In spring it’s possible to catch the migration of thousands of wildlife photographers arriving at RSPB Bempton Cliffs. Lumbered with approximately 90%* of all long lens cameras in the UK (*just a guess). The grey cliffs of Yorkshire also happen to see the nesting of many important sea and land birds.

Setting out on the long drive from Hebden Bridge to the coast, an ethereal haze softens the bright yellow sun and turns the distant hills and trees a milky blue. The coast is my goal and it doesn’t matter how long it takes to get there. I need a break from routine to shake my head out of stress and into a better mindset.

As I step through the RSPB welcome centre, I still haven’t seen the sea despite driving toward it for miles. Here the cliffs are so high and today the distant horizon too hidden. I skirt the grassland first and a kindly fellow photographer points to a goldcrest which I watch fly from bush to bush but am not fast enough to photograph.

Strolling toward the main event, the sea finally comes into view and I breathe out deeply. The top of the cliffs are lined with day tripping wildlife lovers walking along the miles of reserve. When I finally reach the edge I meet a breathtaking scene. A 100m drop straight down with birds soaring or resting with occasional echoing calls.

Razorbill

First to catch my eye are what look like a pair or pengiuns but are in fact razorbills (Alca torda). They preen each other lovingly and dance with affection.

Another pair sleep nearby. Looking up on occasion to the humans watching them. Their black and white markings impossibly clean and crisp.

Gannet

One gannet fairly close to the path obliging poses for my camera (Morus bassanus). I’m struck by how large they are and a noticeboard of life size images puts these huge birds into scale. I imagine its near metre wingspan if it were next to me.

With striking pale blue eyes and bulbous head, some were out fishing and others collecting plant material for nests.

It’s a wonder how the birds perch and sleep so high on these towering cliffs.

Nests of the birds line strata of the rock faces. For thousands of years they will have done this, making use of the rock feature itself formed over billions of years. How entwined everything on Earth is.

Kittiwake

Friendly looking gull family member, the kittiwake (Rissa tridactyla) seemed sleepy. I love the name, kittiwake.

Not to be unfair to regular seagulls we’re familiar with - they can’t help their faces look mean - but the kittiwake look so gentle. And they certainly seem quieter and less raucous.

Common linnet

Around the reserve were many more species, including the endangered linnet (Linaria cannabina) nesting in the many areas of scrub. This is a female, the males are brightly coloured.

In someways, while I adore puffins - one of my favourite birds - part of me is glad they weren’t nesting yet. I would almost certainly have paid the gannets and kittiwake less attention. And what an oversight that would have been.

I decide to head off, full of wonder from my close encounter with these birds in this otherworldy spot. I’ll save the owls, puffins and other species for another visit soon.

Join and support the RSPB to help conserve reserves like this.

In the centre of Halifax, West Yorkshire, I visited the newly created Calderdale Plant Sanctuary, a project funded for a year by Natural England. There I met a team of volunteers enthusiastically propagating wild plants from the surrounding area. Led by Gill Wrigley who expanded her role from growing sphagnum mosses for the local moors into growing important wild grasses, ferns and flowers.

The project is a collaboration with local naturalist Steve Hindle (known affectionately as Peachy Steve), who is recognised locally and nationally for his work surveying grassland fungi. His painstaking surveys of Calderdale’s grasslands in recent years have enabled him to find areas of ancient habitat. Habitats that likely have plants which have grown and evolved in those particular spots over hundreds if not thousands of years.

“Everything here is grown from seed collected from these important habitats,” says Gill, “so we know they’re likely to be strains that have existed in Calderdale for a long time.”

Growing wild plants from local populations has become increasingly recognised as essential for three key reasons. First, as Gill points out, “these locally native species can often be better for the insects that evolved alongside them.”

Second, habitats around the world have dwindled due to construction and intensive industrial farming practices reducing biodiversity - the UK has one of the lowest number of undamaged ancient habitats in the world. Thirdly, climate change is causing big shifts in conditions, altering what species can survive and where.

