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WALTON PARK lake is cloudy, stirred up by recent rain. A drake Shoveler swims out for the willows below us as we stand on the path through Stubbs Wood. A couple ask us where they can find the grave of Charles Waterton, the naturalist and traveller, who established his nature reserve here in the 1830s.
In contrast we see no birds on the small shallow lake known as the poll. I'm surprised. It isn't frozen over and it is surrounded by Alder bushes. It has most of the elements you'd try to incorporate if you were designing a wildlife habitat. There's even a boardwalk and a bird hide. Just no visible wildlife. Perhaps it is too exposed to the adjoining path.
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Stout tree roots fill some of the cracks in sandstone in the deep cutting of the now derelict Barnsley Canal, which runs along outside of the high wall of the park on its western boundary. Despite the rains there is little water in this stretch of the canal today. For the benefit of wildlife it would probably benefit from a thorough clear out, despite the disturbance that this would initially create. My friend David is shocked at the change in habitat since his last fishing trip here . . . some thirty years ago.
It seems quiet for birdlife by the canal, although we come across a small flock of Long-tailed Tits and Blue Tits in the old overgrown hedge. Instead I find myself looking at mosses and lichens, which seem more conspicuous at this time of the year. There is a miniature forest of Cladonia lichen on the shady top of the sandstone towpath wall. The cups which hold the spores are shaped like heralds' trumpets.
On Anglers Lake, a large artificial lake created after opencast mining, we see Cormorants, Ruddy Duck, Pochard, Tufted Duck, Wigeon and, not quite outnumbering everything else, lots of Coots. Seventy Canada Geese are standing in a nearby grassy field, where some 30 Redwings and 20 Fieldfares are feeding. A single Grey Heron stands by the fence and thin hedge where a second Heron joins it. Though far from water, the herons seem to favour this open location as a quiet undisturbed spot.