Today we had the second frost of the year, a clear winter day, great for a walk, with the mud frozen solid. I take the bus to Market Weighton to start a route around the Wolds passing through the parish of Nunburnholme. Starting at Market Weighton's church, the route follows the Wolds Way towards the outskirts of town, then almost due north, straight across fields. The winter wheat is sprouting and some Rooks feed in a loose group. I hear the alarm call of a Fieldfare, which sits atop a hedge with a Dunnock and Linnets. Yellowhammers call from the hedges. After crossing the busy Towthorpe Lane, the footpath follows the wavy course of Towthorpe Beck and passes by the site of the medieval village of Towthorpe. This is a very wooded area of the Wolds, with copses and plantations. Next is Londesborough Park, with wide open views and mature trees in parkland. I see the first Red Kite of the day then, gliding towards the lake. Redwings and Fieldfares feed on berries. Near the deer shelter a Mistle Thrush tries unsuccessfully to keep the other thrushes away from yew berries.
I cross the pretty village of Londesborough and take the road towards Nunburnholme. I have been ascending slowly but surely and now I'm reaching the top of the Wolds. I can see for miles across the Vale of York. The sunshine is warming the ground and a vortex of a few crows, a Buzzard and three Red Kites are riding on a thermal, it's an amazing view. A kite flies low over the road, surely eyeing a freshly roadkilled Pheasant. A couple of Tree Sparrows and a Reed Bunting sit atop a hedge. I'm passing by Cleaving Coombe, a valley with unimproved pasture which is a haven for chalkland flowers. It is open access land and a designated Local Wildlife Site I've visited before.
I'm at Nunburnholme, where I have arranged to meet my friend Lori Lawson-Handley for her lunch break. She has set up the table with some delicious food, and we catch up over food and tea. The hour goes quickly and it's time for me to leave for the final stretch of the walk.
I pay a quick visit to Nunburnholme Church, where Francis Orpen Morris, worked as vicar of Nunburnholme from 1854 until his death in 1893. He was an influential - and controversial! - naturalist and conservationist. He wrote popular books on birds (A History of British Birds), butterflies and general natural history. Partly, the success of his books stem from his productive collaboration with award-winning wood-engraver and printer Benjamin Fawcett, at Driffield. Fawcett produced stunning illustrations in vibrant colour, initially by hand colouring the wood engravings, and subsequently adding colour using multiple wood blocks before final hand retouching.
‘In the first half of the present [19th] century few birds were more interesting to those dwelling on the wolds of Yorkshire than the Bustard. During part of that time these birds used to breed in the parish of Nunburnholme, and there are those still living who remember to have seen them in the neighbourhood. It interested my father greatly to learn from one of his parishioners in 1876 [after he had written his book 'A history of British birds] that he remembered a nest of the Bustard having been found in the parish, and described the egg, which he had seen accurately.’
There are no Bustards today, but plenty of Red Kites! It is hard to imagine that only at the turn of the Millennium there were no Red Kites in Yorkshire. In fact, their extinction as a resident bird happened at a similar time than the Great Bustard, and only migrants turned up occasionally after. The timing of the species extinction, and the cause of their demise is described by naturalist and pioneer conservationist Charles Waterton (b. 1782, d.27 1865) of Walton Hall, Wakefield:
'of all the large wild birds which formerly were so common in this part of Yorkshire, the Heron alone can now be seen. The Kite, the Buzzard, and the Raven have been exterminated long ago by our merciless gamekeepers Kites were frequent here in the days of my father; but I, myself, have never seen one near the place.'
In fact, the Red Kite just survived as a resident in the UK in a small population in Wales. Once raptor persecution became illegal, and given that habitat for this mainly scavenging species was plentiful, in the late 20th century, a reintroduction program in England was initiated. Yorkshire joined this effort with 69 young individuals released between 1999 and 2003 at Harewood estate, near Leeds. Shortly after the first releases, several individuals were seen in the southern Wolds, where they settled to breed. The species went from strength to strength and the reintroduction of Red Kites has been a resounding success: in a couple of decades the species went from Endangered to Green listed.
In my walk today, several bird species I saw didn't occur at the turn of the century: Little Egret, Great White Egret and Buzzard. They all have returned on their own steam, taking advantage of reduced persecution and other changes (e.g. Buzzard will have benefited from the banning of DDT and other damaging pesticides in agriculture). They are now part of Yorkshire biodiversity.
Reintroducing the Great Bustard to the Wolds?
The Great Bustard, unlike other species, won't return to the Wolds on its own. Its populations are in decline across its range and its range is contracting. Like the Red Kite, they are very site-faithful, the young return to breed near where they were born, and return to the same place each year. In Spain, which is a current stronghold for Great Bustards, areas suitable for the species are not being recolonised due to this strong site fidelity. If we want to see the Great Bustard returning to the Wolds, a reintroduction program is needed. Such a reintroduction has been achieved in Wiltshire by the Great Bustard Group. There is now a self-sustaining population reintroduced from Russian and Spanish birds. This is a world's first, and any further reintroductions in the UK will benefit from the wealth of experience gathered in the Wiltshire project.
Route. Market Weighton, Londesborough, Nunburnholme Wold, Nunburnholme, Burnby, Hayton. OS Map. 15 km. Sections on country lanes, others across fields or field boundaries. Some gentle uphills and downhills.
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