Genetic diversity in plant species offers hope. Each species of wildflower will have a huge range of regional differences in their genetics. This is because of tiny variations in the conditions in which they’ve grown. Over time the plants adapt and evolve to better manage those different conditions. For instance, the same species could potentially have more hardiness, drought tolerance or disease resistance depending on how they adapted to each region across the UK.

As the climate changes or new insect, virus and fungal species are accidentally introduced, a regional adaptation could offer resistance. Currently we don’t know how wild plant species will respond to new pressures, making projects like the Calderdale Plant Sanctuary so precious.

As gardeners, we can help by supporting projects like this and trying to source wildflower seeds and plug plants from the local area rather than always buying random seed packets from across the country. In the wilder parts of our garden I have grown wild plants from seeds and spores collected locally where possible for these reasons.

“We’re conducting an experiment by planting half the rough hawkbit seedlings into plain peat-free compost and the other half with a mix of peat-free and lime chippings,” Deborah tells me as she continues the delicate work.

All of the plants grown at the Calderdale Plant Sanctuary have been sourced from habitats known to be highly likely to contain native plants that evolved in Calderdale. All batches of seedlings are labelled with exactly where they came from, such as the specific field or woodland. Dates of sowing and full species name are included. Having grown lots of wildflowers myself, I can vouch for how easily tiny seedlings are jumbled when it comes to planting a year later!

“I don’t have a garden at home any more, just a balcony but I’ve always grown things from when I was younger, it’s relaxing to spend time here with everyone,” says volunteer Debs, who is a nurse in the local hospital. The others agree, it’s a fun social activity as well as an important task. Finding the process of sowing and growing mindful, a calming break from a busy world.

It’s an amazing project because the team are finding the most precious pockets of wild plants and then giving them a helping hand. “There are some surprising plants that we’re growing because they should be quite widespread but we’re finding they aren’t in some areas,” explains Gill, “plants like red campion and hawkweeds, you’d think they’d be everywhere - and they should be - but they aren’t.”

Among the more common species are rarer or more challenging wild plants to grow, including eyebright, Euphrasia spp. Most gardeners will be familiar with yellow rattle, known as the meadow maker, because it parasitises grasses and other plants by attaching to their roots and weakening them, helping flowering plants to grow. Eyebright carries out the same role in acid grasslands and should be prevalent all around Calderdale.

Eyebright is a fascinating genus because there are many different species that all look superficially similar, even in botanist circles people often have to turn to Euphrasia specialists for an accurate DNA identification.

The team are treating the project as an experiment because for many of the less showy wildflowers there aren’t always guides on how to best germinate and grow them. Success was found growing yellow rattle plugs by sowing the seeds into a tray of already growing grass seedlings, giving the parasitic wildflowers healthy grass roots to feed off. Gill decided to try the same technique with the newly collected eyebright seeds. Early results look promising as the first eyebright seedlings have emerged.

In another large glasshouse hundreds of trays blanket the floor, full of different species of sphagnum moss. These are part of the Sphagnum Project funded by the National Lottery. The mosses are eventually planted out on damaged areas of peat on the surrounding moors.

“Everything here is grown in peat-free compost,” says Gill to my delight - proving that even the plants that make peat can be grown peat-free, “we grow them vegetatively by laying pieces of moss on the surface and off they go.”

The Sphagnum Project and Calderdale Plant Sanctuary have been recognised with a number of awards for the impressive work and deservedly so. Gill has even visited Downing Street to explain what the team has learnt.

Although the projects are reliant on funding, I found what Gill and the team are doing to be a perfect demonstration of people power. Working with ecologists to study the local nature informing a plan of action to help, volunteer gardeners then grow plants before later planting them in the wild. Helping maintain the area’s local plant diversity and in turn, wildlife that depend on it.

If you live locally and would like to enquire about volunteering for the project please visit this page.

Wild Ingleborough is a landscape scale nature restoration project covering 1,300 hectares in North Yorkshire. It is a collaboration between Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, Natural England and other partners. All with an ambition to restore habitat around the area.

