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Yahoo
27-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Bringing back the birds: the ‘ghost woodlands' transforming England's barren sheep fells
The Howgill Fells are a smooth, treeless cluster of hills in the Yorkshire Dales national park, so bald and lumpy that they are sometimes described as a herd of sleeping elephants. Their bare appearance – stark even by UK standards – has been shaped by centuries of sheep grazing. Yet beneath the soil lie ancient tree roots: the silent traces of long-lost 'ghost woodlands'. Over the past 12 years, 300,000 native trees have been planted by the project Now, these woodlands are being encouraged to grow again. Over the past 12 years, 300,000 native trees have been planted across these hills in sheep-free enclosures. The results are beginning to be seen: birds and flowers are returning. Birdsong ripples through the valley as first light spills over a ridge line and on to 26 hectares (64 acres) of fenced-off land near Tebay village. Meadow pipits, reed buntings and stonechats are among the choristers. A flush of cotton grass bobs in the morning breeze and a stonechat fledgling clings to a spindly branch, shrieking for a parent. 'We've been conditioned to see the uplands as barren for much of the year. It needn't be that way,' says ecologist Mike Douglas from South Lakes Ecology, who is monitoring birds in the enclosures. 'We are 10 years into what was ecologically very damaged land,' says Douglas, who is conducting his first of four surveys for the 2025 season. As the trees grow within the enclosures, birds and flowers are returning to the landscape Big rewilding projects often happen on private land with limited public access. These enclosures are a result of agreements reached between dozens of farmers on common land with public access. 'Doing so much tree-planting on a common was groundbreaking,' says Peter Leeson from the Woodland Trust. 'People hadn't been doing this in the uplands before at this scale.' Farmer and conservation collaboration is the real joy. We want the same things Peter Leeson Bluebells are popping up and there are patches of bracken, which suggest the soils and seed banks retain the memory of being a woodland despite hundreds of years of sheep grazing. 'We call these memories 'ghost woodlands',' says Leeson. These ancient woodland indicators could offer a blueprint of where trees should return. Ecologist Mike Douglas records birdsong on his phone Each year, Douglas is finding more breeding birds moving in. Last year, there were 14 breeding species here. Before the enclosure was created, he says, just four would have been found: meadow pipit, skylarks, wren and grey wagtails. Eleven new breeding bird species have been recorded since the original 2016 survey, with numbers increasing year-on-year. 'I'm surprised by how quickly birds have colonised, and the diversity of species,' says Douglas. Tree planting covers 12% of the entire 128-hectare (316-acre) fell. The enclosures were possible thanks to a 10-year government agri-environment scheme, signed by farmers with grazing rights to the fell as part of the Tebay Common Grazing Association, and the owner of the fell, Lonsdale Estates, supported and monitored by the Woodland Trust. Clockwise from main image: A female stonechat calls from a bilberry bush; a meadow pipit nest with three eggs hidden in deep grass; a green veined white butterfly on a cuckoo flower; a stonechat flicking it wings while making a call similar to two stones being struck together; a green hairstreak butterfly Leeson says schemes like this could be echoed in other upland areas, which cover more than a third of the UK and are generally grazed or managed so woodlands are suppressed. 'This is a wonderful exemplar of what could happen – if we choose to,' he says. Related: 'Un-managing the land': sheep make way for trees in Cumbria's uplands Across Europe, conflicts between farmers and conservationists are increasing due to the need for maintaining food production while creating space for nature. This conflict tends to be especially pronounced in the uplands because the land is relatively unproductive for farming. 'Farmer and conservation collaboration is the real joy,' Leeson says. 