The date of the Winter Bird survey has been changed from February 25th to Sunday March 24th.
Meet outside St Mary’s Church, Moor Lane East Keswick at 10.00am. Please bring binoculars with you if you have them.
Please come along and make a variety of Christmas decorations from natural materials. For ages 5 to 11, £5 per family.
To book a place please email MARIA.EKVH@GMAIL.COM
Thank you to everyone who made the art show weekend so successful. Here is the winning wildlife painting and the winning children’s wildlife drawings.
This weekend we were joined by Ann and Robert from the Yorkshire Mammal Group to lay 50 humane mammal traps in Bardsey Field. We laid the traps on Saturday afternoon, making sure that any mammals caught had a cosy bed for the night and plenty of food. We then returned on Sunday morning to empty the traps, record and weigh the mammals and then release them safely. The weather was glorious and the event was very well attended. It was lovely to see the children lay the traps and then return the following day, remembering exactly where they were and so excited to see what was inside.
We recorded 1 common shrew, 1 field vole, 1 bank vole and 18 wood mice.
The Wildlife Trust is excited to hear that East Keswick Village Hall’s offer for the Illingworth Field, which lies directly behind the Village Hall’s garden, has been accepted.
The Village Hall has our full support in acquiring the Illingworth Field. We believe it will contribute to protecting, improving and extending existing local multifunctional green corridors. It will enable an increase in connectivity to the existing local habitat network, including the Ellikers nature reserve to the north of Illingworth Field, and offer the potential for wider links around the parish and beyond.
East Keswick Wildlife Trust is committed to working with the Village Hall to preserve this green space and create opportunities for the local community and visitors to learn and play a central role in working with nature to address the causes and consequences of climate change.
Peter Guildford and David Wort from the Village Hall committee meet David Smith, Chairman of East Keswick Wildlife Trust, to discuss plans to improve biodiversity on the land behind the Village Hall.
Last Sunday we enjoyed another great family day and even managed to avoid the storms! We had lots of activities and of course tasty pizzas.
Many thanks to everyone who came and made the afternoon such a success
We will be holding our annual family day on Sunday 9th July from 2-4pm at the charcoal burn area in Oxclose Wood.
This year we won’t have the kilns lit, but will be loading them ready to burn – something that children love being involved with. We would recommend bringing gloves to protect your hands. It is a great opportunity to learn about the charcoal burns too, but without the smoke!
The pizza oven will be fired up and we will provide the dough. If you can bring tomato sauce and toppings that would be great. We won’t be able to provide seating, so please feel free to bring rugs or chairs.
There will be lots of fun for the children including willow weaving, scavenger hunt and drawing. Our Trust moth expert will have traps to show the children the variety of moths that live in the woods. There will also be the opportunity to learn more about the Trust, with talks on charcoal burns and how the woodland is managed.
This event is free for members or a minimum donation of £5 for non members.
We need to know numbers, to enable us to plan activities and prepare the right quantity of pizza dough. If you could let us know if you are coming and how many of you there will be, by Thursday 6th July that would be helpful. We are limited to the number of pizzas we can cook in the time available, so please book early to avoid disappointment. Please reply to thomasin@ekwt.org.uk, we hope to see you there!
Dan Carne, a director of the Wood Meadows Trust will give a talk ‘Forgotten Landscapes: wooded grasslands in Great Britain’. Dan will explore the history and ecology of wood meadows and wood pastures and make the case that these ancient agricultural systems have an important role to play in our modern landscapes. All welcome.
We will be meeting at the entrance to St Mary Magdalene Church, Moor Lane, East Keswick at 10.00am. You are welcome to come and go throughout the day, please bring snacks and lunch, also binoculars if you have them. From the Church we will be walking through the Marsh, then along Moor Lane to the cricket field. We will then cross Harewood Road and walk down to the river, back up Fitts Lane and into the village. If time allows we may also include Ox Close Wood.
Once widespread, this plant is now very rare with over 99% of its population found on just 5 sites in the United Kingdom. The plant is small and can be inconspicuous except when it flowers in Spring around Easter time, hence the name Pasque flower, Pulsatilla Vulgaris.
The Pasque flower was thought to be lost in Yorkshire, until in 1984 a single plant was discovered in a heavily grazed grassland near Leeds. English Nature took over the lease of the site and work was done to increase the population, but this was unsuccessful, and the viability of the plants seed questioned.
How East Keswick Wildlife Trust became involved
In 2016 East Keswick Wildlife Trust were contacted by a senior officer from Natural England who suggested that we take on the project to help save the plant from extinction in Yorkshire. He knew of East Keswick Wildlife Trust’s successful conservation projects and developing expertise and success in germinating uncommon native wild plant species.
The Trust initially took 2 seeds from the plant and proved their viability by propagating 2 healthy plants which were then protected and kept safe in East Keswick. In 2019, East Keswick Wildlife Trust put together a project team and applied for a 5-year license from Natural England to secure the Pasque flower’s future in Yorkshire. The license was approved, and seed collected, with some deposited at the Millenium seed bank at Kew.
A resounding success
We continue to nurture more seedlings with a view to plug planting them in the future and consider this project to be a resounding success.
Please follow the link below to watch a short film by the Natural History Museum about this lovely flower