Exploring Kiveton Community Woodland

I went to explore Kiveton Community Woodland yesterday, in South Yorkshire as it maybe a filming location for me in the Spring. So I went along photographing and geo-tagging potential filming spots. I had been told that it was a good place to film Skylarks and that appears to be very true. After walking around for an hour or so I began to hear them in the distance. I made my way up a hill covered in thick grasses and found myself surrounded by them. It appears that the males are sorting out who goes where at the moment as there was a lot of fighting going on.

Unfortunately 200mm was the best I could do with the lenses I had with me.

It wasn't just the Skylarks settling disputes. I found a stone feature which had a few dozen spiders climbing to the very top. Once at the top they would spin out a long thread and then do something which I can only describe as stand on tipy-toes and let go of the stone. The wind caught the tread and the spiders would take off. I have never seen this behaviour in person just on TV. Once at the top the spiders would wrestle for what I assume were the best take off points.

Spiders wrestling at Kiveton Community Woodland.

I managed to get some footage of this behaviour which I think will demonstrate it better. I will edit it and get it online as soon as possible. I will also try and get them identified as I am no expert on spiders.

All in all it was a successful scouting trip and I definitely will be going to film Skylarks there in the spring.