'We want the same things. We want to be listened to, and heard and involved. I'd say we're friends now.' John Capstick, chair of the Ravenstonedale Common Graziers Association, which hosts 187 hectares (462 acres) of fenced off land, says at first some farmers 'were dead against it being fenced off. They were frightened it was an ulterior motive to get sheep off the fell.' Now, 'there is the odd one who still whines,' but most are happy, he says. In fact, the trees are not proving a threat to hill farming. The money is a lifeline for farmers, who earn as little as £7,500 a year from selling sheep and have been reliant on disappearing government subsidies. The Tebay scheme provides payments of £25,600 a year for maintaining the trees and fences and for loss of grazing rights, which are shared equally between the landowner and the farmers. For now, semi-feral fell ponies are kept out of the new woodland with fencing Twenty-five years ago, there were 25 farmers on Tebay common. Now there are 10. For those who still graze on the common, the payments are 'keeping them going', says Tim Winder, chair of the Tebay Common Grazing Association, whose father's family have been farming for as long as they can remember. Now, Winder is working with researchers on using the fells for peatland restoration and natural flood management. 'We have to look at different ways of farming,' he says. 'We'll invite anyone to work with us.' Meadow pipits in one of the young trees. In time, more common birds such as tits, dunnocks and blackbirds will nest here In the years to come, patches of mature woodland and scrubland will develop here, and common birds such as great tits, blue tits, dunnocks and blackbirds, will move in, says Douglas. It is a mystery what these hills may have looked like hundreds of years ago – no detailed historical records exist. Ghost woodlands speak of not only what has been lost, but what could one day return. 'This was a leap in the dark for the farmers, as much as anyone else,' says Leeson. 'Hats off to them.' Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow the biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield in the Guardian app for more nature coverage
The Guardian
26-05-2025
- General
- The Guardian
Bringing back the birds: the ‘ghost woodlands' transforming England's barren sheep fells
The Howgill Fells are a smooth, treeless cluster of hills in the Yorkshire Dales national park, so bald and lumpy that they are sometimes described as a herd of sleeping elephants. Their bare appearance – stark even by UK standards – has been shaped by centuries of sheep grazing. Yet beneath the soil lie ancient tree roots: the silent traces of long-lost 'ghost woodlands'. Over the past 12 years, 300,000 native trees have been planted by the project Now, these woodlands are being encouraged to grow again. Over the past 12 years, 300,000 native trees have been planted across these hills in sheep-free enclosures. The results are beginning to be seen: birds and flowers are returning. Birdsong ripples through the valley as first light spills over a ridge line and on to 26 hectares (64 acres) of fenced-off land near Tebay village. Meadow pipits, reed buntings and stonechats are among the choristers. A flush of cotton grass bobs in the morning breeze and a stonechat fledgling clings to a spindly branch, shrieking for a parent. 'We've been conditioned to see the uplands as barren for much of the year. It needn't be that way,' says ecologist Mike Douglas from South Lakes Ecology, who is monitoring birds in the enclosures. 'We are 10 years into what was ecologically very damaged land,' says Douglas, who is conducting his first of four surveys for the 2025 season. As the trees grow within the enclosures, birds and flowers are returning to the landscape Big rewilding projects often happen on private land with limited public access. These enclosures are a result of agreements reached between dozens of farmers on common land with public access. 'Doing so much tree-planting on a common was groundbreaking,' says Peter Leeson from the Woodland Trust. 'People hadn't been doing this in the uplands before at this scale.' Bluebells are popping up and there are patches of bracken, which suggest the soils and seed banks retain the memory of being a woodland despite hundreds of years of sheep grazing. 'We call these memories 'ghost woodlands',' says Leeson. These ancient woodland indicators could offer a blueprint of where trees should return. Ecologist Mike Douglas records birdsong on his phone Each year, Douglas is finding more breeding birds moving in. Last year, there were 14 breeding species here. Before the enclosure was created, he says, just four would have been found: meadow pipit, skylarks, wren and grey wagtails. Eleven new breeding bird species have been recorded since the original 2016 survey, with numbers increasing year-on-year. 'I'm surprised by how quickly birds have colonised, and the diversity of species,' says Douglas. Tree planting covers 12% of the entire 128-hectare (316-acre) fell. The enclosures were possible thanks to a 10-year government agri-environment scheme, signed by farmers with grazing rights to the fell as part of the Tebay Common Grazing Association, and the owner of the fell, Lonsdale Estates, supported and monitored by the Woodland Trust. Clockwise from main image: A female stonechat calls from a bilberry bush; a meadow pipit nest with three eggs hidden in deep grass; a green veined white butterfly on a cuckoo flower; a stonechat flicking it wings while making a call similar to two stones being struck together; a green hairstreak butterfly Leeson says schemes like this could be echoed in other upland areas, which cover more than a third of the UK and are generally grazed or managed so woodlands are suppressed. 