The fact is there are many views and some of them clash. Can they be reconciled?

It can't be done but managers like to try to do it or rather try to look as if they're doing it. It's another part of their role in life and the economy and justifies their salary. Nothing is more managerial than their well-rehearsed pose of patient suffering as they tell you they agree with you but just can't do this or that because of pressure from those who want something different.

The true position is less obvious. They have already decided what they want to do and welcome the confused messages as evidence of the need for them to take a clear path. You can't please everyone so we'll do "what we think is right". And that's the problem - because "what we think is right" usually turns out to be remarkably close to what's in the interests of the managers and their organisation. It is after all what they've already decided on.

There's an interesting take on this in the row about fences on Wimble Holme Hill and the tree cutting on Bole Hill. Some people have said they don't like the fence because it is an eyesore across the moor.So it is but do those people really not see that t he moor itself is an eyesore? `It is an utterly wasted space of over -exploited land, kept like that not because it looks good but because it conforms to a certain landscape type that favours the shooting industry. The scandal of it is not the fence but the addiction to maintaining it as treeless when it's public land where shooting does not happen. The overwhelming responsibility for this is Natural England's, an organisation that is controlled by those who support game shooting and believe that the public must be conned into accepting that its favoured landscapes are somehow precious. That of course is why the shooters and the moor owners choose to live somewhere else which is more attractive - i.e. with a more varied aspect including many trees. They like to visit the monoculture wastelands every so often to play with their guns, wear their tweeds etc. and drive their landrovers but have enough sense to know the moors would bore them if they had to live on them.

Those who like the 'open' moors need to reflect. Are they prepared to take the whole package? That includes sheep and a uniformity of view 11 months of the year. It means persecution of predators and it means fences and burning or cutting. It means killing trees by cutting and/or poisoning. It means management and we should all know by now that the quality of decision making among conservation managers is mostly dire. It means agri environment subsidies paid by our taxes for projects that are overwhelmingly anti-nature. You can't have it both ways except in the propaganda put out by the managers.

Winter Trees

The contribution of trees to the landscape should never be an issue. Only here on land designed by grouse shooters do we actually have to defend them. Like having to defend nature itself.

These mornings are great for looking down, spotting footprints, hare badger and fox included.

But when you look up it's the sheer elegance of the black branches against the sky an hour before full daybreak that makes the views memorable. Spring and autumn have wonderful moments but never underestimate the power of winter to inspire.

Bashing

I saw no sign of the birch bashers this week. I had wanted to get a photo of them  posing as happy loggers proudly displaying their chain saws and singing 'I'm a lumberjack..........'

Notices displayed at the car park about volunteering suggested they would be there. But no. Signs of the previous bout of self indulgent bashing though were all around. Crass, all of it.

It's somehow unreal and a symptom of our increasingly upside-down world that nature reserves are places where you're encouraged to join those who wish to destroy nature. Birch trees are one of our most amazingly valuable sources of biodiversity. Only oak rivals birch. There are more than 200 species of insect associated with birch and another 100 or so mites.That in itself makes it a wonderful attraction for birds. As for other forms of diversity try looking at the bark of birches wherever you find them. The range of appearance is quite staggering as if we are looking at many different species. This is an utterly vital part of its role in the landscape. In other parts of the planet rainforests bring hundreds of different species into very small areas. Here in temperate zones the range of species is more restricted. Birch makes up for this in its own brand of diversity beyond biodiversity, with scores of varieties of visual beauty. The kind of people who demolish trees don't see this. They see a word, a job to do, an idea; they don't, or can't, properly look. They're too busy dealing with what to them is an alien species. To a Martian all humans will look the same. You either have to be human or have excellent empathy to distinguish the variety of characters .

Together

More than most this hind and calf are inseparable. Sometimes they are in a larger group but often it's just the two of them.

 

Brutalism

In Sheffield the new brutalism is out here on the moors. Once the city was known for its brutalist architecture, housing blocks like Kelvin and Park Hill Flats, the sort of monstrosities that are so ugly that someone who imbibed warped public relations with mothers milk decided to make a virtue of their mean spiritedness and give them a trendy label. Brutalism is like heroin chic and having your jeans half way down your bum.

Now it's out here where some of us come to escape trends and managers and manipulators of public opinion. You may complain of the wanton vandalism of tree destruction claiming that natural beauty should be inviolable. But you get nowhere with these who have seen the light of the new brutalism. Ugliness is the new beauty. Destruction is the way to conserve. Desolation is what we go out into the countryside to enjoy. If they say it often enough we will eventually repeat it back at them. Wildlife can only be wild if it is controlled.

The key to controlling people's way of looking at things is to label them differently. If you tell your helpers and volunteers that you'r about to destroy some beautiful birch trees they may well balk at the prospect. Calling it scrub bashing and it's easier to come to terms with.