Thunderbridge Meadows

Wednesday 7th May 2025

Leader: Kay McDowell

Eleven members gathered in the public end of the large car park by the Woodman Inn on Thunder Bridge Lane, just south of Kirkburton. A short walk south on the road and over the eponymous bridge (no storms in sight!), led us to the gate into Thunderbridge Meadows Nature Reserve. The site is known to Kay through her work as co-recorder for SW Yorkshire (VC63) for the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland. The information board at the entrance showed that the site is managed by the Garganey Trust with Yorkshire Wildlife Trust (YWT) involvement and describes it as ‘...a mix of meadows, woodland, scrub and stream’. The stream, Thunder Bridge Dyke, runs northwards through the site towards Fenay Beck, which lies to the east of Huddersfield. The dyke and beck were the subject of a YWT restoration project in 2018 which involved tree-planting, new fencing, treatment of invasives (the ‘usual suspects’) and introducing coir matting, pre-planted with native plants, along with the use of willow to protect badly-eroded stream-banks.

During our walk through the site, we encountered good woodland with an understorey, but with the ash trees unfortunately showing signs of Ash dieback disease. A feature of the day was the Pteridophytes, represented by a number of ferns and horsetails, the most dramatic being great specimens of still-unfolding Golden Scaly Male-fern (Dryopteris affininis ssp affinis), looking very bright green but with masses of scales on the lower part of the stem.

Both Hard Shield-fern (Polystichum aculeatum) and Soft Shield-fern (P. setiferum) were seen, along with Wood Horsetail (Equisetum sylvaticum), in what had been a pond area which had largely dried out. These horsetails had the characteristic terminal cones but the hoops of branched side-branches were only just unfurling. Nearby was found one clump of a substantial sedge which, on examining the ligule and finding one male inflorescence, turned out to be Smooth-stalked Sedge (Carex laevigata), an uncommon member of the wetland sedge flora in this part of the country.

As I had to leave a little early, Kay confirmed a few more species that were added to the list, including Lady-fern (Athyrium filix-femina), Male-fern (Dryopteris filix-mas), Hart's-tongue (Asplenium scolopendrium), Hard Fern (Blechnum spicant), Common Sedge (Carex nigra), Pale Lady's-mantle (Alchemilla xanthochlora) and Hairy Lady's-mantle (Alchemilla filicaulis ssp. vestita). The latter was reddish in colour on the lower parts of the stem.

Nyree kept a keen eye out for butterflies and moths and found an Orange-tip butterfly and a moth called the White-pinion Spotted, the latter uncommon in this part of the country.

Text by Graham

Photographs by Graham and Nyree