Liz Coates is the Wild Ingleborough Project Officer, with the big job of implementing this ambitious project’s aims and objectives. At the heart of this is a new nursery area (not open to the public) for raising some of the precious plant life that is under threat or decline across Ingleborough.

Set in the heart of the reserves, a small fenced area to keep deer and rabbits out, the nursery houses an expanding number of plug plants grown from seed collected sensitively across Ingleborough.

Volunteers help the team with tasks such as sowing seeds, planting into larger pots and general plant care. Helping grow thousands of plants.

As a nature lover and gardener, I was in heaven looking at all of these exciting and healthy wildflower seedlings. My mind racing to imagine what all of these young plants will grow into.

On my visit I was treated to an incredible display of Veronica spicata, spiked speedwell. A plant pushed to a limited number of isolated pockets on rocky outcrops away from the munching of livestock. It’s suspected they could be growing in these spots out of necessity, not out of preference.

Liz and colleague Tim explained that they dream of seeing huge swathes of the beautiful blue spires across the landscape, among other wildflowers returned to their true numbers. They came up with the term ‘colourscaping.’ I joined them in imagining how wonderful that would be, to see the land returned to the rich and colourful biodiversity it would once have had.

Tim Thom is Wild Ingleborough’s programme manager, responsible for the development and implementation of the programme. Tim has been looking after the conservation of the area of Yorkshire for a large chunk of his life. Including working on the important peatland restoration projects nearby.

Some of the plants being propagated include shrubs and trees. The Yorkshire landscape over recent centuries has been almost entirely stripped of its scrub and woodland. People favouring cleared grassland for grazing sheep and cows. This significantly reduced the vibrant mix of habitat the area would once have had.

Propagating plants such as creeping willow, Salix repens, and dark-leaved willow, Salix myrsinifolia, allows the team to introduce important mixed habitat around the many vast meadows. These new habitats will provide shelter and nesting spots for many birds that should be able to breed in certain areas but currently can’t.

Tim took us on a tour of different meadows, pointing out the way plant community mixes vary between them. For a long time these meadows have been heavily grazed, preventing wildflowers from flowering and setting seed in quantities that would sustain their populations properly.

The Wild Ingleborough team changed the management routine to include a herd of 70 cows that roam and mob graze all of the meadows in this area.

Mob grazing is when herbivores are moved into a grassland in large numbers but for a short period of time, as would happen naturally in the wild.

This does two important things; first not all of the meadow is eaten, creating a patchwork of different heights in the sward for variety in micro habitats suitable for different species of plant and animal; second it gives the grassland much more time to recover and grow between grazing. Unlike modern intensive grazing with lots of livestock for a long period of time in the same field, giving plants much less or no time to grow properly in the summer months.

As we walked through different meadows, Tim explained that some had been managed differently intentionally as a research study to see which were the best methods to use more widely.

He explained they’ve found degraded meadows or pasture that have lost their diversity won’t naturally return to how they were - at least not in a reasonable timeframe - because grasslands don’t tend to retain a seed bank after so many years.

His tips for giving biodiversity a helping hand was to first get the management right, either by light or mob grazing as pasture or the summer hay cut as meadow. Importantly, he said it helps after the cut or grazing to ask another local landowner for fresh clippings from a diverse meadow nearby to spread. This will introduce seeds to the meadow or pasture in recovery.

My visit to Wild Ingleborough to see some of the land the team are restoring, in combination with the nursery as the engine room for growing plants, is incredibly exciting to me.

In a way, it’s taking what I love about landscape design - giving nature a helping hand, then letting it lead the way - and applying that to a nature restoration project on a huge scale.

It gives me hope and reassurance that a lot is happening to bring nature back, to see some land returned to what it should be and the wildlife that will return with it.

Personally I cannot wait to go back and see how some of the grassland, scrub and woodland restoration develops over the coming years and decades.

Please do take a look at the Wild Ingleborough project for yourself and if you can, donate to help fund the project.

“I’ll follow you,” I say to Jenny Sharman of Yorkshire Peat Partnership, conscious I’d forgotten my wellies, which are always sensible on a waterlogged peat bog.

