The 6th Harrogate and District Volunteering Oscars evening was held on Friday 1st November

to celebrate the amazing amount of volunteer work that is carried out in Harrogate District.

Jennifer Hall is our member who specializes in building insect hotels, often in schools and with many children helping. She is also warden of the Rossett Nature Reserve and has planted many

There were several nominations and Jennifer was the only Highly Commended award in the

Environment Group, being runner up to the whole –Starbeck-in-Bloom team who received the Oscar. Well done Jennifer.

2013 is the fourth year we have forayed into Birk Crag to attack the invasive rhododendrons and you can see where we have been. More large stands were cut down and re-growth from roots we

have been unable to remove have been trimmed. Over the years we have opened out the area and the bilberries are coming back to life. There are also young oak trees bravely pushing their way through. Letting in the light improves the habitat for the elusive Chestnut Click Beetle.

Bilberries coming through Young oak trees

Hard at work with our new hi’viz vests!!

What have we been doing?

The Nidderdale Agricultural Show at Pateley

Bridge is always the last Monday in September and quite often it rains. This year, however, it was a bright, dry day with thousands of visitors checking out all the stalls including ours. Thanks once again to RHS Harlow Car for the loan of their marquee. We talked to a host of wildlife friendly gardeners and recruited new members and a

winner of our Wildlife Friendly Garden Award Scheme.

Nidderdale Plus, whose role is to champion the rural area west of Harrogate, used this year’s Nidderdale Show to unveil its “We Love Nidderdale” initiative. Naturally we joined in .

All are being asked to photograph the “We Love Nidderdale” sign alongside their favourite Nidderdale view, place, product or person and send their photos to the ‘Nidderdale Plus’ Facebook page, where it will be shared amongst followers from around the world.

Photos can also be tweeted to @NidderdalePlus with the hashtag #lovenidderdale, emailed to admin@nidderaleplus.org or uploaded to Instagram with #lovenidderdale.

During October we were back in Valley Gardens to plant wildflower plugs. Those planted last year did very well and more have been planted alongside them near the paths at the Ebor Rise entrance. We also ventured up into the area near the war memorial so keep a look out there for more variety next year.

Comments and contributions welcomed.

Please contact Pamela Millen:-

biodiversityaction@gmail.com

01423 523233

Harrogate District Biodiversity Action Group

Newsletter no.14 - December 2013

trees with the Rotary program in the area. As a member of the Sorroptomists in Harrogate she has enthused to them about the importance of helping improve wildlife habitat in our area. Impressed with all

her work they nominated Jennifer for the Environment

Volunteer Award.

November is also a good time for setting up log

piles so on the 24th we were back in Valley Gardens adding to the ones we made last year. It was good to see that some of last year’s already have moss on them and they are all getting a good covering of leaves as autumn turns to winter.

A few of the merry band of helpers!

The old... and the new...

Town and Country

Out and about in November I discovered two more homes for wildlife.

In Harrogate I met Mary Bond from Harrogate-in-Bloom when she was tidying up the shrub planters in front of the Cotswold store at West End. Trimming the shrubs and removing some of the

autumn leaf fall had revealed a toad. It was carefully replaced under a blanket of leaves whilst the excess leaves were being taken to the planter outside St Peter’s Church to mulch the Viburnam for the winter. Hedges and planters around town are apparently ‘des res’ for our wildlife.

Whilst in Sawley for a walk I noticed the beautiful village wildlife garden. It was created in 1997 by the car park at the village hall and includes a pond, laid hedgerow and woven willow arbour. This must be an oasis for the wildlife that are surrounded by open fields.

PM

What’s Next?

January 25th/26th is the RSPB’s Big Garden Bird Watch so please join in.

We are working on our 2014 calendar of events and will send it out with membership renewals in the New Year.

Malcolm has done a wonderful job on our website at www.biodiversityaction.org.uk so please log on and check out the news, gallery and links to other sites. You can also see the latest Twitter and Face book comments.

Harrogate Biodiversity Action Plan

February 2013 saw the launch of the Harrogate biodiversity action plan (BAP) which addresses habitats and species specific to Harrogate district with goals and actions listed to preserve and /or improve. Matt Millington was the North Yorkshire County Council officer with responsibility for

coordinating the work of all the BAPs throughout the whole of North Yorkshire. Unfortunately, due to local government cut backs, he is no longer employed in this capacity. In order that the work set out in the BAPs is carried out and the details be forwarded to the North and East Yorkshire Ecology Data Centre it has been suggested that HDBAG take

on a coordinating role. We would not be attempting the work ourselves but helping the groups that do.

We hope to be addressing this issue at our AGM in February and hope you will attend the meeting. In the meantime go to www.harrogate.gov.uk and follow the links to the BAP to see what habitats and species are in our Harrogate BAP.

Other Local Groups

Harrogate District RSPB Local Group indoor meetings take place at Christ Church Hall, Harrogate and start at 19.30. £3 for members, £4 for non-members.

January 13th David Alred on ‘Nature’s Year’

Febuary 10th David Beeken on ‘The Orkneys’

Harrogate District Naturalists’ Society indoor meetings take place at St. Robert’s Centre, Harrogate and start at 19h30. Non-members £3.