'This is a wonderful exemplar of what could happen – if we choose to,' he says. Across Europe, conflicts between farmers and conservationists are increasing due to the need for maintaining food production while creating space for nature. This conflict tends to be especially pronounced in the uplands because the land is relatively unproductive for farming. 'Farmer and conservation collaboration is the real joy,' Leeson says. 'We want the same things. We want to be listened to, and heard and involved. I'd say we're friends now.' John Capstick, chair of the Ravenstonedale Common Graziers Association, which hosts 187 hectares (462 acres) of fenced off land, says at first some farmers 'were dead against it being fenced off. They were frightened it was an ulterior motive to get sheep off the fell.' Now, 'there is the odd one who still whines,' but most are happy, he says. In fact, the trees are not proving a threat to hill farming. The money is a lifeline for farmers, who earn as little as £7,500 a year from selling sheep and have been reliant on disappearing government subsidies. The Tebay scheme provides payments of £25,600 a year for maintaining the trees and fences and for loss of grazing rights, which are shared equally between the landowner and the farmers. For now, semi-feral fell ponies are kept out of the new woodland with fencing Twenty-five years ago, there were 25 farmers on Tebay common. Now there are 10. For those who still graze on the common, the payments are 'keeping them going', says Tim Winder, chair of the Tebay Common Grazing Association, whose father's family have been farming for as long as they can remember. Now, Winder is working with researchers on using the fells for peatland restoration and natural flood management. 'We have to look at different ways of farming,' he says. 'We'll invite anyone to work with us.' Meadow pipits in one of the young trees. In time, more common birds such as tits, dunnocks and blackbirds will nest here In the years to come, patches of mature woodland and scrubland will develop here, and common birds such as great tits, blue tits, dunnocks and blackbirds, will move in, says Douglas. It is a mystery what these hills may have looked like hundreds of years ago – no detailed historical records exist. Ghost woodlands speak of not only what has been lost, but what could one day return. 'This was a leap in the dark for the farmers, as much as anyone else,' says Leeson. 'Hats off to them.' Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow the biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield in the Guardian app for more nature coverage
Times
24-05-2025
- Times
Are we nearly there yet? These service stations are worth stopping at
You don't go to buy knobbly condoms from the vending machines in the gents. You don't go to pick up leaflets on nearby animal attractions of dubious welfare standards from the racks at the entrance. And you sure as Shell don't go to play the fruit machines and arcade games in the 'FunZone' (a racing simulator? After we've just done three hours on the M4? Are you having a laugh?). No, you visit a motorway service station because you're hungry, you're bored, you're tired, you want a wee, and your other half's overpacking — and your subsequent sharing of the footwell with two suitcases and a boules set — means that you lost sensation in your left leg two traffic jams ago. In short, you hit that exit on to the slip road out of naked need, not wild desire. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't shop around ('Just hold it in for another 18 miles, darling!'), because a survey from the consumer group Which? this bank holiday weekend reveals (reveals!) that some rest stops are better than others. The M5's Gloucester services comes out on top — no surprise to those who've experienced the cheese and patisserie counters in its farmshop, which make it basically the Fortnum's of the forecourt world. Bottom is Moto's Bridgwater services (also on the M5), where survey respondents noted that the toilets 'smelt of stale urine'. (They wanted fresh urine?) Lancaster (M6) and Leeming Bar (A1(M)) join Bridgwater at the bottom of the table, putting the pits into pitstop (I said pits); while Tebay and Rugby (both M6) are kings of the road(chef) at No 2 and No 3, with wood, glass and sourdough combining to create spaces of natural daylight that smell of geraniums, not regret. From Watford Gap to Scotch Corner, though, whether you're looking at a