Visit Old Moor at the moment and you can’t fail to hear the sound of a squeaking wheel. Not just any wheel mind - the type that you might find at the front of a particularly ancient (possibly rusting) wheelbarrow. Now imagine it pushed slowly along a garden path and you’re pretty much there.

The sound I’m referring to comes of course from a bullfinch and is its spring song. A song I might add that seems out…

Hello there, before I get on to the sightings from the book today I'll tell you that we had a treecreeper in the bird garden today! They don't visit us very often and a possible reason for this is that we don't have mature enough woodland. However, the bird that visited us today gave great views, and not just once either...maybe 4 or 5 times. They move up the trees very quickly and then to re-find them, you need to look…

At the apex of the roof of Old Moor’s ‘Activity Zone’ is a bat box with a flat top to it. Today, as I approached the Visitor Centre, my attention was drawn to that box - not because of any bat activity - but because a dunnock had selected this as his song perch.

He was right too. His song, amplified by the hard surface at his back, certainly got my attention. Spring ‘proper’ may be weeks away yet but…

I’m struggling to remember. Did I break a mirror recently? Walk under a ladder? Stumble over a black cat? I know I’ve written before of my special talent but today I think I may have wandered the lanes of Old Moor with my eyes closed!

Don’t get me wrong, there was tons of interesting stuff out there today but I seem to have missed each and every one by minutes. Talk about bad luck.

Today some folk…

One of the consolations of a cold and wet winter’s day is that this is just the sort of time the yellowhammers arrive in Old Moor’s Bird Garden. These are large buntings of open countryside but, when the weather’s grim, they head for the feeders and an easier meal.

Sure enough, this afternoon, a striking male yellowhammer rivalled the bullfinches as the brightest bird in the garden. This was just what…

The half-term holiday and a sunny day provided many families with an opportunity to get outside and enjoy the delights of Old Moor. There are, as ever, a full range of activities running this week and details of these can be found here. (Just change the top, ‘drop-down’ box to ‘South Yorkshire’ and click ‘FIND EVENTS’).

‘Red’ taking up one of her regular look-out positions, atop…

To us mammals, it was a very chilly day and one where, despite the coming Wednesday’s celebration of all things romantic, love was probably not uppermost in the minds of Old Moor’s visitors. But for the birds, there is no time like the present.

In the middle of some quite wintery showers, robin, dunnock, great tit and bullfinch sang. They weren’t alone. Teal, shoveler and goosander displayed. And they were…

Hello again, today at Old Moor was much warmer than yesterday. The rain which was forecast didn't happen, the sun came out and that icy wind we had yesterday had vanished. All good :)

And, there is a full sightings book as well. What more could anybody want?!

The following sightings are from warden Dave and quite early on. That means that you will have probably seen some of these sightings but not all.

So, there…

Although cold, it was an unexpectedly sunny one in the Dearne Valley today and, perhaps thanks to that little bit of sunshine, there was suddenly lots going on.

At Adwick Washland today, Gary Stones reported (On Twitter via @Barnsleybsg) that there were 125 greylag geese and with them one pink-footed goose and one white-fronted goose. There were also three grey partridge, two little egret, four shelduck, two shoveler…

Hello there! My title says it all as I am sure you have guessed already. We've had our first bittern booms of the year and they were on the 6th of Feb and there were 6 faint booms. Faint maybe, but still bittern booms! Let's hope we have many more.

Here's a bittern pic to celebrate that fact and it was taken a couple of years ago from the reedbed screen. I had a great view as it wandered out of the reeds and…

Hello there, I have the sightings from the book today and thanks go to Jack for scanning and emailing them to me.

Off I go...

On Wath Ings today there were sightings of shovelor, lapwing, wigeon, teal, buzzard, sparrowhawk and grey herons.

Two green sandpipers were on their mobiles today - I mean mobile...I do know that's a pretty bad non-joke :) They were probably mobile between the field pools and the Mere.

As a volunteer at Old Moor, it’s funny what you get asked. One bit of advice for future volunteers? You may think you are prepared for anything, but there’s always the unexpected.

Today for example, the hide talk was of bird calls and one visitor asked, “What’s the bird that sounds like a washing machine?”

After a bit of chat, it turned out that what was meant was a bird that ‘squeaked…

The new year began over a month ago now and I suppose it’s only natural for us to ask the question: ‘How is 2018 shaping up compared to last year?’

