This month’s main tasks continue our summer theme of  restraining the competing vegetation around the two main tansy plant areas, the Pond enclosure on Thursday 11^th and around New Meadow on Thursday 25^th August. Our apologies to those whose availability is limited to weekends. There report on the last work party is here.

The grasslands have been cut, baled and largely removed, with over 70 bales produced. Gary is now grazing Rawcliffe Ings and will have beasts on Clifton Ings and Rawcliffe Meadows in due course. He’ll be repairing any gaps on the outer boundary, whilst we’ll be trying to keep them from straying between fields. If gates are closed, please keep them that way and let us know if any gaps appear.

We have a lot of Himalayan Balsam along Blue Beck, if anyone has time or can gather a few friends to gather to tackle that it’d be much appreciated!

Martin reports that here was a well-used track made by a largish mammal, connecting the SE corner of the big scrape in the Reservoir Basin to the pond to its east containing the Water Vole raft. The animal is clearly moving from one pond to the other – very probably either Otter or Mink. Any observations welcome.

We recently received a cheque for nearly £400 from the Vale of York Environment Group, which is unfortunately folding, after many years of good work. This will help pay for the many little jobs we have to do but don’t receive direct funding for. We have entered the ‘Meadows and Grasslands Awards’ , along with applying for an HLF bid towards republishing the very updated Ouse Ings book.

As usual, our Facebook page gets regular updates with any interesting photographs of events on the site, and is always worth a look. https://www.facebook.com/rawcliffemeadows/