Take a look, through some of the common species of wildlife that live in the South Yorkshire area around Sheffield and Rotherham.
A recently extended patch of heathland and woodland, neighbouring Wyming Brook.
Help stop the badger cull coming to Sheffield and Rotherham!
Unveil the hidden world of insects in Sheffield & Rotherham with the newest issue of Kingfisher magazine.
We are working to make Ughill Farm a model for how farming and nature can thrive together. By restoring habitats, improving soil health, and adopting flexible farming practices, we’re showing that farming can be both productive and environmentally responsible. Over time we hope Ughill becomes an incredible showcase of sustainable farming, the impact of which will ripple out across the landscape.
The Trust is already working with a number of farms in the area on a DEFRA Environmental Land Management Schemes (ELMS) Test & Trial. We are part of an existing farm cluster group and have built relationships with the local farming community. Owning, managing and using this land for nature friendly farming, will make a significant contribution to our ambition of ensuring 30% of land and water is good for nature by 2030.
In the first full year of ownership, we’ve been busy setting up key infrastructure and securing boundaries.
Our volunteer community has been fantastic, supporting us with essential work including ecological monitoring, habitat management and dry-stone walling. We’re also working with local universities making Ughill Farm a place where students can gain direct experience of ecology, wildlife and land management.
Building a Flexible and Sustainable Farming System
To transform Ughill Farm we’re investing in renewable energy and technology to reduce the farm’s environmental impact whilst also creating and connecting habitat.
We secured a grant from Farming in Protected Landscapes (FiPL) to support the reinstatement of our solar powered water pump. This system allows us to collect water to supply out cattle with fresh water throughout the year without impacting the natural springs provision of water for the residents of Ughill. Being solar powered and having battery storage allows us to use the additional power generated to run electric fencing on site without the need to set up temporary battery systems.
With extensive support from our Volunteer Ranger team we had a successful grazing season and continued to improve the condition of our low input grasslands. This included light cattle grazing across the summer months across some of the farm. Along with the annual hay cut of suitable fields and the targeted removal of some reed, thistle and dock, the status-quo on the farm between grass meadow and scrub has been maintained.
Whilst keeping this baseline of activity we have also sent out teams to across the farm to survey the grasslands and seasonal breeding wading birds. These surveys will give us a clear picture of the state of the farm using two key wildlife grounds, allowing us to clearly track how our future projects improve and change the site.
We are running a novel trial in reverting a heavily modified belt of fields back to a combination of more natural acid grassland pasture and species rich hay meadow. We’ll be using a short-lived but vigorous grass to outcompete the docks and thistles and remnant agricultural crops, then hopefully as this dies back we can ‘innoculate’ the area with seeds from our wildflower meadows. This is a new technique and underpins our ethos for Ughill Farm. As we test this method of improving the quality of the grassland without the need for blanket chemical input, we will be monitoring the results and hope to be able to share our findings with other landowners.
The other key project we have begun to deliver on is the creation of more wetland areas, targeted at boosting suitable habitat for our wading bird populations. We have moved the farm access track to slightly higher ground, leaving behind a large scrape parallel to Wet Shaw Dike. This reduces soil erosion when accessing the farm in winter and the scrape will allow seasonal flooding and the build up of some standing water, to give the dike a larger riparian zone.
We have started planting approx 6,000 trees, primarily focused around the steep or wet ground around Wet Shaw Dike. This new woodland creation has been supported by South Yorkshire Woodland Partnership and will set aside 7ha of previously unused or unmanaged grassland for new woodland. These areas will grow to provide future resilience to climate change on the farm by providing shelter for livestock in both hot and cold conditions, often referred to as ‘green barns’, as well as providing invaluable habitat and carbon storage over their long lifetime.
As the wetland re-naturalises we will monitor progress and carry out small excavation works and plant wetland species to promote the natural processes. We also intend to remove a section of dry stone wall that currently creates a predator corridor (predators of ground nesting birds, such as stoats, do not like to travel across open ground. Instead they stick to cover such as walls only going out a short distance into the open to predate eggs and young).
The existing mature trees at Ughill are all around the same age and the Beech in particular offer only limited ecological interest, we are starting a new project to diversify the woodland structure. This will include:
Dying and deadwood supports a wide range of fungi and larval forms of hover fly and beetle. In addition the physical changes in the timber creates cracks and hollows favored by bats and summer breeding birds such as redstart and little owl. So, in time, our newly planted and existing mature trees will include the other key features of a dynamic and rich woodland ecosystem.
Note:
Furnace Hill is designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) for its dwarf shrub heath and ground nesting birds. The site has not been grazed properly for many years and has become dominated with soft rush and there are currently no ground nesting birds.
In order to begin the process of restoring the SSSI, we plan to reduce the soft rush and grass which currently dominates this part of the farm. This will be done through grazing, mechanical soft rush control, blocking of old braided routes and possible scrape creation.