Country Diary: South Yorkshire

Sixty acres may be a tiny area for wildlife conservation in the grand scheme of things, but the three parcels of land at Broomhill Flash, totalling just that much, have become a beacon for those with a passion for the natural history on their doorstep. Which is why some 50 of us gathered in the Old Moor Tavern to celebrate not only the purchase of the last piece in the jigsaw, but to honour one of Yorkshire's finest wildlife advocates.

Clegg's Meadow honours the memory of the late Michael Clegg, one of the earliest environmental campaigners back in the 1960s. Created from arable land, the new meadow will take time to become established. After years of intensive cropping, the soil fertility had to be reduced to enable wild flowers, which prefer poorer soils, to flourish.

This autumn, seeds have been sown from a donor meadow a few miles away, and next year we hope to see common-spotted orchids, swathes of meadow buttercup, ox-eye daisy and selfheal, with bird's-foot trefoil creating cushions of yellow on the ground. Brown hare have already begun to use the site, as have grey partridge, skylark and linnet, all four species in decline across the country.

Of course, in early winter it looks rather undistinguished, and those of us who wandered on to the reserve had to use our imaginations on full beam.

Michael Clegg would have been chuffed to bits to see the progress made on this, his favourite bird watching spot. A regular on national radio and regional television, he brought wildlife and nature conservation to the public. So the actions of the Garganey Trust, a tiny body of local volunteers set up to secure the site when it was under threat four years ago, would have pleased him mightily.

Expanding the reserve with the hay meadow and an additional 12 acres of grassland has given it an added dimension for wildlife.

As the wind picked up, we, the hardy few, who had left the warmth of the pub, with shoulders hunched against the squally rain, had to paint our own mental image of the beauty to come.