Sunday at Bill's Mother's: 12th July 2026
Peak Swift days are here. Bill's Mother's Book Club in Japan. Have your say on Nature Recovery.
Morning. We have Bill’s Mother’s Book Club from Japan today, along with Peak Swift fortnight, and why the region’s Nature Recovery Strategy deserves your attention.
And, given the weather, a reminder about how we’re living next to a tinderbox. There are teams of volunteers and landscape professionals out every night just now, helping Peak District visitors understand the danger of illegal fires and flames (including barbecues) in our dry and dusty moorlands.
But one of those people watching over our bone dry landscapes told me that more moorland fires this summer are not just a danger, they’re an inevitability. .
The simple message is: if you see a fire, barbecue or smoke on the moors or anywhere in our dry countryside, ring the fire service on 999 immediately with the location.
Please do share this post (and the information above) with anyone and everyone.
Peak Swift
We’re in Peak Swift fortnight. A member of Sheffield Swift Network (SSN) gave me the key dates, as we watched two dozen of the unearthly birds swirl high above the evening rooftops of Crookes a few weeks ago. There are often fifty up there in the first weeks of July, she said.
Swifts fly in from Africa in waves: parent birds come first, usually by mid May, hoping to start the breeding season in the nest they used last year. Then the youngsters arrive, screaming over our rooftops, scouting out new nest sites, each other and our city’s supply of flies and ballooning spiders*. By this weekend, all the Swift generations have usually arrived, for their brief summer stay before returning to Africa during August.
I covered the screaming devil birds (as they were termed by onlookers centuries ago, imagining them as the souls of the damned as they spiralled round prospective homes in church towers) in a recent long read for full subscribers of the Sheffield Tribune.
I learned that after migrating to our woods and valleys for millions of years, Swifts are now imperilled by modern roofing methods, in particular the soffit, an aluminium or uPVC seal between the eaves and the house wall, which looks tidier, but evicts any Swifts that may have nested there for generations.
Campaigners told me the prevalence of soffits in wealthier houses has turned some places on the west of the city into Swift deserts. Meanwhile, older terraces and council houses often have open eaves, with tiny cavities and spaces for Swifts (or House Sparrows) to raise their young.
The city’s network of Swift volunteers want us all to keep our eye on local Swifts and their nests just now, and ideally log them on the RSPB SwiftMapper app so they can be protected. This summer, SSN members and other volunteers are often out several nights a week logging Swift nests in council houses due for reroofing, so the roofers can protect the nests.
An earlier version of the council’s bat and bird-friendly re-roofing programme won a special national accolade for best practice (from the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management, since you ask), and this year all Swift nests found on the 2026 programme’s streets are protected, and more sites added.
Meanwhile, our new local plan has been amended to include Swift bricks in new developments, as requested in a petition launched by Swift campaigners three years ago.
The wording is clear: Provide integrated bat roosting features and universal ‘swift bricks’ to the appropriate quantities, says the plan, unless there are compelling technical reasons which prevent their use, or would make them ineffective.
Appropriate quantities means a minimum of two bat roosting features and two universal Swift bricks in all new houses, with 4-10 bat and Swift ‘features’ per small block of flats, and 10-20 features for large buildings.
Last year, while waiting for the council to make their minds up about their petition, Sheffield Swift advocates warned me time was running out if we didn’t want to see Swifts disappear from Sheffield’s skies.
Swifts nest in colonies, and are hanging on in a handful of local hotspots, including Crookes, Meersbrook, Wisewood, Gleadless, Hillsborough, and the Laverdene estate off Mickley Lane, where campaigners reckon the colony is one of the finest in Yorkshire (after much feet on the ground / eyes on the sky volunteering).
Sheffield’s campaigners seem delighted, if not surprised by the new planning rules, (which they expect to be rubber stamped by the full council later this year) since two new Swift homes per house is twice as many as they expected. The cost of around £30-£40 per Swift brick really shouldn’t be a deterrent to any future-looking developer, they add.
I spent an evening in Parson Cross, where volunteers were mapping Swift nests in council homes due for re-roofing in the new scheme. As we gathered our clipboards, half a dozen Ring-necked Parakeets flew over in the direction of their bizarre roosting spot alongside an all night haulage route in Brightside.
Just as Swifts adapted thousands of years ago to nesting in the high walls of human buildings (while their favoured veteran trees were felled to make those buildings), Asian parrots released here as unwanted pets are now learning to flock together and live alongside us. It seems your councillors are learning how to live and let live too.
