Welcome to Yorkshire Wildlife Trust’s year in wildlife – featuring our highlights from a year of wild wonders as we care for nature and wild places across the region.

From our 100 nature reserves and peat and marine restoration programmes to community projects, we’re proud to be at the frontline of conservation in Yorkshire thanks to the help of our thousands of members and supporters.

It’s been a particularly exciting year for wildlife sightings, from a pine marten at Spurn Point to our first osprey at Ripon City Wetlands. We’ve spotted rare water beetles at Potteric Carr, ringed a clutch of barn owls at Stirley, and welcomed some breeding bird species for the first time.

Rachael Bice, Chief Executive of Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, said;

“We are incredibly proud of everything we have achieved for Yorkshire’s wildlife, and there is certainly a great deal to celebrate. Our landscape-scale projects are making a difference at a significant scale, and we are helping new life to flourish through of species reintroductions and breeding successes.

“More than ever before, Yorkshire’s wildlife needs the protection offered by our nature reserves. These incredible places, some of the best examples of a once rich and wild Yorkshire landscape, are now increasingly rare pockets of sanctuary and the last refuges for much of our iconic and irreplaceable wildlife. We are working to join up these pockets as best we can and have ambitious plans for 2024. However, we are facing a future of political change and a destabilised climate. This means it is vitally important we continue to speak up for wildlife and our wild places, supported by our amazing members and supporters.

“We thank all our wonderful members, partners, funders, visitors and volunteers for their ongoing support which has allowed us to make such a difference to our wildlife and wild places, and are proud to work on their behalf for the benefit of wildlife everywhere.”

Rare water germander plants were successfully reintroduced to Bolton-on-Swale nature reserve in the summer. Water germander was last found in Yorkshire in 1863 and until recently its British population was limited to two sites in Devon and one in Cambridgeshire.

We opened two new nature reserves, Ashes Shaw and Bellfield’s Pasture, in the shadow of Ingleborough. We are managing these to encourage more spectacular wildflower displays, which are an important feature of the reserves’ rare limestone grasslands and iconic limestone pavements in late spring.

There have been some unusual avian visitors to Ripon City Wetlands nature reserve this year. We erected an osprey platform in January to encourage osprey to visit and the platform had its first osprey visitor in mid-May, all the way from the Lake District. We hope they will breed here in future. A hen harrier was also spotted on the reserve in November, one of our rarest birds of prey.

The Better Estuaries and Coastal Habitats (BEACH) Esk project improved water quality in the Esk, right from the river’s source upstream all the way through to the sea at Whitby. The Trust worked with local farmers and landowners to minimise agricultural pollution by restoring grassland and wetland, planting trees and hedges and creating sturdier fencing.

Yorkshire Peat Partnership works across northern England and advises other peat projects on their restoration of peatland soils for habitat, atmospheric carbon reduction and slowing the movement of water.

• Cumulatively, 42,868 hectares of peat have now been restored, which is an area the size of Bradford.
• Almost 750,000 cottongrass, crowberry and sphagnum plants were planted, and the programme slowed the flow of water through 157 km of eroding channels, the near-equivalent length of the entire river Aire.
• Yorkshire Peat Partnership was also awarded funding from Natural England as part of the Species Recovery Programme to investigate the potential for reintroducing white-faced darter dragonflies back into our lowland peat bogs.

A rare water beetle (Berosus luridus) was found at Carr Lodge nature reserve in November. This is about a mile from the last local record in 1937 at what is now Potteric Carr nature reserve, and only the second record in the whole of Yorkshire this century.

Conservation grazing with sheep and ponies have improved habitat at Potteric Carr, resulting in little ringed plover breeding here for the first time. They were joined by two pairs of bitterns and two pairs of highly endangered willow tits.

Lapwings – a fairly common sight at Potteric Carr but suffering a worrying drop in numbers across the UK – also had a good breeding season. It has been a similar success story for mute swans and ducks like mallard, gadwall, tufted and pochard.

An archaeological dig at Potteric Carr in collaboration with Digventure and supported by participants from the local community in April confirmed definite inhabitation of an Iron age/Romano-British settlement, through finds such as flints, charcoal and animal bones.

We've worked on protected sites and farms across the Humberhead Levels and surveyed almost 4000 ha to help inform potential future peat restoration. This area includes the largest area of lowland raised bog in England, and is a valuable wildlife habitat with incredible potential to lock up vast amounts of carbon.   

New owl boxes at Stirley this year heralded a parliament of adorable baby barn owlets. These owlets have been ringed, allowing the British Trust of Ornithology to keep an eye on our regional barn owl numbers.

Visitors were very excited to spot water rails at Adel Dam nature reserve for the first time. Smaller and distinctly slimmer than the moorhen, water rails are very secretive wetland birds rarely spotted, although they are becoming increasingly common in Yorkshire.

The Reviving Calderdale’s Rivers project removed several tonnes of rubbish from Hebble Brook, and willow spiling (a living willow wall) was installed along two farmers’ fields to prevent erosion.

