Threatened

One of the things about land that is left to itself for a bit is that nature finds a way of recolonising.  What for some is a problem piece of derelict land is for others a site for the rewilding of the city.

Such is the Big Field that lies behind Shipley station, bordered on one side by the railway line and on the other by Bradford Beck.  Partly.  This site has also been subject to a sustained, conscious and subversive rewilding, as documented here.

Shipley Station itself is the home of one of Butterfly Conservation's smallest butterfly reserves, Station Meadow.  I popped by the reserve for a quick look on the way home from work and found four Small Tortoiseshells and a single Peacock.  

After negotiating the railway bridge tunnels that act as a portal to the Big Field, a quick walk around revealed 32 very active Small Tortoiseshells (including this pair) and 15 Peacocks, and on the other side of the Beck another 24 and six respectively.  As the summer progresses these sites will also be full of Ringlets, Small Heath and Skippers among others, as well as the Common Blue  which the official reserve is most notable for. For the past couple of years Marbled White have also been recorded here, which has been a notable arrival.

Just before Christmas it was announced that Morrisons had won a supermarket bidding war to develop the land on the north and south sides of the Beck for housing and, of course, a new store. Many people in the area are pleased about this, but some of us that cherish wildness, butterflies and a different sort of city have been expressing objections.  On my visit today I found that someone had chosen to get the message across in a direct way, through a variety of graffiti.  In addition to the combination of a direct appeal and more scholarly citation of a Spanish anarchist captured in this image, there is a colourful representation of the Marbled White itself, and a reworking of a Jean-Jacques Rousseau quote.

Hopefully the field will remain for at least this year, and that might give the Marbled Whites more opportunity to extend their range. The Station Meadow Reserve is of course safe but the planned development threatens to isolate it.  

Some may find graffiti of this nature a bit provocative or intrusive, but if it raises a bit more awareness of the ecological importance of the site I welcome it.  A fuller record of the use of posters and tags put up to stand testament to the destruction that's happening here, and has already happened at Briggate, can be found here.

Earlier, the first white butterflies had emerged on campus, but remained too distant to determine which.

Later, the first Swallow.