In line with the adage " safety in numbers" many of our birds flock together in winter, both for safety from predators and also to forage for food more effectively. We now have large flocks of thrushes, tits and finches moving around Knaresborough Forest Park taking advantage of this year's bountiful supply of berries and fruit, especially hawthorn. Some of the birds are with us throughout the year but their numbers have been swelled with visitors from Northern Europe, coming

We are pleased to share the plans for the first major tree-planting scheme at the land. This first phase focuses on the field to the left of the Beryl Burton Cycleway as you approach from Knaresborough. The design has grown from a workshop with wood-meadow ecologist Dan Carne, whose work centres on creating landscapes that are productive, biodiverse and grounded in local character. The plan brings together four complementary habitats, each chosen for what it can contribute to

Yorkshire Wildlife Trust and KFP Volunteers Enhance Ponds with Native Shrub Planting The KFP team had to obtain planning approval before developing the four newly installed newt ponds. As a condition of this approval they were required to achieve Biodiversity Net Gain to offset the habitat loss caused by the spread of spoil. This was done through the planting of 100 square meters of native shrubs, including Hawthorn, Hazel, and Dog Rose. See below a current and artistic impre

We had feared a low turnout or even a washout for our November working party, but we should have trusted both the weather and our stalwart volunteers, of whom 21 turned out despite waking up to pouring rain! In a busy two hours, we cleared leaf mould, soil and brambles from the Beryl Burton Cycleway which runs down the north side of the site. It even got so warm that some of us had to take off our coats! We cleared enough to fill two large piles of leaf mould to save as compo

All four newt ponds have been completed in one week! They are now waiting for more rain to fill them. The spoil has been neatly dealt with and covered with top soil.

Our quiz night on Saturday was quite a night, raising nearly £700 for planting willow and fruit trees. The indomitable quiz masters Andy and Amanda stretched our brains, got us talking and taught us lots of intriguing facts. We learned, for example, that Argentina means the land of silver, that Venus turns in the opposite direction to all the other planets in our solar system, that Barbados means the land of bearded ones, that we have no muscles in our forefingers, and that t

Finally, after jumping through the planning hoops and after a long wait, work started this week on the creation of four ponds at Knaresborough Forest Park! The work is fully funded by the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust working in collaboration with Natural England. John Thompson, YWT Wetland Creation Officer said : “Great crested newts are one of our most protected amphibians, and have suffered severe declines over the last century due to various reasons including habitat loss, pol

It's been a great year for fungi, sadly we haven't seen many Wax Caps but we have seen spectacular examples of Dog Vomit Fungus on grass in the Garth field Probably Didymium Spongiosum Dog Vomit Fungus is not actually a fungus but a Slime Mould, an interesting group of organisms somewhere between a fungus and a protozoa. There is another variety which is even more spectacular being shiny yellow. Not fixed to the ground they can actually move and have been shown to take the sh