A large programme of works to make Hetchell Wood nature reserve accessible to the public once again post-pandemic was completed thanks to a generous donation. Nearly 200m of public footpath was resurfaced, a brand new 57m handrail installed, a new retaining wall built for a spring, and around 140 brash bundles were installed across the craggy slope to combat erosion.

Breeding otters were spotted for the first time in 60 years at Wheldrake Ings nature reserve, where there were several sightings of a mother otter with cubs.

Pink grasshoppers, wasp spider – a species moving north as our climate changes - and a pine marten were spotted at Spurn Point nature reserve. The pine marten, Two Dots, was discovered to have come all the way from Dalby Forest!

The washover 10 years ago at Spurn, which destroyed the road, has had some positive impacts on wildlife; we have been able to reduce disturbance and better manage public access, meaning that the estuary side of the spit in particular has become suitable for many breeding birds like oystercatcher and ringed plover, with the potential for little tern in the coming years.

The Yorkshire Derwent Catchment Partnership have been hard at work restoring the Lower Derwent Valley for wildlife and people. This year they have been:

• Maintaining and planting new areas of tansy across several reserves to encourage populations of the rare and brilliantly coloured tansy beetle;
• Saving the declining greater water parsnip by planting it at reserves including Wheldrake Ings;
• Treating 54km of riverbank to control giant hogweed, and surveying a total of 93.5km of riverbank for Invasive Non-Native Species.

This year, our Waves of Waste volunteers organised a whopping 55 beach cleans on 6 of the most critical beaches for wildlife along the Yorkshire coast.

Dolphins abounded, with a pod of 35-40 bottlenose dolphin sighted off Spurn Point in September, and four common dolphins spotted off Runswick bay, which is very rare for that area of coastline. We know that some of our Yorkshire bottlenose dolphins travel from as far as the Moray Firth – highlighting how vital it is that we protect our wider seas.

A basking shark was sighted off Flamborough Head in October, and a sunfish was spotted off the North Yorkshire coast in September. These latter marine species are very rarely spotted in the Yorkshire region, and it is likely for the sunfish in particular that its appearance is due to our warming seas. 

Over 7500 people joined Wild Eye events across Scarborough and Whitby, from seaweed searches and cyanotype workshops, to seafood cookery classes and marine wildlife talks. Wild Eye is an art and nature programme celebrating Scarborough's incredible wildlife and coastal environment. Local communities, leading artists, businesses, and scientists are working together to create a series of events, artworks, and experiences that connect people with the natural world and support positive action for nature.

Working with Ørsted and Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust, our new Wilder Humber programme started in April 2023 and is making waves:

• We have planted over 15,000 seagrass seed bags into the Humber estuary mudflats, covering an area of 10 hectares. Seagrass meadows are a haven for nature, providing a nursery ground for juvenile fish and a feeding ground for wading birds - as well as absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere faster than rainforests.
• Currently, there are over 40,000 adult and juvenile oysters growing on trestles in the Humber estuary, and the programme intends to reintroduce 500,000 oysters in total.
• European flat oysters are native to UK seas where they live in shallow coastal waters and estuaries. Oysters are nature’s water purifiers with each adult filtering 200 litres - that’s more than a bathtub - every day.

Nature restoration doesn’t stop on our reserves! We rely on the power of people to help us do everything we can for Yorkshire’s wildlife – and there are lots of ways anybody and everybody can get involved and help us create a wilder Yorkshire.

If you want in on the action:

• The Trust has incredible support from volunteers and over 1000 amazing people gave over 46,000 hours of their time this year to help care for the reserves and the Trust’s wild places. 96% said they would recommend volunteering for the Trust.
• Our #TeamWilder initiative aims to get 1 in 4 people taking action for nature. In the first eight months we’ve connected with over 400 fantastic individuals, groups and educators to create new green wildlife corridors, community allotments, wildlife friendly rugby grounds, and village wildflower meadows are springing up, and groups are liaising with local Parish Councils to implement a sustainable land management plan.
• Invasive species pose a real risk to our nature plans and wildlife - our Invasive Non-Native Species (INNS) Mapper App, released this year, helps people report sightings, surveys and the management of INNS in England, Scotland and Wales, and track the spread across Great Britain to help better target management for control. The app was designed and developed by the INNS Mapper Steering Group which includes Yorkshire Water, Yorkshire Wildlife Trust and the Wales Resilient Ecological Network.

If you’re new to Yorkshire’s wildlife and wondering what to see and where:

• Over 10,000 people attended our programme of 485 events throughout the year to enjoy and watch wildlife. Including other school and group sessions, we’ve engaged over 12,800 people this year – over 2000 people more than in 2022!
• We wrote a book! An entirely new guide to our nature reserves came out this year, Discover Yorkshire’s Wildlife, which includes a whole host of new information including spotters guides, best-for guides for families, accessibility, birdwatching and more, refreshed reserves guides, seasonal walks and information about our broader approach to nature conservation. It’s available in our online shop and included in our membership pack to anyone joining the Trust as a member on Direct Debit.
• Join in with 12 Days Wild this season, and do one wild thing a day between Christmas day and 5th January.

The Trust’s top advice is to just get outdoors, notice and enjoy nature – make 2024 the wildest yet!