I WONDER how many people like I have noticed an increase in wildlife over the last couple of weeks. Granted, my one walk a day is straight into the countryside, but it has not taken long for me to see more animals and birds than usual. They include hares - on one early morning walk I saw three pairs in just half an hour. I have also seen several deer, loads of buzzards, hundreds of rabbits and most excitingly of all, a stoat that was so unbothered by me it came within six feet - dangerously over social distancing rules - as it scoured the hedges for prey.

ON the subject of wildlife, the much anticipated results of the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch has revealed that in North Yorkshire, the humble house sparrow is the most frequently spotted visitor to gardens.

Almost half a million people across the country spent an hour watching and counting the birds in their garden, including 9,936 in North Yorkshire.

The event held over the last weekend in January revealed the house sparrow was in the number one spot in North Yorkshire, while there was an increase in garden sightings of long-tailed tits, wrens, and coal tits, three of the smallest species to visit our gardens.

The milder weather we experienced at the start of the year appears to have helped populations of these species as small birds are more susceptible to spells of cold weather, says the charity.

Daniel Hayhow, RSPB conservation scientist, said: “Small birds suffer during long, cold winters but the warmer January weather this year appears to have given species such as the wren and long-tailed tit a boost.

“Over the survey’s lifetime, we’ve seen the increasing good fortunes of birds such as the coal tit and goldfinch and the alarming declines of the house sparrow and starling. But there appears to be good news for one of these birds.”

Since the start of the Big Garden Birdwatch, the number of sparrows has declined by 53 per cent, but in the last decade, numbers appear to have increased by 10 per cent, says the RSPB. Second most common bird in North Yorkshire was the blue tit, and in third place, the starling.

ANOTHER consequence of everyone staying at home is how quiet the normally very busy roads are. I was interested to see this milestone, above, on a usually very inaccessible part of the A59, formerly known as the Skipton and Clitheroe Road.

WELL done to the team of Gargrave residents who have been making sure the public toilets in the centre of the village have remained open during the coronavirus. The team took over the running of the facilities at the start of the year after the parish council decided it could no longer afford to keep them running. The team, which includes ward councillor Simon Myers, quickly set up a cleaning rota, which has saved on cleaning costs, and also secured a grant of just more than £8,000 from the Yorkshire Dales National Park’s Sustainability Fund. Before the coronavirus called a speedy halt to everything, there were plans to install a water fountain outside, for walkers, cyclists and others, to replenish their water bottles, so cutting down on the need to use single use plastic.

Cllr Myers says they will continue to keep the toilets open as although there is nothing like the usual number of visitors in the village, there are key workers travelling along the A65 who will be welcome of the facilities. Everything is also super clean - and with electric handwash and drier - so no risk of passing on the virus. And, where else might one find a poem in a toilet? the team is inviting people to send in their poems and also has plans to exhibit art - people are just not going to want to leave.

A SHOCKING story was causing much upset in the Dales last week, until it filtered through that it had broken on April 1, All Fools Day. On a website, that looked very much like the Craven Herald’s, it was announced that the Yorkshire Dales National Park had given the go-ahead to plans to convert the former Barclays Bank building in Grassington into a super casino. Residents had been left ‘shocked and angry’, said the report, which added ‘furious villagers had spoken of their outrage, claiming planners had rushed through the application’. It quoted 65 year old Annette Curtain, who told Craven Herald ‘reporters’ that she had lived next to the site all her life. “I am horrified at the prospect of ne’er-do-well gamblers flocking to the Dales from nearby towns and villages.” Meanwhile, developer Alastair Flutter from Hull based We Hope its Chips Ltd said it was great news for Grassington, would bring new vibrancy and hoped people would embrace it. Brilliant, just wish we had thought of it first.

50 YEARS ago, the Craven Herald of April 10, 1970, reported on the results of a public opinion poll carried out in Horton in Ribblesdale. The poll, which asked ‘Do you want a village hall’ saw an overwhelming vote in favour of the provision of such an amenity.

123 villagers replied yes, and 12 no. Eight didn’t answer at all. A total of 107, with 39 against, were in favour of converting the chapel into a hall, 26 people favoured building a new hall in the playing field, and 96 were against. A total of 102 people felt the village could finance the chapel conversion scheme and 104 felt the village could not finance the cost of a new hall. The meeting in the Vicarage Room was also told of the sale of the Methodist Chapel, and there was majority support in favour of the purchase of the building and its conversion into a village hall. The Chapel could be purchased for £1,000, including the furniture and crockery, the meeting was told.

Also 50 years ago, about 450 people of all religious denominations joined in the united procession of witness in Skipton. It commenced in Lower Union Street and ended in the parish church when the Bishop of Bradford the Rt Rev Michael Parker conducted the Epilogue before a capacity congregation. Two open air services were held on the way, the first behind Burton’s Buildings and the second at Manby’s Corner, High Street. Canon Slaughter said it was the first time Skipton had seen so big a turn out.

IN most villages, reported the Craven Herald of 100 years ago in April 1920, there is at least one person who seeks to live differently from his neighbours, and perhaps to establish a name which may, when he is dead, achieve a wider publicity than the plain record of his tomb.

“Such a person resides in Main Street, Bentham. His name is Thomas Whitehead and is occupying a barn. He lives in sombre isolation, rejecting companionship and seeking nothing of the world save a promise of unbroken solitude. Whitehead, who is on the happier side of 40, is a native of Low Bentham. His means of subsistence are not known, yet he subsists.

He prepares meals inside the barn by methods strange to the science of cookery, all that is visible of his apparatus is the end of a stove pipe protruding through a hole in the wall. Sleep is his main recreation. He retires to bed at an ordinary hour at night, and he is still sleeping long after the Rubicon of day. He resents intrusion with varied demonstration of anger. The owner of the building, who needs it for the building of a motor garage, has resorted to every artifice in an attempt to dislodge him. Magistrates ordered him to leave following a hearing in which a doctor described him as living like an animal. “