View from the Shed by Shaun Finnie - VIEW FROM A TENT

VIEW FROM A TENT

Some of you may have noticed that I've been missing this week from my usual spot at the Old Moor Welcome Shed. Those nice RSPB folks decided that my particular meagre skill-set (that's chatting to people and writing about it) would be better utilised by temporarily representing Old Moor elsewhere, so they sent me on an away day jolly. For just one shift, instead of having a view from a shed, I had a view from a large gazebo (that's a tent with gaps in to the likes of me) at Sherwood Forest's Robin Hood festival. And a very nice day out it was too.

Men and women both Merry and slightly worse for wear entertained the guests. Archery lessons and medieval musical demonstrations were a big hit. Buzzards mewled overhead, wasps swarmed around the candy floss van and somewhere in the deep dark forest woodpeckers greater, lesser and greener could be heard but not seen. The Dog Agility Competition was entertaining though not half as much fun as watching the Doggy Dancing Competition that immediately followed it. This featured humans cavorting with their canine pals in time to a selection of musical delights such as The Great Escape, How Much is That Doggy in the Window and The Theme from Thunderbirds! I'll wait a minute for you to imagine how that last one went. I'm looking forwards to it appearing in some future Olympic games. All in all it was the quintessential English summer's day. There was even a cricket match on the adjacent field.

It was nice to catch up with colleagues from various arms of the behemoth that is the RSPB as well. All of us had comical tales to tell, best practises to share and an undying passion for birds and nature in general. There were lots of us there too. At some points we blue-shirts almost outnumbered the paying public. But we all had a good time and we helped to spread the message that the RSPB is providing a hopeful little ray of light in the man-made darkness of potential ecological doom. And how visitors could have a good time at our reserves in the process.

One gentleman saw the message printed on the back of my shirt and asked, “Oy mate, what kind of home does nature need then?” I gave him the standard explanation about how each species of bird and other creatures needs a specific habitat in which to live, thrive and survive and as mankind has built on and destroyed much of the planet's natural places then it's up to us to make sure that those kind of environments are replaced or preserved wherever possible, even in tiny yet interlinked patches up and down the country and beyond our borders. That's what 'Giving Nature A Home' means to me. He was happy with my answer and went away considering popping up the M1 with his family for a grand day out in the Dearne Valley.

After he'd gone I thought about what I'd told him. Sherwood Forest is indeed just that; a great big ancient forest, and as such it provides a perfect home for that rarest of Woodpeckers, the Lesser Spotted. At Old Moor our reedbeds are the chosen habitat of Bitterns and Bearded Tits. Over at Bempton Cliffs the Puffins and Gannets find the lie of the land completely to their liking. Further afield, the lowland heaths of Arne are exactly what a Dartford Warbler is looking for, and Choughs need a rocky coastline like that found around Anglesey's South Stack. These birds are the RSPB reserve in question's 'star species'. We advertise them as such and their habitats need careful management. That's why the RPSB has its reserves where they are, upwards of 200 of them. Each one provides a specific and much-needed place for some creatures who would otherwise struggle to exist. Quite literally, we're giving nature a home.

I enjoyed my time away at Sherwood but I'm looking forward to returning to the Dearne Valley. I'll doff my battered hat three times and repeat, “There's no shed like home... There's no shed like home... There's no shed like home...”