Dearne Valley

On Reedbed Management and Truxors

Back in the late 90s, when the UK’s bittern population was at its lowest and the Old Moor site was in development stages under the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT), the RSPB, acting as consultants, suggested that an extensive area of reedbed be included in the plans in order to give a potential home to the enigmatic bird. Tight for money and torn between sites, the WWT were unable to…

OLD MOOR SPOTLIGHT 2025-06-07

It’s been a week of feeding chicks throughout nature and our RSPB Old Moor reserve has been no different to anywhere else. Visitors, staff and volunteers alike have been delighted to see our BITTERNS and MARSH HARRIERS regularly taking food back to their young. There have been lots of daily sightings of each species leading to many happy visitors. Quite a few have told us that it’s the first…

OLD MOOR SPOTLIGHT 2025-0531

At RSPB Old Moor in South Yorkshire’s Dearne Valley it’s been a great week of watching our BITTERNS and MARSH HARRIERS taking food back to their growing chicks. It’s going to be some time yet before the youngsters fledge and we can reopen our Reed Bed path, but in the meantime, this really is the best time of year to see these gorgeous birds in the air around our reserve.…

OLD MOOR SPOTLIGHT 2025-05-24

It’s all gone a bit quiet. After the excitement of the last month or so when several bird species that we don’t expect to see in these parts have dropped in for a look around, Old Moor and our sister sites around the Dearne Valley haven’t seen many new birds this week at all. Yes, there are still some REDSHANK, GREENSHANK, LITTLE RINGED PLOVER, COMMON SANDPIPER and AVOCET to be spotted at…

OLD MOOR SPOTLIGHT 2025-05-17

This week I looked out of Old Moor’s Wader Scraper hide and, within the same field of vision of my binoculars, saw a total of five little wading birds at the same time. Waders have been in short supply at our valley’s flagship reserve this year so to see five species at all is a surprise; to see them all together was nothing short of astounding! They were REDSHANK, GREENSHANK, LITTLE RINGED…

OLD MOOR SPOTLIGHT 2025-05-10

Here in our pretty Dearne Valley there have been more arrivals this week as Spring really gets a hold. Many birds are much more active at this time of year as they go about the business of nest building, pairing up and hopefully feeding chicks. So we’ve seen plenty of birds that are expected - such as WHITETHROAT, GREATER SPOTTED WOODPECKER, BITTERN, BEARDED REEDLING and CETTI’S WARBLER …

OLD MOOR SPOTLIGHT 2025-05-03

On the birdlife front, there have been further comings and goings around the Dearne Valley this week. The most amazing one was a tiny TEMMINCK’S STINT that has been seen at Edderthorpe Flash and even popped into Old Moor for a few hours. Several lucky birders (including our head warden but not - you won’t be surprised to read - including me) managed to get a glimpse of this rare little wading…

OLD MOOR SPOTLIGHT 2025-04-26

It’s been a week of unusual birds passing through Old Moor. ARCTIC TERN, KITTIWAKE and even a BAR-TAILED GODWIT have visited us for short periods, before moving on to wherever they should be at this time of year. Please don’t come expecting to see them, they were not among our usual residents. There was a WOOD SANDPIPER over at our Adwick Washlands site as well but that too seems to have…

OLD MOOR SPOTLIGHT 2025-04-19

Old Moor’s Star Birds have been doing what we expect them to do at this time of year. The BITTERNS have still been booming although less frequently than a few weeks ago. They have also been seen a few times this week in flight. Look for that to increase over the next month as they (hopefully) need to fly more to find food for their newly hatched chicks. Our MARSH HARRIERS are paired up and…

OLD MOOR SPOTLIGHT 2025-04-12

It’s been yet another week of Spring migration movement here in South Yorkshire’s Dearne Valley. Birds have been coming in and out with alarming regularity and, thanks to the school holidays and the glorious weather, so have our visitors. We’ve been incredibly busy at RSPB Old Moor with many first-timers coming to see us. That can only be a good thing as they will hopefully return, maybe…

OLD MOOR SPOTLIGHT 2025-04-05

I start this week with an apology. Apparently some of you were unable to access last week’s ‘Spotlight’. We’ve identified the issue and fixed it. Hopefully it won’t happen again.

This week has seen yet another flock of WHOOPER SWANS passing through our valley. They’ve followed the usual pattern of turning up, resting a while (perhaps even overnight) before continuing…

OLD MOOR SPOTLIGHT 2005-03-29

If my dear old Granny was still with us she would have called the last few days “March of many weathers”, and she’d have been right. We’ve had a total mishmash of mixed weather this week from heavy storms to glorious sunshine. This has seen many birds arriving for what they thought was a lovely extended stay at our Old Moor reserve, only to find the conditions too unpleasant for a summer…

OLD MOOR SPOTLIGHT 2005-03-22

It’s been a glorious week weather-wise and this could have been the trigger for several big white birds moving around the globe from their winter to summer residences. 

