Reserve a place on the glide path

There are a dozen lakes or “flashes” at Fairburn Ings in the old mining area of the Lower Aire Valley, but the most interesting one for birdwatchers has always been rather inconveniently cut off from the main visitor centre.

The so-called Spoonbill Flash, overlooked by the popular Lin Dike observation hide, had to be provided with its own car park for those people who didn’t want to walk a mile or so along a busy road or, in the nesting season, disturb an area of wet grassland where lapwings were breeding.

But now, four decades on from Fairburn becoming one of the RSPB’s most popular bird reserves, the missing link has finally been created.

A 1.5-mile-long footpath along the River Aire has been constructed to connect both ends of the sprawling reserve, allowing visitors to stay within its boundaries for their entire visit.

It links to an existing path known as the Riverbank Trail, and runs west beside the River Aire. And although it isn’t yet signposted or included on the reserve’s map, visitors are discovering it and reporting species of birds that weren’t known to be on the reserve.

The biggest surprise has been regular sightings of marsh harriers, one of the UK’s most charismatic birds of prey, which is fairly uncommon. It is believed to have nested at Fairburn this year, making it the first known breeding record for West Yorkshire.

Two other species of birds seen along the riverbank path are the increasingly rare turtle dove, and the redstart.

Darren Starkey, the reserve’s site manager, says the new route has opened up other new wildlife, especially butterflies and dragonflies, for visitors. An example, he says, is a sighting of the rare white-letter hairstreak butterfly, the first time it’s been seen on the reserve since the 1980s.

The new path is a “permissive footpath” rather than a public right of way, and is not shown on Ordnance Survey maps. Its creation means that it is now possible to walk along the River Aire from the centre of Leeds all the way to Knottingley on the east side of the A1. It also links with the Trans Pennine Trail, a 207-mile long-distance path from Southport in Lancashire to Hornsea in East Yorkshire.

Says Darren: “It would be fair to say that through the year, you can now see a greater variety of wildlife at Fairburn than anywhere else in Yorkshire. I can’t think of another place that provides an opportunity to see so many species, because of the different habitats we have here.”

Fairburn Ings is the result of centuries of intensive coal mining, in particular the subsidence at three local collieries – Fryston, Wheldale and Allerton Bywater.

The legacy of that is a superb chain of lakes, pools and muddy flashes, which became a sort of service station to refuel wildfowl and wading birds on the Aire Gap migration route between Morecambe Bay and the Humber Estuary.

Another reason for Fairburn’s extraordinary appeal to birds – its species list is heading towards the 300-mark, an extraordinary figure for a location lying far from the sea – is that it stands on the low ridge of magnesium limestone.

This runs along the course of the A1 from South Yorkshire as far as Ripon. It is used by many smaller birds for moving around the country, but in particular is well known as a route for birds of prey. Species like ospreys and red kites which were rarities a decade ago are now regular visitors.

September is often the most interesting period at Fairburn, with the migration of thousands of birds like waders and wildfowl from their breeding grounds in the north to their winter quarters in southern Europe and Africa.

Recent sightings include 10 different species of raptor in the space of a few days, including kestrels over the visitor centre, red kites over Ledsham village and buzzards from various locations.

These are fairly predictable for the season, but Fairburn is the kind of place where anything can, and does, turn up. This year the twitchers – that obsessive species of birdwatcher that migrates from one end of Britain to the other in order to spot rare birds – have had a treat. They have been able to note spoonbills, great white egret, black-necked grebe and common crane to name just a few.

Many of these sightings are made at the Lin Dike hide, which the new footpath now makes reachable from the visitor centre without using the road.

But it is the more common birds that draw most people, especially young families. Fairburn is where many catch their first-ever sighting of a kingfisher.

The reserve has always been poorly served by bus timetables, making “green travel” difficult for visitors but, thanks to the new path, the visitor centre is now reachable on foot from Castleford railway station.

Visitor numbers increase every year. Last year, 66,000 people were known to have entered the visitor centre or car park, and since many people go unrecorded - there are no gates and access is unrestricted to some parts of the reserve – it is thought that the total annual figure is around 150,000.

HOW TO FIND FAIRBURN

* RSPB Fairburn Ings lies close to the west side of the A1, a few miles north of the M62. From Leeds, it is reached by the A63 road then signposted off the A656. The visitor centre is open 9.30am-5pm all year round except Christmas Day and Boxing Day. The reserve is now accessible on foot from Castleford railway station.

* RSPB Wildlife Explorers (junior section of the RSPB), meets on the third Saturday of every month at Fairburn.

* For more information or to book a place call 01977 628191, or email [email protected] or check through the website www.rspb.org.uk