Jenny’s been looking after this bog for the best part of a decade, helping steer the restoration of this badly damaged peatland in North Yorkshire. The team, supported by paid contractors and a large number of volunteers, has worked wonders to stop further erosion and then to encourage plant life back to the exposed peat.

I’ve been invited back to Fleet Moss to witness the progress since my first visit and to see peatland in the summer while it’s in growth. Improvements are obvious, there is far more plant life and far less bare peat.

Where the flow of water has been slowed down by a series of stone, wood and coir bales that form permeable dams, plants have naturally repopulated the peat. Most noticeable are the sides of the deep gullies, which were caused by run off initially, started by much smaller drainage ditches dug by people.

“We’ve been re-profiling the peat to reduce the angle of the slope, slowing degradation to allow plants to grow,” says Jenny.

“It shows, they were completely bare peat when I visited last time,” and it’s a wonderful thing to see. While the meters of lost peat will take centuries to build up, the restoration is working.

I feel a sense of relief, thanks to Yorkshire Peat Partnership and the work they are doing it is working. Further evidence is visible with the clear distinction in plant growth on newly restored areas next to older patches and the original top layer of growth.

The problem is, peatland restoration is a longterm game.

“If we can slow and restore the water levels, it gives a chance for the sphagnum to establish,” Jenny explains as she leads us around, talking about the moor she’s grown to love.

“Over there’s a beautiful bale with bedstraw establishing on it,” she points out, “it’s a joy to see, this is what happens, if the conditions are right, the plants begin to spread naturally.”

One of our group, who works for Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, soon spots a brightly coloured lichen among the mosses. We’re all face first in the mosses and I’m glad to be back in this world on a different scale. At one time vast and impossible to take in, and yet tiny and jewel like. A miniature world of unusual life. There’s something about the different scale and time up here that changes my mindset.

Jenny leads us to a patch of sundews, Drosera rotundifolia.

I still get as excited about them now as I ever have, stooping down, careful not to tread on any, I mention “I grew lots of carnivorous plants when I as a boy and it was only later I discovered they grew in the wild in the UK - it blew my mind. It still blows my mind.”

The minuscule plants sit in a shallow damp depression, surrounded by moss and sedges. The unmistakable round lime green leaves with their contrasting sticky hairs waiting to catch small insects.

Lyndon Marquis, who also works at Yorkshire Peat Partnership, points out at that they are actually in flower, their tiny inflorescences held on a vertical stem above the traps.

“Oh, there’s a cloudberry!” says Jenny excitedly, a tiny plant hangs on a small hummock of peat that resembles an island surrounded by the lower degraded areas. Rubus chamaemorus is a bog dweller related to bramble, producing orange berries that are edible.

“That’s interesting how it’s spreading, is it by root or seed, do you think?” I ask.

“Yes, it looks by root, from the pattern it’s taking.”

We spot bog asphodel too, Narthecium ossifragum, their yellow star-like flowers held on vertical small stems. Jenny and I spend a few minutes admiring a few at the base of a gulley wall where they’ve been able to establish thanks to the team’s work using jute netting and the various dams. Without them, many of these small plants would simply wash away in heavy rain.

As we walk across the spongey surface, trying to avoid treading on the spaghnum mosses, Lyndon points out the cotton grasses.

“Common cotton grass has multiple tufts per stem, while hare’s tail has one tuft per stem.”

Jenny shows us various different types of spaghnum moss, explaining how they behave and grow differently.

“You can see that some grow behind the coir bales, they don’t like running water, they need still areas of water. While other species are happier in slow moving water. They all like marginally different conditions.”

Tiny tufts of glowing emerald green club mosses catch our eye, reminding me of the architectural shape of cacti or succulents.

A beautiful pale pink flowered cross-leaved heather too, Erica tetralix, which is a good type of heather that naturally occurs on wetter peatland. As opposed to the common heather that grows on drier peat that has been artificially drained.

Around us the calls of a golden plover, lapwing and curlew sound out. Evidence of owls. A baby frog crosses our path. Acid loving fungi of various species are growing here there and everywhere. A place filled with life returning, but it is all so fragile.

