• The Derbyshire Caver, No. 158

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Restoring upland habitats

J

jasonbirder

Member
Obviously Wikipedia is king...but I can state that during the 2007-2011 surveys for the Atlas of Breeding Birds there weren't any recorded examples of Nests in Rabbit burrows...but hey what do I know!

I'm always amused by a little healthy sarcasm :h But YES do bow to my superior knowledge...Buzzards have never been reintroduced or released anywhere in the the UK nor are there any plans whatsoever to do so...so your concern about their "re-introduction" is surely misplaced...

Given your dislike of Badgers (and presumably foxes too) and any Birds of Prey...(Red Kites don't even take live prey) I think it's obvious where your views lie...

Which is why so many of us are concerned about having even LESS regulation to keep the hunting/shooting/farming lobby in check..some of us would like there still to be SOME wildlife left in the British Countryside...
 
tony from suffolk

tony from suffolk

Well-known member
Badlad said:
Close to home I found this quite disturbing. 

http://wvvw.rspb.org.uk/news/420082-three-pole-traps-found-on-north-yorkshire-moor
Click to expand...


These people are complete bastards. All we can do is be vigilant and report anything suspicious to the police, but, alas, grouse moors make big money for the owners, so it won't be easy to stamp this stuff out.

On the subject of Buzzards; they've recently spread to our area of Suffolk, with the result that, for a couple of years, the local Hare population has been decimated. Such is the way of nature, though, that this year the Hares have quickly learned & they've made a return but now tend not to run across the large open fields but keep to the edges and in the crops. If left to its own devices wildlife tends to sort itself out, but numbers and types of species are continually changing in the countryside. A few years ago, in this neck of the woods, one of the local farms changed hands and before things settled down a very large field, 20 acres IIRC, was left fallow and uncultivated for six years. It was quite astonishing how speedily it was transformed from weeds to scrub, then small trees began to appear. Deer, fox, and various bird species quickly took up residence. I suspect in a couple of decades it would revert back to the dense deciduous woodland that originally covered the land hereabouts.

A few years ago we had a similar discussion regarding the 're-wilding' of upland areas of Britain, and there was disagreement about whether or not the land would revert completely back to its original state of forests, marsh, and upland scrub, or whether the works of man had permanently altered landscape. I guess we'll never know for sure, but judging by how rapidly the works of man get swallowed up by nature, I suspect the former is true. In the Lake District, where I spend half of my time, Herdwick sheep are responsible for keeping the fells in their present state, and the farming of them is subsidised for that purpose as they're not commercially viable otherwise (although they do taste rather good!). Is this good or bad? I can't decide.
 
droid

droid

Active member
Tony is entirely correct in his surmise that climax vegetation quickly returns. I remember being told that disused pit heaps in the Tyne valley had mature(ing) woodland on them inside 25 years.

Since the person that told me was an Ecology lecturer at a local University I have reason to believe him.
 
Groundhog

Groundhog

Member
Some years ago I used to climb at Tintwistle Knarr In Longdendale Derbyshire. The approach started through areas grazed by sheep which had the appearance of a snooker table. Higher up the track crossed into land owned by the water company which did not allow grazing. The contrast was startling. Wide variety of plants, scrub and small trees with abundant wildlife which was a delight to walk through.
Recently Kinder Scout has been fenced off to exclude sheep. The difference is already obvious with rich vegetation growing up. The bilberry in particular is thriving and you can now gorge on the delicious sweet fruit. Just a few years back this was not the case.
I think upland areas that are not grazed will require some management though. Paths could grow over and some places would be better with open areas. This would require funding and I'm not sure if this will be forthcoming.   
 
Simon Wilson

Simon Wilson

New member
Badlad said:
Close to home I found this quite disturbing. 

http://wvvw.rspb.org.uk/news/420082-three-pole-traps-found-on-north-yorkshire-moor
Click to expand...

I have a lot of experience of the persecution of raptors and other predators by farmers, gamekeepers and estate managers using traps, poison and guns and I have taken RSPB officers onto the moors to show them evidence. Unfortunately it is almost impossible to get a case to court. The culprit in this case admitted the offence only after the RSPB collected firm evidence but it is very rare to be able to get such good evidence. The persecutors are entirely undeterred and continue to illegally kill wildlife in a well organised, systematic way.
 
tony from suffolk

tony from suffolk

Well-known member
Groundhog said:
Some years ago I used to climb at Tintwistle Knarr In Longdendale Derbyshire. The approach started through areas grazed by sheep which had the appearance of a snooker table. Higher up the track crossed into land owned by the water company which did not allow grazing. The contrast was startling. Wide variety of plants, scrub and small trees with abundant wildlife which was a delight to walk through.
Recently Kinder Scout has been fenced off to exclude sheep. The difference is already obvious with rich vegetation growing up. The bilberry in particular is thriving and you can now gorge on the delicious sweet fruit. Just a few years back this was not the case.
I think upland areas that are not grazed will require some management though. Paths could grow over and some places would be better with open areas. This would require funding and I'm not sure if this will be forthcoming. 
Click to expand...
The key here is density of sheep per acre. Herdwick sheep in The Lakes are thinly spread on the high fells, so their impact on the vegetation is just enough to prevent some of the more invasive plant species gaining too much of a hold but not enough to denude the land.
 
