Daffodils

As promised in the Autumn issue, daffodil bulb planting has taken place on some of the local roadside verges. An energetic team has planted over 2000 bulbs.

The areas concentrated on this year have been Limb Lane (on the steep slope and at the entrance to the Picnic Area) and Cross Lane (from the corner by Causeway Head Road towards Hathersage Road). In addition there has been planting to the verge in front of Limpits Cottage (at the corner of Causeway Head Road and Rushley Road).

Thank you to all who have dug, made donations, and avoided the planters with your cars! It will be interesting to see what the squirrels have left, and what the Spring brings.

David Heslop

Flower Tubs in Dore

This year, the Village was once again decorated with flower tubs throughout the summer months, enlivening the scenery and giving pleasure to all who passed by. The flowers were supplied and managed by the City Council Horticultural Department. The money to pay for these services is raised by donations from individuals, local shops, businesses, churches, and associations within Dore. £987 was raised this year to provide 14 flower tubs.

Because the idea has been such a success, the Dore Village Society is confident that residents would want the flowers to be an annual feature. Liaison with the Council is quite simple and once the details have been agreed with the Horticultural Department, they take over all responsibility. The bill for their services is not presented by the Council until several weeks after flower tubs have been taken away, giving ample time for donations to be collected.

Is their any Dore resident who would like to take on this interesting role? If so, please ring George Elsdon 0114 236 0002.

Farming Notes

Anthrax is headline news at the moment. In the farming world anthrax has long been an occupational hazard, it's commonly found in soils and livestock. We used to deliver pigs to Sheffield abattoir and in the lairage, the holding pens for livestock awaiting slaughter, there were large pictures of anthrax lesions on human skin to let you know what to look for if you caught it. It started off as a red bruise, then grew to an inflamed blister and then developed a black centre, which apparently gives it the name in Greek. Although it's a serious disease in cattle we always understood it wasn't particularly dangerous in people as long we had it seen to in time.

We had a case on our farm 40 years ago. At that time we had a herd of Guernsey cows and kept a Guernsey stock bull. I watered him at ten o'clock in the morning, I led him up the yard to the trough for his morning drink and then put him back in his loose box and fed him. He was completely normal, nothing wrong at all. I next looked in at him at 3 o'clock in the afternoon and couldn't believe my eyes. He was stone cold dead. We called the vet. He took a blood smear from it's ear and examined through his microscope on our kitchen table and said it looked like anthrax. I had a look and could clearly see the distinctive rod shaped bacteria.

When you get sudden death in cattle it's the first thing you suspect. Anthrax is a notifiable disease so our vet called in a ministry vet who agreed with his diagnosis and sent off a blood smear to a lab for final confirmation. Normally deadstock goes to the kennels at Horsleygate but in this case the carcase had to be incinerated so the ministry vet called the councils refuse department who sent a lorry. Because of the position of the loose box they couldn't get the lorry to it, so I had to put a chain round the bulls neck and drag it out with the tractor. Then it was winched on to the lorry and off it went. Another council man sprayed a bit of disinfectant around for a few minutes and that was it. No injections or any follow up.

The most likely source of the infection was the feed so we contacted Yorkshire Farmers who supplied us with cow cake and claimed £90 off them. Somewhat to our surprise they paid up without any fuss. It transpired it was quite a common event for them, they'd had 12 cases that year. They bought their soya meal from AOM, Africa Oil Mills, who in turn imported it from Kenya where anthrax was endemic.
I never heard of a farmer catching anthrax, or a slaughterman, so I've always taken tales of it being a deadly biological weapon with a pinch of salt, but we've all been learning from the papers this week that it does have more dangerous forms. Nevertheless it's not an easy disease to catch and the general air of panic whipped up by the press is decidedly OTT.

One thing this whole scare is reminding us of is the danger of being dependant on imported food. British farmers produce food to the highest standards in the world but are completely at the mercy of the supermarket buyers who will ship product in from Timbuctoo if they can get it a penny cheaper. In a bureaucratic world everything depends on the paperwork, but
it's far easier to check on stuff that's come from just down the road than if it's come from the Far East. The housewife pays enough money in the shops to pay everyone in the food chain, but the farmer being at the far end of that chain doesn't get his fair share, so the only way he can stay in business is by being dependant on subsidies.

Ironically as the foot and mouth disease outbreak is coming to a close, the government asked Lord Haskins for ideas on what to do in the future. His main recommendation was to close down livestock markets. These are the last vestiges of fair trading for farmers. To get a group of buyers together bidding against each other is the only way of getting a fair market price, and the seller is paid immediately at the fall of the hammer. For years the wholesale buyers have been trying to bypass markets and buy direct. That way they tell the farmer how much they are going to pay him, take it or leave it, and make him wait 6 weeks for his money. Lord Haskins owns Northern Foods Ltd.

Richard Farnsworth

Blacka Moor Reserve

Despite its industrial past Sheffield is renowned as one of the greenest cities in the country, successfully integrating the environment in to a highly urban setting.

In recognition of this, Sheffield Wildlife Trust (SWT) has been awarded a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund in order to establish nine new nature reserves across the city. As part of a national association of Wildlife Trusts working across the UK, SWT aims to promote conservation, advance education and improve the quality of life for local people.

Blacka Moor, located to the west of Totley and Dore, is one of the newly established nature reserves. Its varied landscapes of heathland, wetland and woodland provide both wildlife and recreational value. The breeding bird populations, upland vegetation, invertebrates, and geological features have led to the site being designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest and a Special Protection Area.
It is also a candidate Special Area of Conservation. These designations provide a high level of legal protection on a European scale, reflecting its wildlife value. Rare and declining species, such as the skylark, linnet, curlew, lapwing and adder depend on the moorlands and maintaining this habitat will be key to their continued presence in the area.

