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THE YORKSHIRE WOLDS
Bishop David Lunn
By 1807 almost all trhe Open Fields of the Wolds Villages had been enclosed. People can still argue whether this was good news or bad for those who lived here. But certainly it gave us the pattern of fields. hedges and farms that we still have today and the birds who have learned to thrive on the wide open spaces of the open fields of the High Wolds, We can mark this bi-centenary by remembering our lost birds.
We have a good guide in the Revd. W. Roberts, who was vicar of Foxholes from 1895 till 1934. At some point (? 1920) he wrote down in am splendid copper-plate hand his, “ Historic Notices of Foxholes”. He never published them, and it is only recently that they have been re-discovered. They begin with these notable sentences about the Wolds and its birds:
“Almost within living memory the Wolds was little more than a grassy and stony sheepwalk, where it is stated ’a man might ride for thirty miles at stretch without meeting an obstruction’ In those days the Yorkshire Wolds, had a fauna of its own that was essentially characteristic. Vast flocks of dotterel annually appeared .and the Stone Curlew rested on the stony grass grown sheep walks before they were enclosed in numbers elsewhere unknown. Now (? 1920) the visits of the botterell are as rare s those of the angels. If a pair of “Thick Knees” (local name of the Stone Curlew) are found nesting in some remote corner, the secret is locked carefully in the bosom of the lucky discoverer. But the most notable figure of the Wolds has altogether passed away. Never shall we have the experience of Miss Charlotte Rickaby who tells us that at the beginning of the last century (? 1805) she was riding with her father from Bridlington to Flamborough and she there saw 15 Great Bustards together, giant birds that, in the distance, reminded the onlooker of fallow deer It was in 1833 that the Vicar of Reighton received from Sir William Strickland an invitation to dine on Great Bustard ‘the last of its race’.
The Dotterell Inn at Reighton and several Dotterel Farms preserve the memory of the vast flocks of Dotterell that used to settle on the Wolds each spring and autumn as they passed from North Africa to their breeding grounds on the Scottish mountains. The trips were highly faithful to a number of stop-over localities and. apparently ‘one old haunt near Reighton is said to have attracted gamekeepers from a wide area, prompting the building of the Dotterel Inn to accommodate them. ‘ Fimber had a Dotterell field. But the 19th century historian records that after the enclosure of the fields the Dotterells never came again. The name was meant to suggest they were a bit “Dotty” and easily caught. Sadly, being thought of as a great delicacy , in the early 19th Century they were hunted almost to extinction. The Great Bustard was even less fortunate. This huge bird - weighing up to 39 lbs (18 kilos) - and “at a great distance upon the open plain presenting much the appearance of sheep” was a nervous and cautious bird that needed a wide horizon. The enclosure of the open fields and the fact they were very good to eat spelt their doom. By the end of the 1840’s they were extinct.
But there are still Great Bustards in Russia and in Spain and there are attempts to get them back, first to Salisbury plain and then to Yorkshire. Stone Curlews and Great Bustards often live in the same surroundings. Their chosen nesting places are where stony ground has had its grass well chewed up by sheep and rabbits. They too found the post enclosure ploughed up sheep walks not to their liking.
I fear it is a lost cause: but after two hundred years it would be good to have the Great Bustard and the Dotterell and the Stone Curlew here again. Give us back our lost birds.!
We have a good guide in the Revd. W. Roberts, who was vicar of Foxholes from 1895 till 1934. At some point (? 1920) he wrote down in am splendid copper-
“Almost within living memory the Wolds was little more than a grassy and stony sheepwalk, where it is stated ’a man might ride for thirty miles at stretch without meeting an obstruction’ In those days the Yorkshire Wolds, had a fauna of its own that was essentially characteristic. Vast flocks of dotterel annually appeared .and the Stone Curlew rested on the stony grass grown sheep walks before they were enclosed in numbers elsewhere unknown. Now (? 1920) the visits of the botterell are as rare s those of the angels. If a pair of “Thick Knees” (local name of the Stone Curlew) are found nesting in some remote corner, the secret is locked carefully in the bosom of the lucky discoverer. But the most notable figure of the Wolds has altogether passed away. Never shall we have the experience of Miss Charlotte Rickaby who tells us that at the beginning of the last century (? 1805) she was riding with her father from Bridlington to Flamborough and she there saw 15 Great Bustards together, giant birds that, in the distance, reminded the onlooker of fallow deer It was in 1833 that the Vicar of Reighton received from Sir William Strickland an invitation to dine on Great Bustard ‘the last of its race’.
The Dotterell Inn at Reighton and several Dotterel Farms preserve the memory of the vast flocks of Dotterell that used to settle on the Wolds each spring and autumn as they passed from North Africa to their breeding grounds on the Scottish mountains. The trips were highly faithful to a number of stop-
But there are still Great Bustards in Russia and in Spain and there are attempts to get them back, first to Salisbury plain and then to Yorkshire. Stone Curlews and Great Bustards often live in the same surroundings. Their chosen nesting places are where stony ground has had its grass well chewed up by sheep and rabbits. They too found the post enclosure ploughed up sheep walks not to their liking.
I fear it is a lost cause: but after two hundred years it would be good to have the Great Bustard and the Dotterell and the Stone Curlew here again. Give us back our lost birds.!