Evening folks! Despite overcast skies it was another great day to visit Old Moor. Here’s a summary of what was seen today…

Want a bit more detail? Well, you shall have it!

First up, the early report of four black-tailed godwits flying around the reserve was an underestimate. They turned out to have brought a few mates with them. Eventually, ten godwits were recorded feeding in the deeper waters of Wath…

Hello again, it's been a warm, blustery day at Old Moor and here is what was out and about at Old Moor.

As per usual, if you click on the picture itself, it will give you a larger and sharper view of the map.

Karen (assist warden) also tweeted a sighting of a male bearded tit.

Butterflies at Old Moor today included common blue, small white and speckled wood.

Dragonfly sightings were of brown and migrant hawker…

Hello there, I have news of our bitterns this year. I’ve been given the OK to do this by Karen, our assistant warden. So make a cuppa, get comfy and enjoy.

This year we had three separate nests and they were all at slightly different stages – ie, the earliest, the middle one and the last one. How do we know this? From patterns gleaned from daily monitoring and from Dave, our warden, who put all the info together…

Hello again, here are the sightings from today at Old Moor and elsewhere in the Dearne Valley.

Firstly from Old Moor via the maps. Please click on the map itself to get a bigger, clearer and sharper view.

The Barnsley Birders once again gave us the early morning from Old Moor. Here is the list they gave:  Little Egret 57 & Cormorant 23 left roost. Mute Swan 41, Shelduck 1, Ringed Plover 2, Little Ringed Plover 1…

Evening folks! Here is the summary of today’s sightings from Old Moor…

Something seemed to change out there today. Not sure what caused it, but the arrival of a wood sandpiper at Old Moor was a reminder that the birds are moving once again. I know, I know – for us it’s still the summer but – in the bird world at least – autumn has begun!

Sadly, I missed out on a picture of the…

Hi Folks! Here is a summary of Old Moor’s sightings for today…

Down the valley from Old Moor, at Bolton Ings, John Seeviour recorded: seven little egret, three great crested grebe, nine mallard, twenty-one gadwall, seven tufted duck, five pochard, two cormorant, three grey heron, three little egret, 156 coot, fifty-four Canada geese, fifty-two greylag, one green woodpecker and one grey wagtail.

He also…

It was another breathlessly hot one in the Dearne Valley today with temperatures around 30°C and very little breeze. To start us off, here’s a summary of the birds seen around Old Moor today…

If you’ve glanced at the graphic above and done the adding, you’ve probably noticed that there were a lot of little egrets in today’s sightings. In fact, every hide I visited gave great views of these terrific…

Hello again, it's been another gorgeous day in the Dearne Valley. What a summer we are having!

I'll start today with a bit of a report of work done recently on Adwick - via Karen, assistant warden.

Rotavating at Adwick

There has been a bit of recent rotavating work done by the reserve team at Adwick. It was done to try to get rid of as much of the crassula as possible. There is a lot of crassula in the Dearne…

Hello there, I have quite a lot for the blog today so off I go.

Here's the OM map with the sightings from the book today. If you click on the picture itself, it will give you a larger and sharper read. 

Paul Gould took this photo of the black tailed godwits this morning. Thank you Paul.

Then we have sightings from Adwick via the book at OM - redstart, kingfisher, bullfinch, avocet, snipe, green woodpecker, dunlin…

Evening folks! Here is the summary of birds seen at (or very near) Old Moor today…

It was great to see so many families and so many children around Old Moor today. The sun shone and there was – as ever – plenty to see (and hear).

There were at least two common and five green sandpipers around the reserve today. The latter seemed to be especially vocal. In fact, those high-pitched, piping calls are…

Evening folks! Here is a summary of the birds seen at Old Moor today…

Counting stuff is easy right? Well, when it comes to birds, it’s not quite as easy as you might think. Take the case of Old Moor’s growing sandpiper population. These are small, highly mobile waders that are adept at exploring the muddy areas around Old Moor’s lakes.

Sandpipers feed on insects and small invertebrates that…

With definitely an autumnal feeling about the Dearne Valley today, here is the summary of the day’s sightings…

The change in the weather was echoed in the mix of birds at Old Moor this morning. Perhaps the first thing that caught many visitors’ attention (beside the novelty of rain) was the sight of so many sand martin and swift feeding over the Mere and the Scrape.