*Baby spiders, you may or may not like to know, form a significant part of a Swift’s diet as billions of them spin tiny webs to balloon away to new territories every summer.
See Sheffield Swift Network for all your local Swift decisions
Bill’s Mother’s Book Club - with Dr Jo Maher
Today’s book club is brought to you from far away in Japan. I’m on sabbatical from medical practice, taking over two weeks away for the first time since maternity leave sixteen years ago, and the good folk of Wincobank are in the safe hands of my excellent colleagues. It’s my first visit to this fascinating country, and I hope it won’t be the last.
On my way back from a Tokyo parkrun on the other side of the world, I spotted Andy Burnham’s photograph in a Japanese newspaper over the shoulder of a fellow bus passenger. It reminded me of Head North, which I’d listened to on audiobook back in September after hearing him speak at Off the Shelf.
It’s his manifesto, if you like, and the narration from Burnham and fellow mayor Steve Rotherham makes their agenda come to life. If you haven’t had enough of Manchesterism yet, it’s worth a listen. Perhaps one day we’ll get a follow-up from Louise Haigh. Heeleyism? Sheffieldishness?
The standout book of my trip has been Hanif Kureishi’s Shattered, his account of becoming paralysed after a sudden fall, and his experience of rehabilitation first in Rome then in London. Dark, fierce, and quite funny, Kureishi quotes Kafka throughout, as did Paul Besley when I interviewed him last month. I’ll bring my copy back and leave it in St Luke’s if a friend doesn’t nab it first.
Japanese Forests
I’ve learned that Japan is roughly two-thirds forested - it’s third among OECD countries after Finland and Sweden, and far ahead of the UK at around 13%. So this is a great place for forest bathing, more of which below.
We’ve visited four cities, along with the ancient heart of Japanese Buddhism at Okunoin, after climbing up to the sacred Koyasan mountains. We’ve seen Mount Fuji from a modest wooded trail, and visited volcanic springs - all on public transport.
In the Koyasan region we stayed in a tiny hostel with capsule rooms for the boys, then hiked a fraction of the Kūkai-michi women’s pilgrimage trail through magnificent glades of Yakusugi, the ancient cedar trees of this UNESCO world heritage designated forest.
In contrast, the famous bamboo forest near Kyoto felt more like a theme park: couples in hired kimonos and ill-fitting sandals lining up to photograph themselves against a stage set.
Shinrin-Yoku (Forest Bathing)
The origins of Shinrin-Yoku (forest bathing) apparently lie not in ancient Shinto scrolls but in a government office in Tokyo during a moment of national crisis. Japan in the early 1980s was at the peak of its post-war economic miracle, yet beneath the surface a profound unease was growing. This was when karōshi (death from overwork) entered everyday language.
Having watched school-age children and adults alike dozing between metro stops throughout this trip, it feels like the culture of relentless work is still pervasive here.
Shinrin-Yoku is not necessarily exercising per se, it’s simply being in nature and connecting through all five senses. Over the past 25 years, researchers have built an evidence base for forest bathing benefits: reduced stress hormones, improved immune function, lower blood pressure, better metabolic control. Research is scant compared to drug-based therapies, and it always will be (Big Pharma doesn’t fund trees), but sparse doesn’t mean absent.
From my own consulting room, recommending time in nature can be met with anything from enthusiasm to scepticism. We have green social prescribing in Sheffield by the excellent Sheffield and Rotherham Wildlife Trust team, however the ambition is different in scale.
So I gave the Shinrin-Yoku approach a try myself. Out in Koya, I put away my phone, and tried to leave off Merlin and other apps vying for attention.
Earlier on in the trip I’d been for a Shiatsu massage, to counter the effects of soft hostel mattresses. The practitioner, after rearranging my spine, gave firm advice: ‘Slow Jo, don’t rush, Slow, Slow, Slow!’
With this mantra in my head I tried to fully engage all my senses in the forest and create some stillness and quiet space.
Forest Bathing & City Sneezing
After the war, Japanese authorities responded to severe deforestation by planting vast monoculture stands of cedar (sugi) and cypress (hinoki) across steep terrain surrounding Tokyo, Osaka, and Kobe - trees selected for rapid growth and construction suitability.
When cheaper imported timber arrived in the 1960s, the plantations were mostly left standing, unharvested. Similar strategies across the planet saw similar results - limiting biodiversity and unintended consequences.
