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Going wild in the heart of the city
About quarter-to-nine in the morning, Jonny Hart-Woods was walking to his office on the east side of Leeds after dropping off his car at a garage.
He was using a footpath which runs along one of the most built-up stretches of the River Aire, familiar territory given that Jonny is environment and heritage manager with British Waterways. As someone who's been interested in nature since boyhood he was alert to the sights and sounds of a fine summer's day.
But the indifference shown by others who were heading to work soon became obvious.
"Near to the Asda building", Jonny tells the story, "there's this little oasis of trees with benches and things, and I saw a pair of mistle thrushes, not really a species you expect to see everywhere in a city centre. Then, suddenly, this big magpie caught one
of them.
"Now it's not often you see a magpie taking something as big as a mistle thrush, so I was pretty gobsmacked. I looked around me to see the expressions of other people who were there. I thought they probably couldn't believe their eyes either and I was ready to say 'Wow! What did you think of that?'
"But everyone I saw was either wired up to an MP3 player, or talking on their mobiles, or texting. I don't think people are opening their eyes to what's around them in the city."
Jonny is a regular attendee at meetings aimed at developing biodiversity strategies in Yorkshire, which are important when planners are deciding whether a building development will impact on wildlife.
"Once people start tuning out of what's going around them, after a while they will decide it doesn't matter if there's something that threatens things like otters or kingfishers or whatever. It's a worrying process, and we need to somehow reactivate people's interest."
The problem is, Jonny adds, that there's been so much redevelopment along the River Aire's three-mile passage through central Leeds that many wrongly assume there's no wildlife among the chic waterside flats and offices.
To demonstrate what can be seen, Jonny takes a circular walk from his offices on the other side of the river from the Royal Armouries. at Clarence Dock.
Within a few steps of his office stands a small block of trees right on the waterfront – things like alders and crack willows – just before Crown Point Bridge. There are goldfinches, greenfinches, wrens and dunnocks in there, and at the start of the year Jonny found an over-wintering blackcap and its warbler cousin, the chiffchaff.
"They were remarkable observations", he says, "because not only should they have gone to Africa for the winter but also they had chosen to stay right in the centre of the city, which obviously produces enough heat for the insects that they feed on. Wildlife is attracted to it because it's more hospitable in cold weather."
Beneath the trees grow irises, some giant hogweed and garlic mustard. Butterflies like orange tips and common blues have been seen here.
Before he walks on, a small party of house sparrows moves into the trees. Twenty years ago they would have hardly warranted a second glance, but now house sparrows are on the decline because buildings in towns and cities are better maintained and there are fewer nooks and crannies for them to build nests.
Opposite the block trees is a weir at which a raft of flotsam has accumulated, offering a rich feeding ground for mallards, moorhens, grey and pied wagtails. In the summer, dragonflies and damselflies alight on the rubbish.
Crossing to the south bank, he points to a magpie's nest high on the Royal Armouries building, and a painted lady butterfly flitting past.
A patch of grass and weeds surrounded by concrete has some clover – a rich source of food for the threatened bumble bee.
"Wildlife is opportunistic," Jonny says. "The slightest corner of unmanaged greenery will be exploited, which is why people should keep their eyes open when walking around a seemingly built-up area."
He points out another good example – some fronds of buddleia, which sprout from cracks in the mortar of the river walls, providing food for butterflies.
Walking eastwards to the next bridge over the Aire, one carrying a new extension of the city's ring road, Jonny passes blocks of student flats. The riverbank vegetation includes giant hogweed,
field mallow, mugwort, buttercups, teasel and more clover. At least one otter has been observed along this path, cormorants are regularly seen flying upstream. Goosanders, tufted ducks, herons and kingfishers are not uncommon sightings.
It's all a direct result of the improved water quality of the River Aire, thanks to work by the Environment Agency and Yorkshire Water. Salmon and sea trout now come up beyond Castleford, chased by an increasing number of common seals from the Ouse.
The next great barrier for salmon and trout on the Aire is the weir at Nostrop, which will require an expensive fish ladder to bring them into the centre of Leeds. And then there won't really be a final frontier for fish in the Aire and wildlife in Leeds.
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Sunday 12 February 2012
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