G

grahams

Well-known member
Simon Wilson said:
Badlad said:
Close to home I found this quite disturbing. 

http://wvvw.rspb.org.uk/news/420082-three-pole-traps-found-on-north-yorkshire-moor
Click to expand...

I have a lot of experience of the persecution of raptors and other predators by farmers, gamekeepers and estate managers using traps, poison and guns and I have taken RSPB officers onto the moors to show them evidence. Unfortunately it is almost impossible to get a case to court. The culprit in this case admitted the offence only after the RSPB collected firm evidence but it is very rare to be able to get such good evidence. The persecutors are entirely undeterred and continue to illegally kill wildlife in a well organised, systematic way.
Click to expand...

Well done Simon. I've worked with Against Corvid Traps as they are knowledgeable about the disgusting traps used to 'protect' grouse. These things are all over parts of the Dales moorland and incredibly in this day and age, are legal - https://www.againstcorvidtraps.co.uk/
 
AR

AR

Well-known member
tony from suffolk said:
Groundhog said:
Some years ago I used to climb at Tintwistle Knarr In Longdendale Derbyshire. The approach started through areas grazed by sheep which had the appearance of a snooker table. Higher up the track crossed into land owned by the water company which did not allow grazing. The contrast was startling. Wide variety of plants, scrub and small trees with abundant wildlife which was a delight to walk through.
Recently Kinder Scout has been fenced off to exclude sheep. The difference is already obvious with rich vegetation growing up. The bilberry in particular is thriving and you can now gorge on the delicious sweet fruit. Just a few years back this was not the case.
I think upland areas that are not grazed will require some management though. Paths could grow over and some places would be better with open areas. This would require funding and I'm not sure if this will be forthcoming. 
Click to expand...
The key here is density of sheep per acre. Herdwick sheep in The Lakes are thinly spread on the high fells, so their impact on the vegetation is just enough to prevent some of the more invasive plant species gaining too much of a hold but not enough to denude the land.
Click to expand...

There's also the factor that in a lot of areas in recent times, grazing has been solely by sheep whereas traditionally other animals would have grazed alongside them - cattle and horses have different browsing patterns and likes/dislikes. I know mixed grazing has been brought back in some areas as a conservation measure.

On the matter of bilberry on Kinder, there may need to be some measures to prevent it getting crowded out by grass and here I speak from experience. We do conservation grazing for the National Trust on an area of limestone heath using our ponies, and this is to try and encourage the bilberry, heather and other heathland plants by preventing grass and scrub from overrunning the site. When we first started grazing the site five years ago, there were small patches of straggly bilberry and heather clinging on amid a mass of tangled grass and bramble. With the grass cropped down, the bilberry has regenerated strongly from the roots, new heather shoots are springing up all over the place. However, if left ungrazed it'll return to the state we found it in in not that many years as the grass forms a mat again.

One final point - for all that we think of moors as wild areas, they are in fact being used to produce a crop just as surely as an arable field, and that crop is red grouse. If we were to stop that, I wonder how much more of our uplands would end up covered in conifers?
 
RobinGriffiths

RobinGriffiths

Well-known member
It's just not grazing alone either, it's livestock footfall as well especially in regards to bracken and gorse. Cattle will knacker bracken with their hooves whereas sheep won't.
 
Simon Wilson

Simon Wilson

New member
AR said:
One final point - for all that we think of moors as wild areas, they are in fact being used to produce a crop just as surely as an arable field, and that crop is red grouse.
Click to expand...
I don't think anybody who thinks about the moors thinks about them as wild areas. In fact far from it and that is why there is so much talk about rewilding them.

I don't think it is a good comparison to compare grouse moors with arable fields or to see grouse as a crop. The difference is that for the owners the moors are not really a business; they are more like a hobby. The grouse are no more a crop than the flowers in my garden.

If we were to stop that, I wonder how much more of our uplands would end up covered in conifers?
Click to expand...

None.

By "covered in conifers" I assume you mean plantations. Grouse moors in England are rarely on land which would be capable of supporting plantations, although it's different in Scotland. Even where conifer plantations could be grown they would not get permission. They would probably get permission for rewilding which might involve planting native conifers as part of a mixed species planting.
 
Simon Wilson

Simon Wilson

New member
On the Glorious Twelfth I had a walk between Gaping Gill and the Allotment. I can remember the area being gripped and the quite dramatic and predicted effect it had on the caves. Me and my brother started filling in grips as soon as they were dug but only in a half-hearted way. I wish we had done a lot more filling because I now realise nobody would have objected. They didn't really want the grips and only did it for the grant money. I'm pleased to report that on that part of Ingleborough most of the grips are doing a good job of filling themselves in and have a healthy growth of sphagnum moss as the photo shows. Shame about the Nardus stricta but little by little I think we are winning the argument.

DSCN3698_zpszyicmnf7.jpg
 
bograt

bograt

Active member
Simon Wilson said:
Shame about the Nardus stricta but little by little I think we are winning the argument.
Click to expand...
I think you'll find nature is doing it for you, MP's, 'Civil' servants and whoever know f**k all about land management....
 
Simon Wilson

Simon Wilson

New member
JAA said:
No Simon, most if not all moorland gripping has been filled in by landowners.
Click to expand...

Your right about grips on Ingleborough. I had forgotten about grip filling operations there. I am aware that a lot of grips have been filled. However, I don't think any grips have been filled on my local moors, in fact just the opposite, they have dug some recently. I'll look into it.
 
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