At 102 hectares in size, Fleet Moss is a huge and seriously damaged peatland. Its restoration has begun, thanks to Yorkshire Peat Partnership, but it needs funding to keep the work going.

“Peat restoration isn’t a fix it and leave it task,” explains Jenny, “it involves ongoing work to raise and repair dams, to try something new where restoration hasn’t worked.”

Yorkshire Peat Partnership relies heavily on funding to pay for contractors to instal and repair dams, grade the steepest gully slopes and add bales and jute matting. Over its hundred hectares of impossibly difficult terrain, miles and miles of dams have been added, and these will all need maintenance for decades to come.

“Here you can see spaghnum has established, this area will be sequestering carbon again,” Jenny highlights one of the big wins for peatland restoration. In addition to helping wildlife that live in these rare and precious places, peatland absorbs atmospheric carbon, locking it away in banks of peat made from dead plant life because it can’t decompose in the waterlogged conditions.

Over the years I’ve been heartened to see awareness of peatland’s importance gain wider awareness, I just hope we keep going. It would be so easy for a project like Fleet Moss to miss out on funding, preventing dams being repaired or raised, leading to run off occurring that could instantly wipe away good work the team has achieved.

Many of us recognise the importance of peat restoration, for nature and us, it’s time to permanently secure its future.

“Just one more photo,” says Jenny as she documents a key area of restoration, and I feel the pull too. To stay and help this beautiful habitat.

Learn more about Yorkshire Peat Partnership’s projects and how you can help raise awareness of their importance on their website.

Walshaw Moor consists of both Wadsworth Moor and Shackleton Moor situated between Burnley and Halifax in West Yorkshire, smack bang in the middle of the UK. It is in the centre of the major cities Manchester, Leeds and York and is widely regarded as a national park in all but official status.

The moorland is so precious for its habitat and wildlife that it has multiple protections including: Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI); Special Area of Conservation (SAC); sitting within the South Pennine Moors Special Protection Area (SPA) and it’s Priority Habitat for its blanket bog, heathland and nesting habitat for priority endangered animals.

You can reach Walshaw Moor from any of the surrounding towns’ bus and rail links, though it has a very limited number of small roads across it. The best access is on foot from the gateways to Walshaw Moor: Hebden Bridge and Todmorden, or on the other side, Haworth.

Some of my favourite walks are from Hebden Bridge across to Haworth or vice-versa. The two towns are well connected by the Brontë Bus and they are well catered for places to stay and eat. Or from one of these across to Burnley.

As a starter, I would aim for Widdop or Walshaw Dean reservoirs where there are easy paths, and then set off all over the place from there. Or plan a walk across the whole lot. There are lots of well connected paths and you’re allowed to walk wherever you want.

If you’ve never been, to set your expectations, the Brontë Sisters grew up in the Haworth Parsonage (which is now a good little museum) and Wuthering Heights is inspired by Walshaw Moor. In fact, it’s widely considered that the Top Withens ruined house is the inspiration for Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights book.

Walshaw Moor can be viewed as harsh and wild, but it’s that wilderness and ruggedness that I love.

The landscape inspiring other books by sisters Charlotte and Anne, including Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. Bustling hill life over the centuries has meant there is a lot of human history to unravel too, from Haworth to the hilltop village of Heptonstall, where poet Sylvia Plath is buried.

It would be easy to fill a weekend or week up with walks and visiting the villages and sights of Walshaw Moor. For me, the main reason to visit is to see and understand the Pennine Hill landscape and the wildlife. It is a bird and botanical paradise.

The Pennine Hills run vertically along the centre of the UK, part of the national Pennine Way walk runs across the middle of Walshaw Moor. The hills are made of various grit stones, a type of rough sandstone giving hints to their geological past as tropical sea beds billions of years ago. They have since gone through various ice ages, vast glaciers shaping the hills to what we see today with flat expanses.

Flat tops are a rare habitat globally that creates a raised wetland known as blanket bog, blanketing the stone. Constant moisture prevents plant matter properly decomposing locking all of the carbon they absorbed while living into the peat, reducing atmospheric carbon. Peat bogs create unique habitat for plant, insect and animal life that have evolved in these precious locations.