Both sugi and hinoki produce large amounts of lightweight pollen that drifts easily into cities, released all at once from the plantations each spring. An estimated 40% of people in Japan now suffer from allergic rhinitis and other conditions - caused by sugi pollen alone. Decisions made by one generation play out and affect us in the future, in unexpected ways.
To me, the parallel with road expansion and air pollution in the UK isn’t a stretch: well-intentioned policy to solve a problem like traffic congestion created another, with health consequences taking decades to become visible. You may have seen the recent good news from London and its clean air zone: air quality improving, toxic air-related deaths dropping by 40% in just 5 years.
Another author mayor, Sadiq Khan, has written a highly readable book about his side of the story on this in Breathe: 7 Ways to win a Greener World
Back to Japan, where re-wilding efforts are now underway - the Nature Conservation Society is felling patches of monoculture to create clearings that will regenerate as mixed deciduous forest, restoring biodiversity and habitat for endangered species including the Japanese golden eagle, I gather. Although Shinrin Yoku is considered a modern idea, on the Yakusugi trail, where shrines are as frequent as way-marks, it seems to have ancient cultural roots.
What the Yakusugi forest and our own Wyming Brook, Shire Brook Valley, Woolley Woods and more all share, I think, is that they invite everyone who enters to pay attention, slow down, stay a little longer.
Starting the Recovery
We need wet moors, wild woodlands, living marshes and rivers to help all of us trying to get on with life, as we get used to three or more heatwaves a year.
So, now that we have the South Yorkshire Nature Recovery Strategy for all of the above landscapes and more, the ecologists and conservationists behind the plan want the opinions of our readers, before the consultation closes on 31st July.
I’m hoping to get biodiversity experts from our two local authorities to tell me what the strategy is trying to do, in a longer post hopefully in the next two weeks.
But for now, strategy contributor Rowan Longhurst, Sheffield Council’s countryside service manager, tells me the comprehensive document will not be static, and the consultation allows all of us to contribute.
Taking a read also helps people who want to see real nature recovery learn how Sheffield’s unique mixtures of habitats are to be prioritised and supported in years to come, she says, all according to the four equally important principles of getting more wild places, and making them bigger, better and joined up.
A key concern is how all this work will be funded, and Rowan tells me there is money for nature recovery out there, but it’ll mainly be the South Yorkshire Combined Authority who’ll be seeking it.
“I think (the strategy) will help focus the funding that there is,” she says, diplomatically. But having the strategy finally in place makes her optimistic, she adds, not least because there will now be local, evidence-based strategies for nature recovery across the country.
“It identifies a set of priorities to have the biggest impact. And we didn’t have that before.”
Attend a consultation event (they’re in Sheffield at the Pollen Market on Sunday 19th July & Shire Brook Valley Nature Reserve on Tuesday 21st July)
More What’s On Out There (from Sunday 12th July)
A tiny selection from our (regularly updated) What’s On Out There news and listings post. Full version for full members, preview (& this week) for all at the link above.
Mon 13th - Wardsend Cemetery Butterfly Survey
Tues 14th - SRWT Volunteering - Carbrook Ravine
Weds 15th - Sheffield Ramblers Walks - High Bradfield (14m)
Thurs 16th - Balsam Bashing in the Loxley Valley
Sat 18th - Parkwood Springs conservation morning
Our full subscribing readers seem to like us. In the new online media jargon, our retention rate is pretty high - it seems very few of our 340+ wonderful full supporters regret the price of a pint of beer a month to keep us going, and get access to extra posts and our huge and fairly interesting archive.
It’d make my Sunday if you could join us too. Thanks for reading.
The moors are always going to be a fire issue while ever they are maintained as deserts. I believe that having what is essentially a monoculture designed for one species to flourish will always put the land under stress and in prolonged dry weather that seems to create the conditions for fire. Low growing high density heather fanned by wind, with no natural breaks or mixture of plant species to slow down the progression of the flames, coupled with a lack of grazing that has increased in areas and the conditions are perfect for a widespread rapid moving burn. It’s the wildlife I feel for. That and the fire fighters. Once you’ve helped fight a fire you don’t forget the heat they generate.
Its also good to give credit to Sheffield City Council staff and members. They have been really committed to supporting swifts and working with us on both their roofing programme and the Local Plan. Working in partnership is always the best way forward.