2023 County Report for North-west Yorkshire

Linda Robinson

We have had a good year, lots of records received from various recorders.  The Field Meetings were well attended, one of the highlights was finding Cladium mariscus at Marfield Fen as it hadn’t been recorded in the SSSI designation.  We also found the relatively rare Alchemilla filicaulis ssp. filicaulis, the ssp vestita is very common on the limestone grasslands in the v.c. but we only have eight records of ssp filicaulis on the Database.

 

The annual monitoring of Neotinea ustulata took place around the beginning of June, the Glebe Field had five flowers and Swinithwaite Pastures also had five this year.  The fields on private farm land below West Witton had a total of one hundred and fifteen plants, rather down on last year’s figures due to the drought conditions, but the SSSI was still in favourable condition.

The Pseudorchis albida (Small White Orchid) numbers were much reduced this year, again the drought was blamed.  Carol and Andrew Armstrong kindly did the monitoring for us and only recorded nineteen plants at Fotheringholme and two plants at Marsett.

In 2022 Sue Thurley and myself counted and recorded all the plants of Alchemilla monticola in one section of Hayberries Nature Reserve near Eggleston.  The remaining section was surveyed by myself this year.   We now hope to organise work parties to dig out the invasive Alchemilla mollis which almost dominates the Reserve.