The dawn of a new dell !

The First Dell


The Main Dell


The new Eastern Dell

One of the main habitat features at Buckton are 'dells.' According to the Oxford dictionary a dell is a small secluded usually wooded valley or vale.

On site we have the 'First Dell' which is 500m up Hoddy Cows Lane from the village, the 'Main Dell' which is a further 400m up the lane and the largest of all the dells and a SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest), the 'Field Dell' which is just to the NW of the Main Dell and the 'Cliff Top Dell' which we have been planting with trees for the past three years and for which we hold great promise as it is only 200m from the cliff top.

Last Sunday we planted some trees in the last remaining 'unwooded' dell on the site, a very small one which forms the boundary with Bempton Cliff RSPB reserve - so this has become the 'Eastern Dell'. It has held a Yellow-browed Warbler in the past and can be a holding point for birds which come in off the cliff top along the Bempton boundry fence, which acts as a leading line.

On one date in September 2006 this fence line was dripping with freshly arrived flycatchers and warblers during an eastern arrival but without proper cover in the dell these migrants moved along the fence line and then simply vanished over the fields and inland. The seventy willows, elders, blackthorn and sea buckthorn thet we planted should produce the goods in about twenty years !