Most obvious, especially in spring, are the lapwings and endangered curlews, large ground nesting birds with the most incredible and beautiful calls that sound to me otherworldly. Like no other bird I’ve heard before. A walk across Walshaw Moor and you will hear them call out constantly.

There are many more species of birds to spot, including various birds of prey including multiple owl species. Frogs, toads and adders may also be spotted, plus stoats and weasels.

Unfortunately, a lot of the wonderful hill top moor landscape has been scarred by the abhorrent business of bird shooting for some time. Where shoots happen, wild birds are notably absent. Thankfully, shooting wild birds and releasing pheasants into the wild, both of which harm wildlife, are a dying activity.

For me, it is the gentle rolling hilltops surrounded by the wildlife that has become the key inspiration for my art in so many ways. The calmness of being up in the sky on the wide open moor, the quiet and solitude while accompanied by bird calls. The energy of the living hills beneath my feet. The wind in my hair and against my skin. Soft spongy peat covered in sphagnum moss and sundews. On a sunny day there is no better escape. On a stormy day, there is nowhere more raw and elemental.

Follow along this year as I share more adventures across Walshaw Moor.

The reserve is where a flower I’ve never seen before grows in great numbers and, while it’s not rare, I’m enjoying the excitement of seeing something new in its wild home. I haven’t felt that draw for a while, not since we moved, because at first everything was new.

Entering the Yorkshire Dales national park, there’s no denying the beauty of the landscape. Verges of sweet cicely rush past the car windows, but it’s a desolate place too. Barren of the woods that line the hillsides where we live near Hebden Bridge. Our home valley of Calderdale is a magical patchwork of habitats, closer to how things should be.

The much celebrated Yorkshire Dales however are stripped bare of trees. Chomped to a flat, unnatural state by excessive numbers of sheep. It seems sad to me, and telling, that the official emblem of the Yorkshire Dales that I pass is the face of a sheep, not one of its many wonderful and rare wild animals or plants.

Pulling in where my sat nav tells me, I see the familiar badger face of Yorkshire Wildlife Trust signs and I feel the heady adrenaline of adventure. It never grows old. Away from everything in a place the modern world can’t get me, in these moments I feel freest of all.

Heading down the hill, following a narrow trodden path, I stop as I almost step on Heath Spotted-Orchid, Dactylorhiza maculata. “Oh, hello,” I say to it and crouch to take a photo. Then, creaking back upright, I lift my head; where there is one orchid there is always certainly more, and I laugh because yes, there are a lot more. Growing in the grass all the way down the slope.

What a place, next to a loud busy road but the quiet envelopes me as I step further.

In among the orchids I spot Ajuga reptans, that familiar wild plant grown in gardens, as well as the odd red-rattle, Pedicularis palustris, a parasitic plant often overlooked for its yellow partner in crime. In damper hollows, Geum rivale, water avens grows with fluffy seed heads forming.

This time, I’m not here for the orchids, though I stop to acknowledge their wonder and presence, this time I’m interested in finding something less rare and my eyes are drawn to the wetland meadows glowing yellow below where I head. Among the buttercups, am I already looking at them?

I’m completely alone and head to the wall with its little gate at the bottom of the slope and step through to the wetland meadows that have begun to dry for summer.

In the meadows, next to the wall I spot the glowing blue of a meadow geranium, Geranium pratense, and then a single patch of soft thistle that look like the garden plant Cirsium rivulare, but I believe are the wild Cirsium heterophyllum. I love the vertical stems and large colourful brushes. Behind it the leaves of common butterbur, Petasites hybridus.

The meadow is a fun mix of buttercups, common daisies, yellow rattle, cats ear and a lot of another parasitic meadow plant, eyebright, or Euphrasia. There is a huge amount of eyebright everywhere, reassuring to see it growing alongside yellow rattle. In our own meadow the yellow rattle has appeared to be outcompeting the eyebright, but perhaps I need to think again. The occasional pink of ragged robin.