These tiny birds worked hard…

Hello again, here's a quickish blog with a round-up of sightings since the blog that Andrew wrote last Wednesday. 

1) Little Egrets

We had another record breaking roost on Wednesday night and counted on Thursday morning as they left the roost very early on. 'Early on' means around 4:30am for the first sightings of them leaving the roost and so that's long before you or I get there. It was our warden Dave who counted…

Hi Folks! There were an impressive sixty-one species of bird seen at Old Moor today. That’s not a bad total at all for the traditionally ‘quiet’ month of July. Here’s a quick summary…

Little egret numbers were significant again today with eleven birds on the Mere and Wader Scrape this morning. Meanwhile another thirty-nine egrets were counted at Wombwell Ings early on, along with twelve…

Hello again, it’s time for the blog once more and I’ll start with a bit of butterfly news. Last Sunday I spotted a pretty good sighting in the book. It was of ‘at least two’ purple hairstreak butterflies in the oaks on Green Lane. So off I went to have a look for these beautiful butterflies. They are not the easiest of butterflies to find as they spend a lot of their time in the canopy of the oak trees. It was also very…

Close, humid and perhaps even sultry. It was another toasty day in the Dearne Valley, with temperatures in excess of 30°C and very little breeze.

Here’s a summary of what was seen at Old Moor today…

Little egret were present on the Mere again today, though not quite as many as yesterday. This afternoon’s best count was seven on this part of the reserve. However, as many as sixty-two egrets were recorded…

If took a little while for those clouds to break up but – when they did – surprise! - another bakingly hot day. Here’s a summary of what was seen at Old Moor today, together with a few headlines from the fantastic Adwick Washland…

From high on top of the northernmost pylon at Old Moor, a peregrine watched the proceedings this morning. Even given the distance, from there I bet she had perfect…

It was yet another beautiful summer's day in the Dearne Valley though, around 15:30, there was a little, ground-softening drizzle. Here's a summary of what was seen out there today...

Some days everything just works brilliantly!

More on that in a moment but first, here is a summary of today’s sightings from Old Moor…

It all started at Adwick Washland.

There Malcolm Gough and others picked up the spectacular silhouette of a crane flying overhead at 10:47. The bird was heading west, towards Old Moor. It was the watchers at Adwick who generously got the message out – and quickly. Within…

It was yet another beautiful summer’s day here in the Dearne Valley with some excellent views of remarkable wildlife.

Here’s a summary of the sightings today…

Keen-eyed readers might notice that, now that the path to the Reedbed Hide is open once more, water rail have made a return to the sightings. The Reedbed Screen is one of the most reliable places at Old Moor to see these elusive birds as they…

Watchers rubbed their eyes this morning - but it was too early for a mirage. Sure enough, at 09:59 today an osprey circled high above Old Moor’s Mere.

Here’s a summary of what else was seen at Old Moor today…

Sadly, the osprey did not hang around and may not have been spotted but for the fact that the gulls on the Mere shot off towards it.

And talking of gulls, whilst watchers in Sheffield try…

Hello again, here's an update of sightings from yesterday so that if you are thinking of visiting today, you have some idea of where the various birds might be. (Click on the picture itself for a larger & sharper view).

You'll notice that we have sightings from the reedbed hide. Karen told that this is because the reedbed path re-opened yesterday. That's always a lovely walk and something to look forward to…

Hello again, here is a quick update of the sightings at Old Moor today. If you click on the picture you will get a bigger, and also sharper view!

I'll add to the Old Moor list from today with sightings from Twitter. Thanks go to all who tweet their sightings for us.

Daniel Langston saw a first summer, yellow legged gull with the 3 med gulls on the Mere and also a green sandpiper on the Wader Scrape.

From Paul…

It was another sunny, summer's day in the Dearne Valley with some unusual wildlife stories but first, here’s the summary of the birds seen today at Old Moor…

I should probably start with that ‘hummingbird’ which in this case was a variety of moth, the hummingbird hawkmoth to be exact. This colourful, large, day-flying moth was the star of Old Moor’s courtyard today.

The hawkmoth…

Hello there, what a lovely evening it is! Hopefully some of you who are reading this will have spent it at Old Moor. Sadly I didn't and I also don't have many sightings for you... I have a tale of woe again as my RSPB email has decided to lock me out and therefore no sightings from the book....

So, via Twitter from the Barnsley Birders there are the following sightings - a Bittern, 3 Little Egret, 5 Mediterranean…