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Wild reaction to a long-running balancing act
It's not the easiest of places to reach, and you get a feeling that the flat country road will emerge right between the giant cooling towers of Drax Power Station.
Even when you finally arrive in the car park and stroll the remaining short distance down to the river, it seems an unlikely nature reserve. There's a modern building perched on top of a sophisticated-looking dam, and one or two wooden benches situated around the grassy riverbanks.
But it is after all, first and foremost a working site, allowing the Derwent – one of the cleanest rivers in England – to supply tapwater to places as far apart as Hull, Leeds, York and Scarborough.
Barmby Barrage stands at the confluence of the Ouse and Derwent, and straddles the border between East and North Yorkshire. Twice daily its computerised sluice gates are raised and lowered in accordance with the height of the tide and the flow of the Derwent.
It performs a delicate balancing act to keep out the Ouse's brackish water while also maintaining sufficient level in the Derwent to allow water abstraction and boating, as well as allowing the river to drain farmland across a large part of the Lower Derwent Valley. There is also a lock to let boats in and out of the Derwent.
Built in 1974, one of the men who helped to construct it, Dennis Garner, was appointed the barrage controller. And next week he officially retires after 35 years.
Later this year he will attend Buckingham Palace to receive an MBE for his work in turning Barmby Barrage into a nature reserve and local amenity area.
Since 1995 the site has been open to the public by its owners, the Environment Agency. It was Dennis's idea to remove all the fences – intended to keep people out – and start putting in structures like a birdwatching hide, fishing platforms, picnic sites and access for the disabled.
It has drawn about 15,000 human visitors a year, mostly by word of mouth. No-one has counted the thousands of feathered visitors, but Dennis thinks the site is one of the unsung corners of Yorkshire for birdlife.
When the barrage was built, a new mouth of the River Derwent was created to accommodate it, and the old course of the river was left as reedbeds and marshland. Over the years this attracted huge numbers of ducks and geese, especially in winter, including Bewick's and whooper swans.
There have been rarities too, birds like a glossy
ibis and several little egrets. And one day a beautiful flamingo turned up, almost certainly an escapee from a captive collection.
A regular feature at Barmby has been the large number of cormorants – 40 or 50 at a time – following the fish upstream with the tide and going back down again. Many sit on the barrage railings, hanging their wings out to dry.
Little ringed plovers have bred there, and because parts of the marshland have dried out in recent winters the observation hide has become a good place to watch roe deer.
"We never saw any up to about seven or eight years ago," says Dennis, "but now you can go out almost any time and see two or three about."
But the greatest joy has been regular sightings of otters, which are a recent addition to the wildlife of Barmby.
"It all started one night," he remembers. "We were sitting in the control room, and suddenly there was movement on one of the screens linked to an infrared security camera focused on the barrage. There were three otters whipping across the bridge. We couldn't believe our eyes at first, but then it became a nightly occurrence."
Last winter another camera picked them up playing in the snow, using their noses as bulldozers. "It's at times like that you realise how lucky your are to work in such a place," Dennis says.
Water voles used to be common but they have declined in numbers, possibly the victim of predators like mink and herons. Badgers and foxes appear now and then.
The fishing platforms were put in to allow access for anglers hoping to hook chub, dace, roach, eels and pike.
There are also migratory salmon and sea trout which slip through the barrier and swim upstream to their spawning grounds. And later this year work will start on building a stainless steel ramp to allow lamprey into the Derwent. A protected eel-like fish, it was once common on the river but has declined over the last 50 years.
For Dennis, it will be sad to leave all this behind. Memories like watching the otters playing, and seeing seals and porpoises chasing fish up the Ouse, will stay with him forever, he says.
He came to Barmby by accident. When he left school at Goole he joined British Rail as an engine cleaner, the first step on the ladder to becoming a driver of steam engines, and he managed to work as fireman on the Flying Scotsman twice before the age of steam came to an end.
"It's been a tying job, working here every other weekend and being on 24-hour call, but it's been enjoyable.
"As for the public access side, I've always had good people working for me,
and always had good managers to give me the confidence to develop the amenity and nature reserve side. I feel my MBE is a reward for a team effort."
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Weather for Yorkshire
Sunday 12 February 2012
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