Looking around the flat valley basin I look at all of the yellow of buttercups. In some areas, could the yellow be slightly paler? It must be, so I head in that direction. I’m happy and free. Free from the world. Free from worry. Free!

In patches I spot the familiar floating marshmallows of the wild bistort or persicaria, Bistorta officinalis. Something about this plant seems fun and friendly to me and I’m always happy to see it. It likes growing in damp ground and grows around our way too, we have a couple of plants on the farm I’m hoping will spread.

And then I let out another “Oh!” and laugh again because there it is! Right there in front of me. My first globeflower.

Standing just a little larger than the buttercups, Trollius europaeus' flowers are large, closed and rounded, a pleasing soft lemon yellow. The leaves, large and cut, with an attractive matt-dullness toning the green down. I gently hold a flower with my fingers and push the petals open with my thumb and crouch to get my face closer. They have a sweet fragrance. Their leaves feel smooth and thick.

I stand and take a moment, to do the plant justice and not move on too quickly, looking at the plant, absorbing its presence, taking it all in. Where there is one, there is always more and then I finally lift my head and see them.

And I see them.

p.s. in the June issue of Wild Way: Outsider for paid subscribers, I list 10 early-summer plants from our garden I recommend, plus the veg to sow and grow right now…

It’s March 2024 and I find myself 560m above sea level on top of a hill in the Yorkshire dales overlooking a patch of ground that at first doesn’t look like much but, I can assure you, is incredibly exciting.

“I pity the poor person who has to restore that,” were the first words Jenny Sharman said in 2017 about Fleet Moss, a blanket peat bog that has faced some of the worst degradation in the country. That was before she ended up being that very person, overseeing the project two years later.

Jenny and her colleague Lyndon Marquis work for Yorkshire Peat Partnership, one of a handful of non-profit organisations doing some of the most important habitat restoration work. Together with their colleagues they are slowly reversing the damage done to peat habitat to help the unique wildlife that need them and to lock in carbon once again, contributing to reduce the existential threat of global warming. Their work benefits all of us.

Blanket peat bogs are areas of flat or gently sloped land with over 0.5m of peat, where the ground stays saturated because the amount of rainfall exceeds water loss. It usually forms over acidic bed rock and increases in acidity over time (Wildlife Trusts). Waterlogged ground creates anaerobic conditions that prevents dead plant material fully decomposing, trapping the carbon the plant absorbed from the air as it grew into the substance we call peat.

Last century, after the second world war, land owners were encouraged by the Government to dig channels to drain peat bogs for grazing (Fleet Moss was never used for peat compost). As Lyndon puts it, “that hasn’t worked out well for grazing or the peat.” When peat dries and comes into contact with oxygen, the conditions become aerobic and decomposition continues, releasing all of that trapped carbon back into the atmosphere, contributing to global warming.

As we walk onto the bog I follow Jenny’s footsteps carefully to not lose a boot in a pool of water. The first pool we pass is full of frog spawn and we can hear the calls of lapwings on this dry but windy day. But then, every day is windy up on Fleet Moss.

“Those mounds are called hags”, says Jenny, pointing to raised areas covered in heather and moss. I ask if they are natural formations on bogs, “no that’s the previous height of the peat, where we’re standing is where it’s dropped to.” My heart sinks, we’re standing in a huge flat expanse of ground as big as a sports pitch with hardly any of the hags around us, at least two metres of peat lost from this whole, huge space.

Lots of small streams of water criss-cross the area and blocking their flow are bales of natural fibre. Coir is being used for many of them, which is one of the best materials for the time being because it has little nutrient value, meaning it won’t change the chemical balance of the fragile peat habitat.

The team have done calculations before their project started, and restored peat locks in more carbon than the carbon cost of using coir (a waste product of coconuts). That said, Yorkshire Peat Partnership’s goal is to find something more local and they’re trialling other fibres, though sadly wool and test plant materials are showing signs of being too nitrogen rich.

The bales slow the flow of water enough to stop run-off eroding more peat, allowing plants to regrow. What we see around us was once bare peat until the bales were installed by the team. Crossing them I feel like I’m walking on a bridge of pillows, but then, most of the bog is spongy and soft.