January 8th Paul Irving ‘Naturalist with a Camera’

January 22nd Sheila Nash and Ros Wade ‘Birding in Trinidad and Tobago’

February 5th Lynda Fussell ‘Biodiversity in the Harrogate area’

February 19th Bob Elliot ‘Bird Detectives: the RSPB investigation team’

Musings of a wildlife gardener

(a personal view)

Books to inspire

It’s the time of year when we are reduced to armchair gardening most days. This has its own delights as we watch goldfinches on teasel seedheads or try to spot a brambling under the seed feeders.

It’s also the season for catching up on a bit of reading and so I’d like to use this column to recommend two books which we have enjoyed this year and might be worth a few negotiations with Santa.

The first is Dave Goulson’s “A sting in the tale” published by Jonathan Cape. Goulson founded the Bumblebee Conservation Trust in 2006. He is an academic and author of many scientific papers on bees, butterflies and other insects. However this book is addressed to the layman. He traces the development of his passion for nature as a child, alongside details of the life of the bumblebee nest, the effects of intensive farming and the crucial importance of the bumblebee. His is a lively writing style, but be warned – you may pick this book up to dip into a chapter such as, “The hot-blooded bumblebee”, “A brief history of bees”, “Comfrey and smelly feet” and find your are still there turning pages a couple of hours later. The book provides a very enjoyable way of getting to know more about bumblebees, which are such a vital part of the wildlife garden.

The second book I would like to recommend is Sarah Raven’s “Wild flowers” published by Bloomsbury. The flowers included are divided up according to habitat: Wood; Lane, Wall and Hedge; Meadow; Water and Wetlands etc. The text is interspersed with beautiful photographs taken by Jonathan Buckley from the plant’s ‘eye-level’. Each flower listed is accompanied by a photograph and botanical notes. For me it is Sarah Raven’s comments on her selections which make the book stand out. Her prose style is vivid and her enthusiasm infectious. This is Sarah on a northern specialist, bird’s-eye primrose:

“Tiny and delicate they might be, but Bird’s-eye Primroses are deeply glamorous and

exciting to find. They grow only in the north of England....... When southerners such as me are lucky enough to find them, it makes us want to do a jig.”

Bogbean provides another example:

“The flower spikes of Bogbean erupt out of shallow water, each petal stuck all over with what looks like fraying nylon string. In silhouette, the flower could be an impressive cake topped with spun sugar icing. They look exotic and tropical, more like something you would expect to see in an Indonesian rainforest than in a bog in Britain.” (The accompanying photograph is a true delight!)

Both books harbour a note of warning on the habitat damage done in the name of ‘progress’ over the last century. However the publication of such books sounds a hopeful note for the future. Sarah Raven comments that conservation groups are reversing the downward trend in wildflower numbers, while Dave Goulson concludes with an unambiguous statement of his case:

“Our survival and wellbeing is inextricably linked to that of all the wonderful diversity of life on earth... We have barely begun to understand the complexity of interactions between living creatures on earth, yet we often choose to squander the irreplaceable, to discard those things that both keep us alive and make life worth living. Perhaps if we learn to save a bee today we can save the world tomorrow?”

Sarah Raven and Dave Goulson are two lively and accessible writers who between them have fired up our enthusiasm, so that, come the spring, we are keen to re-double our efforts to plant as many wildflowers as possible on our patch, and thereby get the feel-good factor of watching bumblebees and others enjoy the results.

Janice Scott

Wildlife Friendly Workplace Awards

BGBW at Starbeck Library

Pond Dipping at RLNR Open Day

Moth Morning

Studfold Open Day

Bug Hunt at Bioblitz day

Bioblitz at Brimham Rocks

Nidderdale Show

Pinewoods Open Day

Balsam Bashing in Valley Gardens

Crassula Removal at RLNR

It is that time of year again where we look back on

the past year and look forward to another year of promise and excitement.

2013 has been a far better year than 2012 for the

weather which has enabled us to get out and about and complete many of our planned activities as well

as squeeze in a number of last minute ones!

Thanks to all who have been able to help out during

the year on our various escapades – members and non-members have been very active.

The highlights must include the massive support and

great inroads we have made on the Himalayan Balsam control. Whilst we will never rid ourselves

of this invasive, yet beautiful plant, we have been

able to clear significant patches allowing many other species to regain their position in the ecosystem.

We have also been very busy working on our

projects which received funding from the Harrogate

Borough Council’s Community Chest.

Firstly, the Wildlife on Allotment Brochures have

been well received and have found their way into all

the local allotment groups as well as many private gardens and other community initiatives.

The Wildlife Friendly Workplace Award was launched

at our AGM and continues to attract businesses. Congratulations to all award recipients. We hope to

see you and many others reapply for the award in

2014.

The notice boards for the Valley Gardens Wildlife Area are finally coming together after a few

challenges and we hope to these installed in time for

the BGBW at the end of January.

We are planning to continue these initiatives in 2014

as well as working closer with our younger members

who are showing much enthusiasm for outdoor

nature projects. The coordination of the BAP activities is likely to be both challenging and

rewarding. We are looking for new people to get involved and help us deliver another big plan.

Finally we look forward to working with you and

sharing special moments in nature during 2014.