Yesterday I visited Fairburn Ings and St Aidan’s (of which, more tomorrow) nature reserves in the Aire Valley. Where’s the Aire Valley? If you go up the A1, it’s on your left just after that clutch of cooling towers at Ferrybridge.
Fairburn Ings is perhaps not the most promising sounding of locations with its Coal Tip trail which signals that a lot of the nature reserve is built on a slag heap. However, it is turning into an excellent wetland for a whole range of birds. And it is actually rather pretty too.
Yesterday the RSPB released the news that Spoonbills are nesting here at Fairburn this year – the first for Yorkshire and the first for RSPB nature reserves in England (see this really weird record from 2000). So Fairburn has got even prettier! The Spoonbills eluded us yesterday (after all, they are only massive white birds) but if you pay a visit over the next few weeks, and have a bit more patience or time than we did, then you are sure to see them.
We also missed seeing a Bittern that we were told flew past us as we were chatting away about important issues (I expect) and there are at least a couple of pairs of Bittern nesting here these days.
What I might have been talking about with my guide, Roy Taylor, was another sweltering day which we worked out was in 1995, when Roy was working on Song Thrushes for the RSPB in Sussex and we ate several ice-creams. On that day, the prospect of Bitterns being so numerous, and so widely distributed out of East Anglia, and of Spoonbills breeding at Fairburn, would have seemed such a remote possibility as to be laughable.
But Fairburn not only has Bitterns and Spoonbills these days, it also has Black-necked Grebes and we did see them! Very nice too! We saw a couple of adults feeding their downy grebelings and very nice they were too.
So Fairburn has turned into a wonderful wetland and is well worth a visit. It might even be a better bet than the Ferrybridge Services for a stop on your journey north or south on the A1. I was struck as soon as I got out of my car by the number of Willow Warblers singing around me – they are quite a rare sound in my neighbourhood these days – and of the number of Tree Sparrows on the centre feeder and the telegraph wires.
And Fairburn is just along the road from St Aidan’s which I last saw about 10 years ago as a big hole in the ground – another former open cast coal mine. More on that tomorrow.
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Excellent, was told a few weeks back about the Spoonbills before the RSPB released the news. Never been but will have to visit in the future.
My daughter has moved close to these 2 reserves and I’ve had the pleasure of visiting them several times recently. St Aidan’s is a total eye opener and congratulations to all involved in its development. It’s a must visit place and I look forward to reading what you have to say about it.
Hi Mark
Both Reserves are superb; and if you have the time, visit Rodley Nature Reserve, in Leeds. Run entirely by volunteers. The Aire Valley is a bit like the Calder Valley. The Northern England powerhouses of the 19th and early 20th centuries and now hosts to many urban Reserves. Otters and dippers breed and feed now in the heart of Leeds; though not spoonbills.
And of course, some of these locations are excellent refuges for invertebrates too. Have just got back from one today: Cromwell Bottom!
Thanks to the volunteers from Rodley Nature Reserve who came to our village Environment Day and brought their field mice! Word got round the children’s play area and they came running to see. I’d never seen one myself before (the field mice, not the volunteers) so that was a first.
Spoonbills — helping themselves to the urban edge-lands.