Entering one of the gullies to the call of a golden plover, we’re met by a heartbreaking scene as the scale of damage to this peat habitat is put into perspective. Walls of exposed dry peat two metres high or more enclose us. We’re standing where 4,000 - 6,000 years of peat and wildlife habitat should have been. It takes on average a year to form just 1mm of peat.

“These weren’t dug out, the drainage channels, called grips, are much smaller. These large gullies are caused by erosion after the bog was dried by the grips,” Jenny explains that all of this material gets washed down into the flood prone valley below. “Tracks, walls and fields have been destroyed after stones and huge amounts of water washed down from Fleet Moss, scouring out the landscape as they went – the force of water can be incredible!”

“Around 70% of mains water comes from peat bogs in the UK but if that includes peat run off, their acidity is raised and water companies have to spend more to process and clean all of that water.”

In the larger gullies, heavy rocks that won’t wash away are piled to form permeable dams, which slow the water and trap eroded peat behind them. That peat raises the level of the channel base slightly, which will allow the team to increase the height of dams and slowly fill the areas back in. In most areas however, it is a process that will take many years. If it takes roughly a year to form 1mm of new peat, to restore over 2 metres means the project could be running for a long time.

Jute matting is pegged to fragile gully sides to stop any more peat washing away. This holds the peat in, but also prevents undercutting of the peat sides, which causes the sides to collapse into the flowing water. Into the jute matting plants are seeded or planted as plugs, though Jenny has noticed over the years that most mosses and other bog plants naturally self-sow. The results can be seen on the base of the gullies, plants now carpet them where before was exposed peat.

Each of the restoration barriers have moorland plants growing in or around them. Showing that if the habitat is restored, plant life will find its way back.

As we step out of the first long gully, and back onto the bog, Jenny shows us various mosses and other plants in water pools.

Peat bogs are much more complex than they first look. Most people have heard of spaghnum moss but Jenny describes the many different species of spaghnum. In fact, there are hundreds, and they all play different roles. Then there are the grasses, heathers, carnivorous sundews and other plants that only survive in these acidic, waterlogged locations. Each used by different insects and ground nesting birds to raise their young.

Water pools are home to frogs and are a vital habitat for dragonflies and other invertebrate. Forming a key food source for many of the resident birds, lizards and adders.

All of the colours of the moss, lichens, heathers and grasses are otherworldly, many like jewels as I lean in for a closer look. Much more beautiful than the bleak places we’re taught to fear. It’s a world in itself and as an artist, I can’t help be inspired by the tones and textures.

But when we walk up onto a hag, just as a short eared owl flies past us, we’re met with the full reality. Stretching into the distance, Fleet Moss rolls out before us like a battlefield.

As we near the end of our walk Jenny shows us one of Yorkshire Peat Partnership’s early success stories, where a vast run-off once flowed.

It used to be laden with so much peat “it was like watching a lava flow.” The run-off basin is still there, but it’s no longer bare peat, slowed enough to allow plants to regrow thanks to the team’s measures. Jenny stands on top of one of the stone traps while inspecting it, glad to see the dam is working.

New techniques are looking to a sticky natural mulch containing seeds called Peat Fix that can be sprayed onto bare peat to try and stop its erosion, giving seedlings a chance. As well as dead stems of heather to help minimise wind and rain damage.

Tracing the flow back across the bog on our way home, the extent of the team’s work strikes me as remarkable. Thousands of barriers across hundreds of hectares on a near inaccessible terrain. The challenge is obvious, to maintain the work until nature can tip the balance. Damage done to Fleet Moss in the past is colossal, but it makes me glad to meet people like Jenny and Lyndon who are working hard to save our natural world. They need all the support we can give them.

As we leave, the moor is alive with the sound of bird calls excited for the warmth of spring, another owl flies over us, busy hunting through the low moor plants as lapwings look for nesting spots.

You can find out more about Yorkshire Peat Partnership and support their work by visiting their website and following them on Instagram.