Price worth paying for bliss

Fast forward to three years ago, when he took a deep breath, a big pay cut, and came back to Fairburn Ings for keeps, to run one of Yorkshire’s oldest and best-loved nature reserves.

It’s a place that holds a special place in the hearts of many, not least those who live close to the Aire Valley, not far from Castleford, where the skyline is dominated by the cooling towers of Ferrybridge power station and those with longer memories remember when a giant conveyor carried the spoil from Wheldrake and Fryston pits across the river to dump it on the far bank.

And Darren, 45, holds Fairburn close to his heart, too, swapping a well-paid job with the Environment Agency for a site manager’s post with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. For a man whose connection with the reserve reached back to his childhood in York, it was an offer that he simply couldn’t refuse.

“I was working at the Environment Agency, where the wages were pretty good compared with a charity, so I took a significant pay cut, but I don’t regret a single moment of it. I find myself stopping and thinking, ‘I’m getting paid to do this’?

“Fairburn Ings is the nearest reserve to York, and it was the first nature reserve I ever visited. I first came here when I was about seven, and I’ve been coming ever since, so when I had the chance to run ‘my’ nature reserve, I couldn’t turn it down. A lot of people say, ‘You get paid to go birdwatching’, but I have to spend a lot of time in the office – but it’s not a bad place to have an office.” Indeed it isn’t, not least because 3,000 children of about the same age that he was when he first came here go trooping past the front door every year in school parties, on their way into a world of learning about nature that surely will captivate at least some of them as enduringly as it did him.

That’s a cheering thought in itself for Darren, especially for the children who come from inner-city schools, who sometimes know little about the natural world. “We get a lot of inner-city schools, and a lot of those children have a very limited exposure to wildlife. The children from the more rural areas are much more aware of it. The children of today are the conservationists of tomorrow, and from a business point of view they are our customers of the future.”

Reserves have to be run on businesslike lines if they are to survive and prosper, and Fairburn Ings is doing very nicely out of its customers. Visitor numbers are up by about five per cent, and up to 120,000 now arrive every year, half of whom pass through the shop, where takings are also up, providing profits that are ploughed directly back into maintaining and improving the reserve. The 50p bags of duck feed bought for the birds who come close to the water’s edge covers the cost of the nuts and seeds at the feeding stations around the site.

There’s a lot to be paid for, even with the help of up to 100 volunteers. Maintaining the paths is a mammoth job in itself, and there are other time-consuming tasks to be taken care of. Invasive plants like Himalayan balsam and ragwort have to be pulled up by hand.

Highland cattle graze the grasslands as part of habitat management, the breed having been chosen for its tolerance of getting its hooves wet when the area floods, and the meat from the animals is used by a delicatessen in nearby Allerton Bywater to make pies which are sold in the reserve shop.

“It’s always a bit of a balance between running a site for nature conservation, and running it as a business, because in this day and age, you have to, and we do run a successful business here,” said Darren.

Sadly, a slice of that business’s money has to be spent not on conservation, or improvements to habitats, but on addressing the curse of nature reserves – vandalism. Last autumn, a platform from which primary school parties learn about the life of freshwater pools by dipping into the water with nets was wrecked by a fire started deliberately, and this year, one of the birdwatching hides was also destroyed by arsonists. The bill for replacing both will be about £20,000. There is also graffiti and damage around the site to be repaired. Securing a site the size of Fairburn Ings would be near-impossible anyway, and keeping out those with nothing better to do than wreck is further complicated because the reserve’s paths are predominantly rights of way.

“It’s very disheartening,” said Darren. “But you can’t let it get to you. You’ve just got to take it on the chin and move on.”

Fairburn Ings has been in the business of introducing visitors to wildlife since it was first designated a reserve in 1957, at the instigation of a group of local naturalists. Then, the spoil heaps – among the largest in Europe – that form its landscapes were balder than they are now, when trees and grass have greened many of their slopes, though the industrial legacy still peeps through.

Like several other Yorkshire reserves, coal shaped the 1,200 acres of Fairburn Ings. As the wooden pit props of abandoned mine workings far below ground rotted and collapsed, so did the land. A marshy area alongside the road into Fairburn village, a mile beyond the reserve, became the main lake, and parts of the reserve were still subsiding as recently as the 1980s, gradually forming a landscape of diverse habitats.

The RSPB took over the management of the site in 1977. It was a perfect fit between habitat and charity – Fairburn Ings had become a magnet for birds. In autumn, thousands of waders stop off on their migratory routes, winter brings goldeneyes, goosanders, smews and widgeon, spring sees the return of reed and sedge warblers, and summer offers the spectacle of broods of different types of ducklings.

Close as it is to the built-up areas of both Leeds and Castleford, the reserve basks in the distinction of having more bird species than any other inland site in the country – 293 so far. The last couple of years have been good ones. “We’ve had an absolutely amazing year for breeding birds and rare birds,” said Darren. “Bearded tits have bred here for the second year running, and the first year was the first time they had bred in West Yorkshire, it’s been the first year that marsh harriers have bred in West Yorkshire, avocets have bred for the first time at Fairburn, so we’re absolutely delighted.”

Right at the summit of the reserve, and not open to the public, are three tranquil lagoons where the bearded tits and marsh harriers have bred. They also are legacies of mining – settlement pools for slurry, where the reedbeds have grown up naturally.

On the rest of the reserve, though, visitors are brought as close as possible to wildlife. “We are about providing wildlife spectacles, and this is about people having a good time and wanting to come back,” said Darren. “Conservation is a part of the British psyche. We love our wildlife.”

The wildlife loved more than any other at Fairburn Ings is the kingfisher. Sighting the brilliant blue flash of it darting along a watercourse, or a glimpse of one perching, is the aim of many of the visitors, and the reserve has given them a hand, building a wooden screen with viewing holes at one of the spots where they are commonly seen.

“The kingfisher screen just clicked with me,” said Darren. “It cost next to nothing, we built it out of what we had already, and it’s amazing the number of people who come to Fairburn just to see kingfisher. You tend to take things for granted when you work here, but there are so many people who haven’t seen a kingfisher and when they come here and do, it’s really quite special for them.”

They are also seen along the Aire, where, with funding from Natural England, a new path has just opened to Castleford. Eventually, a link will be opened to another reserve three miles away, St Aidan’s, a huge former opencast mine which is currently undergoing restoration before being given over to wildlife.

It will mark another step forward in making this part of the Aire Valley a haven for wildlife, and Darren, whose links with it span virtually his entire life, is looking forward to it. “I do still think it’s the best job in the world. It’s always been my dream job. Everybody here is doing it because it’s what they love, not just to pay a mortgage, and that says a lot.”

Fairburn Ings can be found on the internet at www.rspb.org.uk/fairburnings