Recreational use of Blacka Moor dates back to the land being given to the people of Sheffield by Alderman Graves. A long history of recreational use from walking and picnics to horse riding and mountain biking, have taken advantage of the naturalness and tranquillity of the moor.

Although currently owned by Sheffield City Council, the moor will be leased to SWT for 30 years, allowing the Trust to invest time and money in to improving access on to and around the new reserve and maintaining the quality of the experience for people visiting the moor.
The success of Blacka Moor as a recreational and wildlife resource will depend on maintaining access and the variety of habitats. Through extensive consultation SWT has written a draft management plan outlining the future management proposals. These are centred on low intensity seasonal grazing of the moorland by cattle, maintaining open and free access for all recreational pursuits as far as possible and encouraging the community, site users and other interested parties in becoming actively involved in the management of this unique and emotive landscape.

For more information regarding Blacka Moor or the Nature Reserves Project please contact Scott Porter, Community Wildlife Ranger on 0114 263 4335.

www.wildlifetrust.org.uk/sheffield

The Wildlife Garden

Many years ago when I was a student, one of my summer jobs was sickle-weeding in the forests of North Nottinghamshire. Weeds surrounding the young trees had to be removed by hand, so that the saplings could grow unhindered and this was done by gangs of men walking up and down the long plantation rows, cutting away the weeds with razor-sharp sickles. Sounds easy, but apart from being back-breaking and extremely tedious, sometimes the trees would be so engulfed in bramble thickets, finding the small oak or chestnut sapling was rather like looking for a spindly needle in a very thorny haystack.

Nevertheless, the job did have some compensations, such as watching shy deer grazing in the early morning mist; finding bizarre-looking hawkmoth caterpillars amongst the leaves of hedgerow plants or simply listening to the sound of the wind whistling through the tree tops. For me though, the highlight of the week had to be on Friday afternoons. Some of my co-workers would bring along bottles of home-made wine and after we had finished work, it was time to taste and ostensibly comment on their efforts. To be honest, after the third glass I couldn't tell if I was drinking a sumptuous strawberry wine or pickling vinegar.

But in spite of our peaceful work environment, there were two things that would frighten us. The first was thunderstorms, because there was nowhere to shelter from lightning except beneath the branches of isolated trees and the second was wasp nests. Occasionally, as we were cutting back the undergrowth, there would be a frantic cry of 'Wasps!' and all work would stop as we beat a hasty retreat. In the meantime, the foreman would, albeit somewhat reluctantly, approach the nest and spray it with poison until all the wasps were dead. Being young and somewhat naive, I never questioned both actions. Sheltering under a tall tree in a thunderstorm may well keep you dry, but it isn't exactly the safest place to hide and what threat were the wasps, other than a temporary inconvenience to my group of sickle-weeders?

Of course wasp nests are not just destroyed by forest workers, they are likely to suffer the same fate wherever they are found. A number of species of British social wasps make their nests in the ground, where they usually take over abandoned mouse holes, whilst others build theirs either inside hollow trees or hanging from branches and occasionally inside house roofs, attached to a rafter. Last summer a colony made their home in my roof-space, having found their way in through a hole in the mortar between the brickwork. Apart from keeping my window closed to prevent the workers inadvertently flying inside (invariably drowning themselves in a cup of coffee) and the scraping noises they made as they rasped wood from the rafters to make their elaborate paper nest, I hardly knew they were there.

It is understandable that people who are allergic to wasp-stings are frightened of these insects and it is also true that occasionally some gardeners have been badly stung after inadvertently disturbing a nest, but what a waste when a colony is destroyed. Wasp nests can house up to 20,000 individuals and the developing young are all fed on meat - carrion, insects and caterpillars, many of which are garden pests. Research at the University of Wisconsin showed that if suitable nest sites for wasps were provided near cabbage fields, more colonies would survive and this resulted in a dramatic decrease in the number of plants damaged by pests.

The problem with wasps is that they have a 'sweet tooth'. Whilst the colony is developing, individual workers occasionally visit flowers for nectar or feed off the sweet saliva produced by young wasp larvae. However, once the nest reaches its ultimate size at the end of summer, the workers don't have any young to feed and like bored teenagers hanging around bus shelters with time on their hands, this is when they can cause problems. To satisfy their sugar cravings, they will feed on ripe garden fruit or fly into our homes through open windows or doors, which often ends up with them getting stuck in the jam pot. Nevertheless, the workers quickly die off with the onset of cold weather, whilst the young queens find a safe place to hibernate, usually in a pile of stones or wood, until they emerge the following spring.
As well as facing persecution by man, wasps together with other predatory insects, face another threat: the weather. Cold, wet summers cause real problems for large, active insects. Heavy rain can physically knock them to the ground and as a result of constant soakings, many adults die of cold. Nests can be flooded out and the wet weather also encourages diseases to spread amongst the developing larvae. This results in wasp numbers crashing and without these predatory insects, pests become as numerous as cars on the M25 at rush-hour.
It is usually difficult to find a single aphid in my garden as the birds search every nook and cranny for food, but on some plants which they have problems clambering through, such as nasturtiums, aphid numbers can increase rapidly. Wasps, hoverfly larvae and ladybirds usually keep these pests under control, but during our last cold, wet summer I saw few of these predatory insects, which meant my nasturtiums and other bedding plants were inundated with them.

So, perhaps the sting in the tail of the wasp story is that just as it isn't wise to stand under a large, isolated tree during a thunderstorm, neither is it such a good idea to destroy wasp nests; that is of course unless you want to encourage aphids, cabbage caterpillars and the like in your garden.

Jack Dore

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