bog-standard Wild Bean Café or one of those exotic ones that has a Chopstix, what they all have in common is their commonality. Service stations remain one of the country's last great levellers: a place where truckers, toddlers, goths, golfers, CEOs, stag doers, and retired people picking out matching pastel fleeces from Cotton Traders all share loo queues, sandwich shelves and even the odd tight-lipped half-smile of fellow-feeling. Roadside is where we all come together — not by choice, obviously, but in that uniquely British, mutual-eyeroll, make-the-best-of-it, 'well at least there's a WH Smith' sort of way. • Road trips? I've done them for decades. Here's what I've learnt Italian Autogrills might serve espresso so smooth that it could charm your nonna, and German Rasthofs may be cleaner than most Harley Street clinics, but the tiny scale of our islands means that every stop here is a significant step on our way, a 'Not much further! Might as well get a mint Magnum!' moment of marked progress. They're a place where calories don't count and time doesn't exist — but they're also the great markers of its passing, the milestones in our life journeys. School trip? Bundle off the bus for those first breaths of independence and pawfuls of sweets your parents would never let you have. Off to university? Skid into Phone Tech and browse the baffling range of wires for that charging cable forgotten amid the excitement and nerves. Wedding season? Pull in to redo your tie or hat before arriving, because you'll be looking at these photos for the rest of your life. Fiftieth birthdays? Too harried to shop properly, so a last-minute gift (they'll love that half-price Anton Du Beke book). On the way back from a funeral? Have an appropriately mournful cardboard cuppa at a picnic table by the car park, contemplating mortality and how on earth Costa can charge almost £5 for this. So no, our service stations aren't pretty, or welcoming, or even — in the case of a full 43 of those looked at by Which? — acceptably clean. But they're important. They're human. They're ours. • Read our full travel guide to the UK Which is your favourite service station in the UK? Let us know in the comments
The Guardian
22-05-2025
- The Guardian
Gloucester ranked best motorway service station in Great Britain
There are less than 80 miles between them, but the gulf in quality is massive, according to a Which? survey that ranked Gloucester services top of the stops, and Bridgwater bottom. For many people motorway service stations are a place to take a break, grab a snack and use the toilet, but the rankings from the consumer recommendation group, which surveyed users of nearly 100 service stations across Great Britain, highlight the best and worst. The gulf in standards is vast, with some described as 'perfect to break up your journey' while others 'look and feel filthy' and smell of 'stale urine'. The rankings place Gloucester higher than 89 competitors, awarding it five-star ratings in several categories such as shops, food and drink, facilities, cleanliness, convenience and accessibility, and outside space. The M5 service station, which earned an overall rating of 85%, is owned by Westmorland Family, which also owns Tebay services in Cumbria and Cairn Lodge in Lanarkshire, which finished second and fourth respectively. They are joined in the top five by Rugby services, owned by Moto, in third and Extra's Leeds Skelton Lake in fifth. Moto's Rugby branch is one of 37 stations the company owns that are spread across the list, including nine in the bottom 10. Moto's Bridgwater station in Somerset ranked last, with a customer score of 23% and one-star ratings across all categories. Only slightly above is Leeming Ba in North Yorkshire, also ranked one star across the board and with a score of 26%. The rankings were compiled by more than 4,000 Which? members based on their experiences during a combined 9,000 visits to service stations across Great Britain. Ken McMeikan, the chief executive of Moto Hospitality, said the survey results used a smaller pool of respondents than a previous study that ranked Moto stations highly, and that the company was investing heavily in improving the facilities of its branches, where cleanliness was mentioned by numerous respondents as an issue. 'The most recent independent Transport Focus study, conducted in the summer of 2023, surveyed a significantly larger group than the Which? panel,' he said. 'Moto achieved an average customer satisfaction score of 94% across our motorway service areas. This feedback highlights the positive impact of our ongoing efforts. 'We are committed to reviewing the specific issues raised by the Which? panel and will continue to strive for enhancements across all sites. Our goal is to ensure that we always meet the high standards and expectations that our customers deserve.'
