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Farmland Birds of Pickburn Leys, Highfields, Doncaster

Welcome. Skylarks like to nest on all open farmland where they can keep a wary eye for predators.  The busy parents will raise three broods a season and are nesting from April to August.  They like cereals crops and prefer cover of no more than 60 cm so our dwarf cereal crops suit everyone.  Send us your video links to brodsworthquarry@gmail.com

The nearby new housing is named Skylarks Grange.  It gets its name from the many Skylarks nesting on Pickburn Leys. 

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Leys Hill Plantation walks - Youtube shorts playlist

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A Snipe family crossed the road in front of me today.  Always nice to see them

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Big farmland bird count is 3-19 February

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Find out more about herbal leys

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Sowing Crops in spring for overwintering birds

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We feed the songbirds through the 'hungry gap' with Perdix bird feeders and monitor numbers with camera footage

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The Merlin Bird ID app on your phone is used to identify 1226 birds by their song

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Turn your back garden into a bird monitoring station

These are detections from my own back garden

Sorry about the wind noise!

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Obviously you cant have predators without prey.  Thats just how nature works.  The Brodsworth Community Woodlands covers 99 ha.  Our open farmland next to it covers 52 ha.  The Brodsworth Community Woodlands holds Long Eared Owl and Kestrals.  They prey on the Skylarks  as well as mouse and vole but the Skylarks are well adapted to high predation rates.  Parents will produce three broods of four eggs.  The Skylark has the shortest gestation period of just 11 days.  The chicks will be out of the egg and hunting for insects on the ground after just two weeks in the nest.  We dont have fenceposts on our land as the rapters use them to spot prey.  Instead our land is open so the Skylarks can spot predators!

Skylark can be heard year round with the song particularly strong in the early months of the year.

Tithe Barn  Potato Storage - you may see ruin I see habitat

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He rises and begins to round,
He drops the silver chain of sound
Of many links without a break,
In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake,
All intervolv’d and spreading wide,
Like water-dimples down a tide
Where ripple ripple overcurls
And eddy into eddy whirls;
A press of hurried notes that run
So fleet they scarce are more than one,
Yet changingly the trills repeat
And linger ringing while they fleet,
Sweet to the quick o’ the ear, and dear
To her beyond the handmaid ear,
Who sits beside our inner springs,
Too often dry for this he brings,
Which seems the very jet of earth
At sight of sun, her music’s mirth,
As up he wings the spiral stair,
A song of light, and pierces air
With fountain ardor, fountain play,
To reach the shining tops of day,
And drink in everything discern’d
An ecstasy to music turn’d,
Impell’d by what his happy bill
Disperses; drinking, showering still,
Unthinking save that he may give
His voice the outlet, there to live
Renew’d in endless notes of glee,
So thirsty of his voice is he,
For all to hear and all to know
That he is joy, awake, aglow,
The tumult of the heart to hear
Through pureness filter’d crystal-clear,
And know the pleasure sprinkled bright
By simple singing of delight,
Shrill, irreflective, unrestrain’d,
Rapt, ringing, on the jet sustain’d
Without a break, without a fall,
Sweet-silvery, sheer lyrical,
Perennial, quavering up the chord
Like myriad dews of sunny sward
That trembling into fulness shine,
And sparkle dropping argentine;
Such wooing as the ear receives
From zephyr caught in choric leaves
Of aspens when their chattering net
Is flush’d to white with shivers wet;
And such the water-spirit’s chime
On mountain heights in morning’s prime,
Too freshly sweet to seem excess,
Too animate to need a stress;
But wider over many heads
The starry voice ascending spreads,
Awakening, as it waxes thin,
The best in us to him akin;
And every face to watch him rais’d,
Puts on the light of children prais’d,
So rich our human pleasure ripes
When sweetness on sincereness pipes,
Though nought be promis’d from the seas,
But only a soft-ruffling breeze
Sweep glittering on a still content,
Serenity in ravishment.

