Dawn Chorus at Sandall Beat Wood LNR
4.30 am 5th May 1996
Prologue
After a still cloudless night, temperatures had dropped below zero. The night’s ending was moonless, black, and three listeners for the dawn, made wretched by thwarted sleep, met like so many witches summoned by bells.
Foetid, soaking tartan shreds were today replaced by Hawkshead, Barbour and Mr. George’s falsely rustic ware, repellent not of senses or of sentiments but of dew and shower.
The blasted heath, for certain present two centuries past, had near the millennium, metamorphosed into a tarmac patch, used foe assignations, three point turns and leafy lunchbreaks.
Goosemire, Heather and Wheatley Wood now gone, the ancient woodlanders in 1812 had moved, like Burman, to form a new ‘old wood’ at ‘the Beat’ to thwart the French.1
Previous generations had listened for nightingales and nightjars, perhaps they might come again. But we three met to hear what song this wood could still produce. This wood, oppressed by brick and tarmac and piercing streetlights and roar of traffic and the belligerence of people.
Note 1. – Sandall Beat was planted by Doncaster Corporation between 1810 and 1812 to help replenish the nation’s timber stocks, depleted during the Napoleonic wars.
Survey Method.
The method of monitoring bird song (and to an extent bird territories0, was to follow a prescribed route through the wood, stopping at intervals (usually 5 minutes) periods to listen for and note down the species and numbers of calling or singing birds.
The Local Authority ‘Woodman’s Trail’ leaflet provided the basis for the route, the group eventually following the 1-mile trail dedicated to the late George Covill (see plan).
Dedication
George Covill, that splendid and impressively knowledgeable countryman, who with his family, occupied the Wood House for some thirty years till his death in 1900. He trained in woodland management and game keeping on the Duke of Portland’s Estate in the Dukeries, and came as woodman to Sandall Beat during the early 1960’s.
He was a natural interpreter of the wood’s wildlife to members of the public, and his inspirational and sympathetic woodland management methods helped in no small way to the site being designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest in 1984.
George’s legacy is the wood we enjoy today and our recollection of his boisterous cherry greeting and rustic anecdotes. He is regarded with great affection by generations of locals particularly from the surrounding communities of Armthorpe, Cantley and Intake, and I would like to dedicate this little study to his memory.
The Survey
Some sixteen listening points were monitored as follows (see location plan below)
Table 1
| Species | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | Total Birds | Total Sites |
| Robin | 5 | 4 | 1 | – | 1 | 3 | – | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | – | 1 | 1 | 24 | 13 |
| Blue Tit | – | 1 | – | 1 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | – | – | 1 | 1 | – | 1 | 1 | 15 | 11 |
| Blackbird | 1 | – | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | – | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | – | – | – | – | – | 10 | 9 |
| Great Tit | – | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | – | – | 1 | 1 | – | – | – | – | – | – | 8 | 8 |
| Wren | 1 | – | 1 | – | – | 1 | – | – | – | – | 1 | – | 1 | 1 | – | 1 | 7 | 7 |
| Wood Pigeon | 1 | – | – | – | 1 | – | 1 | 1 | – | – | – | – | 1 | 1 | – | – | 6 | 6 |
| Mistle Thrush | – | – | – | – | 1 | – | – | 1 | 1 | – | – | – | – | 1 | – | – | 4 | 4 |
| Blackcap | – | – | – | – | 1 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | 1 | 1 | 3 | 3 |
| Tree Creeper | – | – | – | – | 1 | – | 1 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | 1 | – | 3 | 3 |
| Pheasant | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | 1 | 1 | 1 | – | – | – | – | – | – | 3 | 3 |
| Chaffinch | – | – | – | – | – | 1 | – | – | – | – | – | – | 1 | – | – | – | 2 | 2 |
| Nuthatch | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | 1 | 1 | – | 2 | 2 |
| Gt Spotted Woodpecker | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | 1 | 1 | – | 2 | 2 |
| Tawny Owl | – | – | – | 2 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | 2 | 1 |
| Jay | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | 1 | – | 1 | 1 |
| Willow Warbler | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | 1 | – | – | – | – | 1 | 1 |
| Song Thrush | – | – | – | – | – | – | 1* | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | 1 | 1 |
Note * Song Thrush was not singing in the wood but in adjacent smallholdings.
