Ingleborough Tree Planting (c) Joe Grey
This year, our Wild Ingleborough volunteers have really got stuck in on their practical conservation task days, and here is what they carried out in just 40 days!
We love walling and believe you do too with task day tickets selling out in record speed!
These were exciting days for our new upland plant nursery and with our growing-at-home volunteers and keen potters-on. We hope our Wild Ingleborough volunteers are ready for what we’re hoping to be a busy year in the nursery come 2025.
The big success was planting out our first nursery-grown spiked speedwell plants onto the Ingleborough National Nature Reserve (NNR)!
A couple weeks ago, our little willow saplings underwent the ‘toughening up’ process up at Colt Park, experiencing their first taste of Yorkshire snow!
This cold spell will help the seeds we've planted in our propagation boxes to break their dormancy, ready for germination in the spring.
Task day Tuesdays are truly the highlight of our week. With your keen attitudes and willingness to get stuck in whatever the weather we couldn’t be more grateful for your key role in the Wild Ingleborough project. 2025 promises new tree planting areas, more walling at Fenwick lot (sorry!) and hopefully some new opportunities for you to get involved with the monitoring and upland plant nursery.Wild Ingleborough Project Assistants
Apart from our task days, some of our volunteers have been involved with monitoring, including covering 7 vegetation plots, carrying out 25 butterfly transects and field vole surveys.
This valuable data is already being processed by our University of Leeds research officers, Robyn and George, and helping to inform future management decisions. Furthermore, a handful of volunteers helped out at Swarth Moor with great-crested newt surveys, which we hope was something a bit different.
We were so impressed by offers to volunteer at such short notice, and ourselves and Yorkshire Peat Partnership were very grateful.
This year, they have effectively donated more than 1,823 hours which equates to 260 days of work (more than 1 full-time employee)!
And finally, we hope you all have a merry Christmas and look forward to seeing you back in the New Year.
The Wild Ingleborough Team
Ingleborough 3 summits at dawn (c) Liz Coates
