Richard Bell's nature sketchbook since 1998
Bilberry and heather grow amongst the gritstone blocks of this old wall on Hingcliff Common near a little stream called Ratten Gutter at Langsett. We’ve yet to get out there this year so this drawing for my next Dalesman article is from a photograph taken on 5 June last year.
Consisting mainly of sharp, glassy crystals of quartzite, gritstone weathers to produce nutrient-poor, acid soils.
Bilberry Wood was planted in the mid-Victorian period, at about the same time as Nethergill was built as a lodge.
Heather, also known as ling, Calluna vulgaris, grows in the drier parts of the wood, including on tussocks raised about the boggy areas and, here, from a crevice on a fallen pine trunk. Heather is an indicator of dry acid soils. The abundant heather and bilberry here are a sign that the wood has been only lightly or moderately grazed.
Lightly-grazed pinewood with tall heather is classified as National Vegetation Classification community W18.
Lush, evergreen and a mistily mysterious; there’s a jungly feel to the hollow around the ponds below Seckar Heath. Shaggy columns of Ivy-covered Silver Birches rise from an understorey of Rhododendrons. One of the birch boughs has fallen by the path, perhaps brought down by the extra weight of snow gathering on the Ivy.
The ponds were once formal pools in the garden of photographer Warner Gothard who left Seckar Heath to the people of Wakefield and Barnsley when he died in 1960. Seckar Heath, mid-way between the two cities, is a Local Nature Reserve and a Site of Special Scientific Interest.
From the ponds we walk through woodland of oaks and occasional pines (Corsican, I guess) on the steep path up to the heath which lies on an outcrop of gritty sandstone.
On a patch of heath that appears to have been deliberately burnt or cut, fresh green shoots of Heather are now beginning to regenerate. Oak and birch saplings have been cut back to keep the heath open. Blocks of the heath are cut every 20 years, preventing the trees shading out the Heather which predominates along with Gorse, Bracken and the glossy leaves of Wavy Hair-grass at the top (western) end of the heath.
In the belt of Sessile Oaks and Silver Birches at this end of the reserve, a flock of twenty Redwings are turning over the leaf litter. I always picture Redwings flocking to Hawthorn hedges to feast on the berries so it’s interesting to see them foraging for invertebrates in the same way that Blackbirds and other thrushes would.
Also seen: Long-tailed tit, Woodpigeons, Magpie, Robin, Chaffinch, Jay, Scaly Earthball, Scleroderma verrucosum.