Hutton Roof Bird walk

Hutton Roof Bird walk

2 -WildNet - Dave Appleton

Hutton Roof reserve visit and bird walk with the wonderful Bryan Yorke.

Jamie Normington had very kindly organised for a few members of staff to take part in a bird walk. Both me and Sian were included in the group and were excited to see the Hutton Roof reserve for the first time. This was also a great opportunity to meet people from various departments at the trust who otherwise we wouldn’t usually get to know.
Once arriving on sight we met up with the very knowledgeable Bryan Yorke. Bryan has done a tremendous amount of voluntary work collecting data on bird migrations over the Hutton roof area.

We set off from the car park at around 10:30am and almost immediately bumped into some Fieldfare and Redwing. These were new birds to both me and Sian so it was great to spot them. We were also given a beginners guide to ferns. Bryan has also done a lot of work observing orchid hybridisation on Hutton Roof. There was no sign of them at this time of year yet it was really interesting to see some photos of some hybrid orchids.
As we neared the top of Dalton crag the landscape opened out dense forest was replaced with some beautiful limestone Clints and Grykes. Bryan showed us some of the rare ferns found at Hutton Roof that live exclusively in these Grykes.

Hutton Roof 2017 bird watching

Hutton Roof 2017 bird watching

Upon reaching the very top Bryan told us a little about the Great Grey Shrike that visits Hutton Roof every other winter or so. The Shrike or Butcher bird is a rare visitor to the British Isles so it’s great to see a small population visiting in the winter months.

The day was concluded with a thank you to Bryan and we all headed back to Plumgarths. I highly recommend checking out Bryan’s blog on the ‘http://arnsidesilverdale.blogspot.co.uk/’ website.

About the authors: Sian and Isaac were Aprentice Conservation Officers with the Trust from September 2016 to spring 2018