Incoming formations of the feathered variety

THE golf balls of Fylingdales went two decades ago. Now, as Roger Ratcliffe reports, the ground where they stood has been developed as a nature reserve.

In the late 1950s, whoever decided that the motto of Fylingdales should be VigilamusLatin for We are Watching – could not have known how wide the definition of watching would be interpreted.

Fylingdales’s huge golf ball radar domes were built to peer over the north-eastern horizon and give Britain early warning of the launch of nuclear missiles from the former Soviet Union.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

When the Cold War ended 20 years ago a far more extensive view of earth’s skies was required.

And so the familiar golf balls were replaced by the 120ft high truncated pyramid which now presides over Fylingdales Moor.

North, south, east and west – more than ever before they were being true to their motto at Fylingdales.

But these days they’re also watching much closer to home.

The piece of moorland on which the three golf balls stood for more than 30 years has been used to create a pond and a series of wader scrapes, providing food and drink for resident and migratory birds.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

These days, much of the watching at Fylingdales is done by birdwatchers.

It’s a remarkable development at a base which was once a vital part of the West’s Cold War defence against the Soviet nuclear arsenal. Even the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament never thought of the slogan “Birds not Bombs”.

Although it’s as remote a place as you’ll find in the North York Moors, and there are rarely people visible from a distance, Fylingdales is operated by a staff of 384.

This includes military, civil service and civilian contractors. It is protected by 100 police and Ministry of Defence personnel.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“Of course, security is still high here,” smiles the base’s acting manager Squadron Leader David Pollock.

“And understandably so. However, what that means is, we have an area of land where wildlife is given freedom without human interference.

“It’s similar to NASA’s Space Centre in Florida, I believe, where the amount of wildlife they have is phenomenal owing to the fact that the public is excluded from a large part of the site.”

“A couple of days ago I went out here with one of the policemen to look round the vast range that they have to keep secure, and I was amazed at the variety of habitats.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“There’s not just moorland – the bit the public see – there’s also a lot of woodland further down.

“And of course, we’ve now got these new wet areas that will really improve as the vegetation grows up and around them and become more natural as time goes by.”

Ironically, some of the birds passing through Fylingdales originate in the far north of Russia, where a number of the old Soviet Union’s missile silos were believed to be located.

It is a reminder of the day back the 1960s when a flock of geese migrating south from their nesting grounds in Russia’s Arctic tundra triggered a false alarm on NATO’s Early Warning network.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Following the dismantling of the golf balls, part of the moor was declared a “radhaz area”. Thirty years of radar operation had left high levels of radiation that was considered hazardous to human health.

This area is now being used for an experiment to see what happens to moorland when it’s left without cutting of heather or grazing by sheep.

The main wildlife conservation area consists of a pond and six muddy wader scrapes and to monitor progress the Fylingdales Conservation Group has been set up.

Members include the RAF and Ministry of Defence personnel, officers from the North York Moors National Park, and local naturalists. A few hundred yards away from the conservation area stands the modern radar antenna, which cost £160m, surrounded by electrified fences and CCTV cameras, and signs warning of non-iodising radiation and police dog patrols.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

While these may keep out humans, the birdlife is not intimidated.

There are breeding curlews, lapwings, common snipe, and Canada geese, and during the migration times of spring and autumn almost anything can turn up.

At least one pair of nightjars are known to be there in summer and there have been regular winter sightings of the comparatively rare great grey shrike. When Fylingdales was upgraded in the early 1990s and nature conservation became a part of life on the base, owl nesting boxes and bird feeders started appearing.

But the pond and wader scrapes were added comparatively recently.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The contractors, Carillion, needed a few hundred tons of topsoil for the site where a new mess was being built, and when local birdwatchers saw an opportunity for wetland creation around where the golf balls used to stand a JCB was sent there to excavate the topsoil.

“It was all on what we call a brownfield site,” says Carillion’s Shaun Adams. “We didn’t touch any of the natural moorland.”

The company employs a freelance gamekeeper to keep carrion crows under control around Fylingdales, not for the benefit of grouse shooting – there is none – but to protect the nesting waders.

When the scrapes were first dug, the lapwings seemed to be nesting successfully until their chicks hatched, then the crows moved in and ate the young birds.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The keeper also keeps an eye on mink and foxes, although no culling of them has taken place.

Mick Carroll, a Pickering ornithologist who is retired from the RAF Regiment, is a member of the Fylingdales Conservation Group and a regular visitor.

Birds of prey are regularly seen around the moor, he says.

On the east side of the base is a 7,500 acre reserve run by the Hawk and Owl Trust. And on the MOD land itself there are sightings of birds like merlin, migrating hen harriers and marsh harriers, short-eared owls, and the occasional goshawk and hobby.

“Even though this is one of the most secure sites in Britain, we’re still keeping quiet about what birds nest here.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“I know of a couple of birdwatchers who’d heard rumours and came to take a look.

Of course, they were soon picked up by the Ministry of Defence police. They had their car checked, and got interviewed themselves.

“I don’t think it was a pleasant experience for them.”

WATCHERS ON THE MOORS

The golf ball radomes of Fylingdales, built in 1962, were not just a landmark high on the moors, but vital during the Cold War as the source of the four-minute warning of approaching Armageddon.

Today, data indicating a ballistic missile attack goes to the UK Missile Warning Centre at RAF High Wycombe and America’s Missile and Space Domain in the Cheyenne Mountains in Colorado.

As part of the Allied Space Surveillance Network it also helps to support UK forces worldwide through the Satellite Warning Service.