Total listening points = 16
Total Species = 16
Total singing / calling Birds = 93
Table 2.
Location Totals
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | Total | Mean | |
| Birds | 8 | 6 | 3 | 7 | 9 | 11 | 3 | 7 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 6 | 6 | 4 | 7 | 4 | 93 | 5.8 |
| Species | 4 | 3 | 3 | 6 | 66 | 7 | 3 | 7 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 6 | 4 | 7 | 4 | (80) | 5.0 |
Results and Comments
In all some 93 birds of 16 species were noted in song at the 16 points within the wood with an additional species (Song Thrush) heard from nearby smallholdings.
The number of birds at each listening point ranged from three specimens of three species to eleven specimens of seven species with the average per listening point being 5.8 birds of 5 species. These figures will enable the breeding bird biodiversity of Sandall Beat to be compared with other woods in the region.
The most productive listening points were 4, 5, 6, 8, and 15 (see Table 2).
The top five species were
Robin, which made up 25.8% of singing birds being present at 81.2% of listening points.
Blue Tit, which made up 16.2% of calling birds being present at 68.7% of listening points.
Blackbird, which made up 10.7% of singing birds being present at 56.2% of listening points.
Great Tit, which made up 8.6% of singing birds being present at 50% of listening points.
Wren, which made up 7.5% of singing birds being present at 43.7% of listening points.
A welcome local rarity was the Nuthatch heard calling vigorously amongst beeches to the south west of the Wood House at points 14 and 15. The drumming of a Great Spotted Woodpecker also caused some excitement and it was felt that these species together with the illusive Tree Creeper, which was present at three points, indicated the quality and maturity of the wood. Mature, over mature and dead timber are such an important element of the ecology of Sandall Beat.
Although Blackbirds were one of the most obtrusive songsters, their ‘Dawn Chorus’ within the wood pales into insignificance to that produced by Blackbirds in the adjacent Intake housing estate. If decibels were anything to go by, garden habitats were clearly holding a significantly higher population.
Although domestic cats are alleged to take a large slice of the urban ‘songbird pie’ it would be interesting to investigate the extent to which Grey Squirrels influence the breeding success of woodland songbirds in Sandall Beat.
It was clearly a little early during this chilly season for warblers to take up territories. Blackcaps were only singing at three points (4, 15 and 16) and Willow Warblers at only on point (12) by the burnt-out Fen.
Strange absentees were Dunnock, Greenfinch and Song Thrush.
Other birds seen :-
A single ‘Grey Goose’ flew low over the Fen in a north westerly direction (towards Wheatley Park) at about 5.25 am.
At 5.50 am a Sparrowhawk called and flew through the woodland to the northwest of the Wood House.
Mammals
A Rabbit was grazing close to the protection of the hedgerow in the pasture to the north of the Fen.
Grey Squirrel dreys, built snugly in forks in oaks and beeches were present in most parts of the wood. Squirrels were just becoming active between 5.50 and 6 am.
A Bank Vole was watched for some minutes between point 16 and the entrance car park, obtrusively scurrying about in leaf litter, presumably in search of food.
Plants
Climbing Coridalis was in flower at point 7.
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank Olive Furlong and Alan Newton, whose keen hearing, eyesight and identification skills made the morning survey such a worthwhile exercise.
Postscript
A watery, bleary-eyed morning sum rose above the pink pit stack to reveal the Pot Hill Pastures and the burned-out Fen, dusted with frost and wreathed in freezing mist. We now understood why we felt chilled to the marrow, why number pencils wrote illegibly in vice-gripped notebooks. We felt anxious for those early summer migrants defending with ironic confidence their yet foodless territories.
Copies to :- DMBC Countryside Section
Pip Seccombe (DNS President)
Doncaster & District Ornithological Society
C. A. Howes, 8 May 1996.
