Sunday at Bill's Mother's: 1st March 2026
Ancient wisdom. Sheffield seedlings. Tree targets. Out there news. Antler sight.
Morning. Watch out for traditionally mad March hares (as above, captured by ace local wildlife photographer John Scholey). The madness of hare boxing around this time of year is just female hares lashing out with their front paws, to deter any lusty males who they don’t fancy so much.
In today’s Sunday at Bill’s Mother’s we have out there news, our first extract from the already much-lauded Ancient by Sheffield author Luke Barley, and inspiring tree planting from South Yorkshire’s new woodland creation programme. We have a first glance at a very native meadow planted last year, along with some surprising cricket pictures from local wildlife photographer Zafar Ali.
Today we also have an extra edition for our wonderful full paying subscribers. Our growing readership means we’re pulling in more stories, so we’re hoping to post a full subscriber’s edition every month or so from now on, often, like this one, including longer versions of stories from our regular edition. (Our Wild Weekend Sunday supplement is online now, and will also be emailed out to paying supporters a little later today).
Out There News
Snakes In The Grass (& Heather) - The Eastern Moors Partnership tell me Adders are emerging for the spring sunshine. If respected, Adders are unlikely to bite, but conservationists ask that you keep your distance, and if you spot one, don’t spend ages sizing it up for a photograph - the advice is to watch a snake for no more than 10 minutes, then move on and leave it to sunbathe in peace.
Rewilding Rethink - There are reports our government has finally realised the public is keen on rewilding our nature-depleted country, and may be speeding up reintroductions of Eurasian Beavers, Pine Martens and White-tailed Eagles in time to make a noise about it before the national council elections in May. No word from Sheffield as yet, but I hear Derbyshire hopes to have Pine Martens back by 2030, and might even have herds of Elk or Bison too. We’ll keep you posted.
Deer Mid Wicket
Nature photography forces you to live in the moment, says Zafar Ali. Always looking, and then carefully focusing in on a subject you’ve only just spotted is “the perfect way to mindfulness,” Zaf says.
A few weeks ago, he was following the river Derwent through Chatsworth, and noticed the old thatched cricket pavilion might make a nice shot, but was some distance away, so he took out the zoom lens he uses for wildlife and pressed the shutter.
He checked the picture on the back of the camera and says he only then noticed: “a fine pair of antlers, on the lower right hand side of the building.” He stalked closer and took more photos to confirm a Fallow Deer stag basking in the winter sun.
“He was using the gable end to stay out of the wind, presumably to pick up residual heat, and looked so calm and contented, like he was waiting for his turn to go into bat,” Zaf says. “You never know what you’ll spot if you keep your eyes open.”
(Fallow Deer have lived on the Chatsworth estate for centuries, brought in by aristocratic residents for their venison, and to add a semi-wild spectacle to complement the landscape created by Capability Brown. Imported to the UK for their prettiness by the Normans, and possibly by a few wealthy Romans centuries earlier, they’re originally native to the non-cricketing nations of southern Europe.)
See more of Zaf’s amazing nature pictures here.
Ancient Woodlanding
Luke Barley’s first book, Ancient, is published this week. A ranger working in London, the Lake District and the Peak District, and now tree consultant for the National Trust, Ancient is an attempt to help us understand the past, present and hopeful future for our ancient woodlands.
But it’s also very personal: Luke writes about how living and working in a woodland, as our ancestors did for thousands of years, makes you recognise and feel the life in these still-mysterious landscapes.
The Small-leaved Lime tree features often, but up until recently this ancient English tree has been a rarity in Sheffield, because it prefers to live over limestone - nearest here in the White Peak and in a strip running between Rotherham and Doncaster.
But many of our older streets are lined with ageing Common Limes, manufactured hybrids of our native lime trees. Common Limes sprout like mad from the base of their trunk, and require quite some maintenance budget to stop them blocking our pavements. So over recent years, varieties of more convenient Small-leaved Limes have started to arrive here as alternative street trees.
Luke will be adapting extracts from Ancient for us this year, where he’ll tell us more about his beloved very very ancient lime trees. We’ll have shorter extracts in our regular edition, with longer versions for our wonderful full subscribers, starting this week in our supporter’s Sunday supplement.
So, if you like calling in here every weekend, you know what to do: after three years, it’s still a very affordable £4 a month (or less) to know you’ll be able to read all of everything we ever publish, while supporting local journalism too.
Extract from Ancient - By Luke Barley
We huddle under a tarpaulin for lunch, stopping only for as long as it takes to wash down our sandwiches with tea from dented flasks.
Our camp is in our favourite corner of the worksite, beneath a sprawling Small-leaved Lime that is almost a little wood in itself, a complex grove of interconnected life. At its heart is the tallest tree in this part of the wood, towering above us from its perch on a low crag with pendulous limbs arcing away from the straight trunk to create a flowing, narrow crown.
The lime is surrounded by a chaotic tangle formed by its own collapse and regeneration. One of the swooping branches has embedded itself in the loose earth, and set root to spark a younger sister, while fallen stems – its former companions – remain connected at the base and have erupted along their length into rows of new trees, shooting for the light.
A ragged stump has produced a dense mass of soft, orange-green twigs.
The tree – or grove, or thicket, whatever you want to call it – has a particular energy: it’s not the solid, stoic presence of an old oak but something more supple and lithe, a victory of adaptation rather than resistance.