With that in mind, I read with interest a piece on the Barnsley Bird Sightings Blog (found here) from Nigel Smith. In it Nigel lists the 101 bird species seen in the Old Moor area sofa(r) this year. Perhaps more importantly, he compares that to 2015 (98…

January went out with a bang: rain, sleet, chill winds and yes, a bit of brilliant sunshine too. To some maybe not the best day for appreciating birdlife; to others, just the thing for blowing away those cobwebs and enjoying the drama that comes with the season.

Take Old Moor’s semi-resident marsh harrier for example. Today a cream-crowned bird was very active despite (or maybe ‘because of’) the stiff breeze. I caught…

The end of winter might seem like a long way off yet but the very earliest signs are there if you know where to look. You’ve probably seen the first snowdrops, inhaled the perfume of winter box and noticed that there are crocuses out in Old Moor’s gardens. Any break in the weather now is a chance for the early bird singers to tune up and today the reserve welcomed a true harbinger of spring – the first oystercatcher of…

Surprisingly mild and sunny in parts, I am glad to say that many watchers took time off from their Big Garden Birdwatch to enjoy a bit of time in the Dearne Valley. In fact, for a sleepy Sunday at the end of January, today turned out to be quite a busy one.

The Early Birders at Old Moor reported seven little egret, thirty goosander, four goldeneye, fifty-one cormorant, four green sandpiper, one redshank, one marsh harrier…

Hello again, it's been a bit of a grey day at Old Moor but mostly dry which was good! The sun even managed a weak smile at Old Moor for an hour or so this afternoon as well :)

Our sightings today started with the news that the 'Broomhill' hawfinch was again showing at Broomhill in the car park. Thanks go to Michael Rushton for that sighting from Twitter. Also on Twitter came news from Carl Dixon that there…

WEX blog number 5 already! I had to google how many there had been, I was thinking that this was the fourth. How time flies so quickly...

Last Saturday we had the monthly WEX meeting at Old Moor and I spotted the group coming back around the offices looking pretty excited. They were most definitely hurrying back to the classroom and didn't want to stop to chat for long! Our two young enthusiasts were there and they tell…

It can’t have slipped your memory can it? After all, you’ve probably clocked the reminders in Nature’s Home, on our Facebook page as well as at Old Moor itself. What am I on about? Why the Big Garden Birdwatch of course!

Begun in 1979 (which, in case you are wondering, was only yesterday), as a winter activity for children, the Big Garden Birdwatch has grown a bit since. Last year for example, close…

The first clue was that something was about to happen was that the Willow Pool suddenly filled with teal. A few seconds before, there had been a handful. Now sixty birds, displaced from the Mere, arrived in front of Wath Ings Hide.

Next, the Canada geese from the main marsh caught wind of the sense of panic. They scudded across the water - half-paddling, half-flying - and headed towards the spit that divides the two…

Concentrating on finding my footing in the storm, with eyes downcast against the sting of sleet, I almost missed them. There they were, a young family with two small children; rapt, oblivious to the cold, investigating bird tracks on Old Moor’s pond-dipping platform.

Many might have stayed in bed; cranked up the central heating; and turned on the television. But just watching winter’s worst through the double glazing…

Hello there, sepia and sunshine is my title and that's about how it was at Old Moor today...along with quite a lot of rain. As you can imagine, when the sun came out it was very welcome! Spirits lifted, water droplets sparkled, reflections were in the puddles and the birds seemed to smile. It was quite cold too. Early on there was quite a bit of ice around the reserve but as the rain fell, the temperature lifted enough…

…It seems quite a lot when I start to look back!

Here’s a roundup of the reserve team’s activities since last summer.

At the end of august we extended and roofed the screen in the Education woodland to stop the children (and staff!) getting wet. This is not an area with public access and is roughly beyond the cowslip pylon.

September was a busy time as trees and bushes grow over the spring…

It should have been an ordinary day. A “get to Old Moor - do a bit of birding - take some pics for the blog - get home and write it” kind of day.

But then, just as I arrived at Old Moor’s Visitor Centre, the news of a female smew at Adwick Washland broke. Cue rapid change of plans, perhaps even a comedy u-turn in the car park and a speedy trip to Adwick.

At that point in proceedings, the skies over…

Hello there, I've just spoken to Lauren in the Visitor Centre and she told me that they have had 'all weathers' at Old Moor today except fog. It sounded pretty dramatic actually so here is the weather list from today to get us started!

Sleet, snow, hail, thunder, lightening, sunshine, wind and rain, lots of rain... but no fog.

No fog, but everything else! If you visited today then bravo and I hope you were…