For singing till his heaven fills,
’T is love of earth that he instils,
And ever winging up and up,
Our valley is his golden cup,
And he the wine which overflows
To lift us with him as he goes:
The woods and brooks, the sheep and kine
He is, the hills, the human line,
The meadows green, the fallows brown,
The dreams of labor in the town;
He sings the sap, the quicken’d veins;
The wedding song of sun and rains
He is, the dance of children, thanks
Of sowers, shout of primrose-banks,
And eye of violets while they breathe;
All these the circling song will wreathe,
And you shall hear the herb and tree,
The better heart of men shall see,
Shall feel celestially, as long
As you crave nothing save the song.
Was never voice of ours could say
Our inmost in the sweetest way,
Like yonder voice aloft, and link
All hearers in the song they drink:
Our wisdom speaks from failing blood,
Our passion is too full in flood,
We want the key of his wild note
Of truthful in a tuneful throat,
The song seraphically free
Of taint of personality,
So pure that it salutes the suns
The voice of one for millions,
In whom the millions rejoice
For giving their one spirit voice.

Yet men have we, whom we revere,
Now names, and men still housing here,
Whose lives, by many a battle-dint
Defaced, and grinding wheels on flint,
Yield substance, though they sing not, sweet
For song our highest heaven to greet:
Whom heavenly singing gives us new,
Enspheres them brilliant in our blue,
From firmest base to farthest leap,
Because their love of Earth is deep,
And they are warriors in accord
With life to serve and pass reward,
So touching purest and so heard
In the brain’s reflex of yon bird;
Wherefore their soul in me, or mine,
Through self-forgetfulness divine,
In them, that song aloft maintains,
To fill the sky and thrill the plains
With showerings drawn from human stores,
As he to silence nearer soars,
Extends the world at wings and dome,
More spacious making more our home,
Till lost on his aërial rings
In light, and then the fancy sings.

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The Lark Ascending

George Meredith

The Lark in poem and music

Now a little bit about the Yellowhammer.  You can find these in the self seeded Hawthorne trees and bushes particularly in May when they are in flower.  There is a story about their birdsong.  It sounds like "little bit of bread and NO cheese".

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Foraging notes.  The young leaves and pink flowers are edible.  You may get some mild stomach upset from the berries but they have various uses.  The leaves and flowers are called Bread and Cheese.  The leaves are called "Shepherds lettuce".  The leaves make a herbal tea.  The berries make ketchup and jelly which is nice to eat with cheese.  Remember to say Hi to the faeries.

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WARNING do not eat the seeds as they contain cyanide.We dont fear nature but we must respect it.

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The Yellowhammer is the most widespread and most frequent species of bunting in Europe and lives preferably in agricultural landscapes where hedges, orchards, fields and meadows are present.  

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With syrup and ketchup so pricey you might try your hand at Hawthorne syrup from the flowers or the ketchup.  Recipes are online.  You need an equal weight of flowers and caster sugar.

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Download count sheet.  Its best to count farmland birds at 8.30 am

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Spend about 30 minutes per 2 ha

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Farmland birds count areas

each grid is 2 acres

Dont count that area if we are ploughing it!

Site Background

Mineral Investments Limited acquired 52 ha of open farmland at Pickburn Leys, Doncaster in 1997. 
The site was next to Markham Grange Colliery.  This was a major colliery directly employing 3500 people whose families continue to live in Woodlands and Highfields
1997 to 2024 

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Brodsworth Community Woodlands is a picturesque woodland located in Doncaster, South Yorkshire. It spans 99 hectares and is renowned for its diverse array of wildlife, including butterflies such as the Common Blue, Meadow Brown, and Peacock. A Long Eared Owl is resident in the woodland and Kestrels are often seen hovering above looking for prey. There are also some fascinating and intriguing sculptures nestled in the woodland, including a giant dragonfly, which appears almost magically as you climb one of the many woodlands hills. The woodland has an extensive network of footpaths comprised mainly of non-bonded crushed material. Most are in excess of 2.5 metres wide, but there are narrower trails through wooded areas which are unsurfaced. Paths vary in gradient from flat to 1:10 or steeper. There are a limited number of seating areas at varied intervals throughout the woodland, most in excess of 500m apart. Access onto site is through access control barriers which permit motorised buggies. Dogs are allowed in the woodland. You can find more information about Brodsworth Community Woodlands on The Land Trust website and Woodland Trust website.

Brodsworth Quarry. It consists of 50 hectares of arable farmland bounded by the Roman Ridge, Woodlands, Housing and Green Lane to the east and by the Brodsworth Community Woodland to the west. The quarry is located in Doncaster, South Yorkshire.

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