The lime is irrepressible and every feature seems designed to survive, to persist and overcome. When it thrives, vigorous branches touch down and create a ring of offspring. Fall: the branches become trees. Fail, like that broken old stump, and dormant buds, visible in bumps and swellings up the stem, spring to life.
This particular lime could have been clinging on here since soon after the last Ice Age, roaming slowly around the steep slope with each new failure and reiteration.
The bears and wolves whose bones have been found in the caves of the White Peak might have laid up in its shade, and we speculate, on more leisurely lunch breaks, which of our ancestors might have sat beneath it and enjoyed its welcoming sense of enclosure as they took a rest from their own work.
We won’t touch it with our saws, but its presence roots our brief time here in a story of constant change from the deep past and into the distant future of this ancient wood.
Ancient: Reviving the Woods That Made Britain by Luke Barley is published by Profile Books (RRP £25)
Modern Woodlanding
The country wants more trees. After centuries of clearance and commercial timber planting, England now has a statutory government tree target: 16.5% canopy cover across the country by 2050. That’s a combination of woodlands and trees outside woodland, the local agency who are digging into farmers fields, city parks and fundraising spreadsheets tell me. And they say they’re pretty confident the government, of whatever party, won’t be changing their minds.
The South Yorkshire Woodland Partnership (SYWP) have been trying to haul our region towards these sorts of figures for five years now. They don’t have this season’s tree totals yet, but up to March 2025 they’d enabled the planting of well over half a million trees and shrubs across South Yorkshire, including 162 hectares (1.62 square kilometres) of woodland, and seven and half kilometres of new hedges.
Alex Evans from the partnership wants to hear from landowners if they fancy planting some trees or hedges to help reach those targets. There are plenty of grants for planting and maintenance available, so quite often the process is pretty much cost free, but can be complicated: you can’t just plant anywhere. Archaeology, soil type and wildlife all need to be considered and surveyed.
“If people want to plant trees, we just say: What help do you need to do that?” says the SYWP manager Matt North. “We sort out the green tape for them.”
Alex adds that new woodland in these days of weird weather and invasive tree pathogens has to be climate and disease resilient. So the planting plans don’t just include old native trees, wildlife and connections to existing woodland, they have to forecast the future too.
Right now, the woodland cover of South Yorkshire (10.5%) is marginally ahead of England as a whole (10.3%) but that’s still paltry compared to the rest of Europe’s average of 44% woodland cover. And only about 2% of England is ancient woodland, Alex adds, with all the biodiversity and mental health benefits old woodland brings.
To get South Yorkshire in line with that 16.5% target, we’re going to need 1,552 hectares of new trees and woodland by 2050, says Alex. That’s over 15 square kilometres, or six square miles. We have some way to go.
I’ll have more about the county’s new trees and woodlands soon. In the meantime, contact South Yorkshire Woodland Partnership at woodlandenquiries@wildsheffield.com or 07739 516228
Spring Greens
After dozens of excited children scattered Sheffield-friendly seeds across a 90 square metre bank at the edge of Endcliffe Park last November, it was time to inspect the results with our expert botanist, Gerry Firkins.
“It’s a bit patchy,” he says, in the drizzle. “But I’m pleased with the germination.”
Gerry and local councillor Peter Gilbert came up with the idea of extending a native flower meadow across the park edge by Rustlings Road. The test bed was a 3 x 30 metre bank near the park entrance, where Gerry’s special seed mix of two dozen different native Sheffield flowers was planted last autumn. A quick estimate of the site reveals around 9,000 of those seeds have germinated so far, but there’ll be plenty more as the soil and weather warm up.
Among the historical glass and ring pulls in the soil tilled for the new meadow are hundreds of cotyledons, or seed leaves. Scientist that he is, Gerry is reluctant to name exact species until more of the proper leaves and stems appear, but he gives me a few possible names for the early risers.
Two are very talented plants he says - so talented they weren’t included in the Sheffield Seed Mix as he knew they’d find their way to the meadow anyway.
He mentions the hard evolutionary work of the dandelion family to make their seeds fly up, and then burrow down into the soil, and the knack of Annual Meadow Grass to colonise over 90% of the world’s capital cities. As an ancient cross of alpine and lowland grasses, it’s able to make a living in cold, warm, high and low urban environments. (I’ll have more on these talented Sheffielders in another post).
There are no flowers visible yet among the green shoots, but it’s only a matter of time. Gerry reckons poppies will arrive first: if you pass the park over the next few weeks, do let us know. (An extended version of this feature is in our Wild Weekend post for full subscribers.)
More What’s On Out There (from Sunday 1st March)
A tiny selection from our new (and regularly updated) What’s On Out There news and listings post for the late winter. (Full version for full members, preview for all).
Sun 1st March - Yorkshire Rose women’s cycle rides
Mon 2nd - Fri 6th - Daily health walks in parks and green spaces from Step Out Sheffield, 10 am start
Tues 3rd - SRWT Volunteering - Wyming Brook
Weds 4th - Shire Brook Valley - Volunteer Session
Weds 4th - Sheffield Ramblers Walk - Linacre Reservoir (12m)
Thurs 5th - Green City Action Grimesthorpe community allotment
Fri 6th - SRWT Volunteering - Wildlife Gardening
Sat 7th - Parkwood Springs conservation morning
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