News: October 2024

Swaledale waxcaps

This month: DalesRunner encourages contributions to Sustainable Swaledale; Dark Skies; Hedgehog survey: help from the comfort of your armchair: Meadow wildflower plug planting 3 November; Repair and repurposing café 16 November in Leyburn; Seed boxes; Volunteering opportunities coming up; Waxcap Watch; Willows in the Yorkshire Dales talk and workshop 16th October; Working with nature improves Lakeland farm’s profits; YDMT Seed to Sapling Newsletter No 3; Yorkshire Dales Bird of Prey Partnership loses another member

DalesRunner encourages contributions to Sustainable Swaledale

Local trail-running event organiser DalesRunner will only offer t-shirts to those who want them in the 2025 running season. Instead, they will encourage other runners to donate to Sustainable Swaledale. We thank them for their support.

Dark skies

A reminder that Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority (YDNPA)  is hosting a free event at its Yoredale offices, Bainbridge, on Monday 11 November 17:30 to 19:00 at which you can learn about the importance of proper lighting practices in minimising light pollution in the Yorkshire Dales.

To book a place on “Shining a Light on the Yorkshire Dales Dark Sky Reserve” please follow this link.

The Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority Planning Committee has just ruled that the intensity of the lighting along the internal roads at Aysgarth Lodge Holidays near West Burton must be reduced to preserve dark skies. The committee was told that the 6,000K bulbs in the 49 bollards did not comply with the authority’s Dark Skies Initiative. The owners will be required to replace the bulbs with 2,700K and 470 lumens bulbs with ‘warm white’ colour and turn off the lights between 11pm and 6am. Source: Richmondshire Today

Hedgehog survey: help from the comfort of your armchair

As part of the PTES National Hedgehog Monitoring Survey, lots of webcams have been placed across the country to capture hedgehog activity. Other animals have been captured on the webcams so volunteers are required to look at video clips uploaded to MammalWeb and identify whether the animal shown is (for instance) a fox, rabbit, pheasant or indeed a hedgehog. It is hoped that the project will provide robust hedgehog population estimates which can be used for planning support. More information, including a video on what is involved, is available on Youtube.

Meadow wildflower plug planting

The Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust (YDMT) is seeking volunteers to help plant some wildflower plugs into a meadow in Low Row on 3rd November between 11 and 2pm. What3Words location is ///rods.suits.removal. Just turn up dressed for outdoor activities – all tools are provided. Email Eva.irving@ydmt.org if you require further information.

Repair and repurposing café – 16 November in Leyburn

The next Richmondshire Climate Action Partnership repair and repurposing cafe will be at the Leyburn Arts & Community Centre and new community shed, Richmond Road, Leyburn on Saturday 16th November 2024 from 9.45am to 12.30pm.

Typically, repairs can be made to clothes, fabric, electronics and small electricals (bring power leads), jewellery, bicycles and more. Refreshments and cakes available. Entry is free but donations help support the venture. More information on the Repair Café website.

Seed boxes

The Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust staff have kindly provided us with some seed box kits which we can use to make some more seed boxes. Pre-cut wood, mesh and instructions have been provided for construction by volunteers. We are grateful to Chris Hunter who has already made us a number of boxes for distribution. If anyone else would like to get involved in helping make up boxes, please let me know.

Some seeds take two years to grow (so don’t be too hasty to throw contents away!), but if you have any seed boxes which you know to be redundant, we would love to get them back. Please get in touch.

We will be bringing seed boxes and potting-on mixture to the November meeting at the Reeth Memorial Hall (7th November 7pm) where we will be potting on some of the seeds and berries picked this autumn. We will have hawthorn and rowan berries,  birch, alder, large-leaved lime seeds and hazel nuts ready to go.

Waxcap Watch

The Plantlife charity is asking for volunteers to record sightings of waxcap fungi. Waxcaps are an indicator of rare, species-rich grassland and their presence allows Plantlife to pinpoint where ancient meadows survive. Species-rich grassland helps combat climate change as it stores up to a third more carbon than areas with just a few species.

No knowledge of fungi is required – you download an app which will help you identify the fungus and record any sightings up to the end of November. Further information is available on the Plantlife website at: Take part in Waxcap Watch 2024 – Plantlife

Willows in the Yorkshire Dales talk and workshop 16th October

Steven Heaton, willow-enthusiast and Lead Advisor for Tree Action Delivery Group at Natural England, spoke at a well-attended event about willows. He encouraged us to plant more willow in the dales – originally there would have been a lot more tree cover including willows.

Willow is useful for nature restoration as it supports over 750 insects, helps with natural flood management, helps clean water and is able to capture carbon. It also helps to prevent peat erosion when planted around peat bog.

Steven gave a quick guide to how to identify the different willows and how to propagate them. We spent the second half of the session potting on a mixture of eared, tea leaved and creeping willow into pots or root trainers using a 50:50 mix of peat free compost and sand.  These pots will either be hosted at homes across the two dales or placed into the tree nursery at Reeth Surgery. Willows, especially tea-leaved and dark-leaved hybridise easily so we will need to make sure that we don’t locate both in the same creche.  It is expected that the cuttings will be ready for planting out next autumn and we have a number of sites which would be suitable for willow planting.

We are grateful to Steven for his excellent talk, Eva at the Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust for arranging this event, and all her YDMT colleagues who assisted on the night by bringing along willow, compost mix, secateurs and pots/root trainers and filmed the event for future reference.  If you took some willow and didn’t leave details, please email info@sustainableswaledale.org with the details of what you have so that we can keep the spreadsheet up to date.

The event was also attended by people from the Wild Ingleborough project and Broadrake so there was some good networking between attendees and we hope to get Steven interested in some of our future planting plans.  All left enthused about the possibility of reintroducing some of the rarer species back into Swaledale and Arkengarthdale.

Working with nature improves Lakeland farm’s profits

Article in Farmers Weekly  about some Lakeland farmers who have cut their fertiliser inputs, added clover to their fields and changed their stock practices making themselves more profitable with fewer inputs. They have also been asked by the Forestry Comission to graze cattle on land that has not been grazed for a while in a bid to improve floral biodiversity through less selective grazing.

YDMT Seed to Sapling newsletter 3

Eva Irving, the Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust (YDMT) Community Conservation Officer, has produced the third newsletter updating us on what seed we should be collecting at the moment. The newsletter can be found on the YDMT website, the Tree Nursery WhatsApp group or you can view it here.

Yorkshire Dales Bird of Prey Partnership loses another member

The Northern England Raptor Forum (NERF) is the latest organisation to leave the Yorkshire Dales National Park and Nidderdale National Landscape Bird of Prey Partnership set up to tackle bird of prey crime. NERF cites concerns over reputational damage by association if it continues to engage in forums that include the Moorland Association following it’s recent expulsion from the Bird of Prey Crime Priority Delivery Group. Source: Raptor Persecution UK

Core Group Meeting

The November Meeting will be on Thursday 7th November at the Reeth Memorial Hall. We will be using the time to pot on some of the seed gathered earlier in the autumn. We will have seed boxes, compost and sand and seeds/berries available for people to fill and either take home or take to the Reeth Surgery Nursery. Please get in touch if you’d like to join us.

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