Our thanks go to Emily McGregor, the River Ouse Floodplain Project Officer at the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, who is looking after the “Reflowering the Flood Plain” project funded by BiffaAward, for bringing seven of their volunteers onto Rawcliffe Meadows to help. Unfortunately the flooded cycle track had kept a few away. Our thanks also go to those who made it on a chilly changeable day. The day was started with the site of the resident Roe Deer, along with repeat visits from a hunting Kestrel.

The project has funded the growing of a large number of tansy plants, along with the creation of a bee bank, so it was appropriate that the group started by helping clear the slightly overgrown bee bank (created earlier in the year) and finished off by planting 40 tansy plants in the south-eastern corner of the Cornfield grassland. In between there was the arduous task of hoeing the cornfield flower bank to prevent it being overtaken by fodder radish instead of cornfield flowers, along with raking up and dumping to one side a large quantity of rank dead vegetation left by the hay spreading and one of the cuts.

The grassland is finally looking like grassland, and some invertebrates could be seen using the bee bank.

Our sponsors – BiffaAward

Buck and doe Roe Deer

Kestrel

YWT volunteers hoeing fodder radish

YWT volunteers clearing bee bank

YWT volunteers clearing grassland