For us at Old Moor this means we’ve been able to see our first SPOONBILL of the year. They are beautiful birds; large, white and sporting that really strange beak from which they get their name. If we’re really lucky…

OLD MOOR SPOTLIGHT 2005-03-15

Welcome to RSPB Old Moor’s new-style weekly blog. From now on we’ll be concentrating solely on what has been happening in our Dearne Valley recently, and what events we have to look forward to. I hope you like it just as much as my older, more rambling style.

There are a lot of WHOOPER SWANS heading to their Icelandic summer homes at the moment. Around 50 of them stopped in at…

SPLISH SPLASH

Here’s a picture that you don’t really want to imagine but it’s imperative in getting this week’s blog off to a relatable start. The other day I was relaxing in the bath, having a long relaxing soak in the foamy water. I’d been in long enough for my skin to resemble an elephant’s knee when it suddenly hit me; do birds need to keep clean? And if so, how do they go about it?…

FLYING HIGH AGAIN

If you’re a sports fan you might have heard that a chap called Kendrick Lamar caused a bit of a stir at the recent American Football Super Bowl during his half time performance. He performed a ‘diss track’ (I had to look it up) throwing unpleasant accusations at another rapper. Very silly but it all helps sales, I guess. A lady named Nicki Minaj is another example of this kind of confrontational rapper…

DATE NIGHT

If you’re of a romantic nature it won’t have escaped your notice that it’s been Valentine’s Day this week. If you are in a relationship and you've forgotten then this will probably be the reason that your partner has been in a grumpy mood for the last few days. It’s not too late to make amends but you’ll have to go for a big gesture this late in the game. This has been a valuable public service announcement…

… WHEN IT’S A REEDLING

The humble Blue Tit must be one of the most necessary birds in Britain. They have so many chicks, sometimes four nestfulls in a year, with up to a dozen young ‘uns in each. That’s one tired lady bird. And as long as at least two of these offspring survive then she and her mate have done their job. Their bloodline will survive for another generation. As for the others? Well these prodigious…

LONG DISTANCE RUNAROUND

My wife and I recently took a road trip through Europe. We went up through Belgium to Denmark and over the Øresund Bridge (yes, that one in the TV show) to Sweden. The return journey was through Germany and France. All told we did just short of 1,500 miles. It was an excellent little holiday and it seemed like we’d travelled a really long way. 

But had we really? Our trip took us a…

LEAVING YOUR MARK

Many years ago when the world was young and I was younger still, I went for a dawn walk in the deep snow. I live not far from RSPB Old Moor in the Dearne Valley and in those pre-EVRI warehouse days there were plenty of fields and woodlands to walk, which I did, regularly. Wind, rain and especially heavy snowfall didn’t stop me. If anything this latter made my walk more interesting as it cast a whole…

BBC's Winterwatch visit to RSPB Old Moor

'On the Search for Bittern'

by Jacob Negus-Hill, RSPB Old Moor Residential Volunteer

It’s a very cold December evening and myself - Jacob, and two other residential volunteers are sat in Old Moor’s bird monitoring hide. Tom is scanning the extensive reed bed in front of us with a thermal imaging camera, Henry is talking out loud about the behavioral patterns…

WHY DON’T DUCKS FREEZE?

You might have noticed that we’ve had some interesting weather over the last few weeks. It’s been what I would call a ‘proper’ winter with snow that doesn’t just fall overnight then disappear by lunchtime the next day. It’s actually settled, frozen and stayed around for a week or more, causing disruption to travel journeys and nature reserve opening times alike. Sorry about that last one…

A TAIL’S TALE

Imagine, if you will, a world where humans have evolved to be more like birds. We have amended our body parts to be more like them. Arms become wings. Larynx becomes pharynx. Mouth and nose become beak. Legs stay pretty much like legs though, just the two of them for walking and jumping around. We wouldn’t want to change too much in one go.

Imagine that we made all these amendments and many more…

I SPY EVOLUTION

It’s a new year. Welcome to 2025. Perhaps you’ve made some resolutions. Perhaps you’ve even kept them thus far into the year. If so, good for you. If not, don’t beat yourself up about it. You have the entire rest of your life to make yourself a better person, not just the first few days of the new year. 

Have the birds made any resolutions? Of course not. They don’t know that it…

A NEW LEAF

Today, I’m going to delve into the world of tortuously bad radio links. You know the kind of thing, like when they say, “That remix was a bit of a car crash. Speaking of which, it’s time to hear from Sally with the traffic”. Or, “That was Rihanna with ‘Umbrella’, so let’s ask Mike at the weather desk if we’ll need our brollies today.” With that in mind, please forgive me when I take a really bad literary turn…