Sowing the Seeds of Recovery

Posted on 19/11/2018 by North York Moors National Park

Richard Baines – Turtle Dove Project Officer

There are few more rewarding things in life than creating new habitat for wildlife and then watching with delight as birds and other animals move in.

What would make it extra special would be hearing a Turtle Dove sing its beautiful purring song.

A major part of our HLF funded North Yorkshire Turtle Dove Project involves working with land managers to create exactly the right feeding opportunities for Turtle Doves. The National Park and the Project have a brand new grant aimed at providing flower rich plots from which Turtle Doves can feed on a natural seed source.

We are really pleased that this autumn 11 farm businesses have established 17 Turtle Dove flower plots covering a total of five hectares within our project area. This is a great start and it’s very exciting that so many land managers are keen to help; however we need many more if we are going to have a chance of making a difference.

The pioneering 11 includes a wide range of landowners and tenants such as our first community Turtle Dove reserve in Sawdon village sown by the local community and primary school, Ampleforth Plus Social Enterprise, the Danby Moors Farming and Wykeham Farm businesses, and Hanson Quarry near Wykeham.

The sown plots are needed because many of the wild flowers that provide seed such as Common Fumitory and Birds-foot Trefoil are no longer common in the arable landscape which is one of the major reasons Turtle Doves are now at risk of extinction. The plots will also support a range of other scarce arable plants such as the locally rare Shepherd’s Needle. We are working with the local Cornfield Flowers Project – Into the Community to make sure we provide available ground for many naturally occurring but declining local flowers.

These new plots will not only provide habitat for Turtle Doves they will also provide valuable for a whole range of declining farmland birds. Grey Partridge feed their chicks on invertebrates and need open fallow land rich in small insects. Our flower plots are sown at a very light sowing rate to leave a good proportion of the plot shallow which allows access for Partridge and other birds such as Yellowhammers searching for insects in the summer.

If you have arable or temporary grassland on your farm and you would like to help Turtle Doves please get in touch to find out more about the grant and payments on offer. Contact us or call the National Park’s Conservation Department 01439 772700.

Benefiting bees

Posted on 22/08/2016 by North York Moors National Park

Roy McGhie – Conservation Project Assistant

Recently my colleague Ami and I went on an organised farm walk near Menethorpe to the south of the North York Moors. The event was led by the Campaign for the Farmed Environment and the theme was habitat management for pollinators. The walk was well attended by local land managers who wanted to know a bit more about the benefits that pollinators provide, and how they might most easily encourage them, in particular on otherwise unproductive areas of their land.

The main focus of our discussion was inevitably bees – our most efficacious pollinators. We were given copies of an excellent booklet from the Centre of Ecology and Hydrology called ‘Habitat Creation and Management for Pollinators’.

We’ve mentioned bees a number of times before in this blog, but felt it was about time they had their own post because they are so important.

In the UK whilst there is only one species of honey bee Apis mellifera (both wild and semi-domesticated), there are about half a dozen common bumble bees and over twenty common species of solitary bees like mining bees, mason bees and leaf cutter bees.

The bee flying season can begin as early as March and extend right the way into October, as long as there is food i.e. nectar and pollen available. Most species of bees can survive over winter if there is somewhere for them to hole up.

The anatomy of different bee species varies greatly, and so to assist most species it’s best to have a wide range of flower species from which they can feed. As some of the mining bees have short tongues of only 4-5mm, they need open flowers such as cow parsley and daisies. The garden bumblebee Bombus hortorum on the other hand has a tongue that can extend to around 12mm, so it can feed from flowers with a long corolla (i.e. petals) like foxgloves and honeysuckle.

As well as fragrance, one of the other things that attracts bees to flowers is colour. So its worth considering maintaining colours throughout the season. For example, coltsfoot and hawk’s beard provide yellow colour from about February to June, and then cat’s ear and bristly oxtongue do the same from June to October. Similarly, a successional combination of white deadnettle, oxeye daisy and yarrow can ensure there are plenty of white flowers throughout the year. Interestingly, it is thought that bees can see in ultraviolet, which means how they perceive flowers will be very different from how we do.

Establishing and managing a wildflower meadow is one of the most effective ways of ensuring bees have a suitable habitat. In addition it is thought that on arable farms having a flower-rich margin on at least 1% of the land will provide significant benefit to pollinators, which in turn will improve crop production and quality. Hedgerows can be another useful way to help bees – cutting hedges on a two or even three year cycle will encourage more hawthorn and blackthorn flowers. When new hedges are planted, a greater species diversity (using hazel, field maple, crab apple, holly and willow where appropriate) will also mean that there is more food and nectar available for a longer period throughout the year.

Bees are fantastic creatures in their own right. They also provide a number of hugely important direct benefits for our countryside and environment. There are things we can do to encourage bee survival such as sowing appropriate wildflowers and creating habitat stepping stones, allowing what we might think of as typically weeds to flourish (in the right place), creating patches of bare ground in sunny dry spots which will allow solitary mining bees to nest, and leaving tall grass over winter which can provide places for bumblebees to hibernate and nest.

Bees are often in the news these days, mostly because they are in decline – they even need their own national strategy. If we can do our best to make the landscape more friendly, we can help give bees a better chance, and ensure they can continue to play a key role in pollinating our flowers, trees and crops.

For a local initiative – see B-Lines Ryedale

Link

Link to Yorkshire Post article on the Cornfield Flowers Project (28 August 2015)

Out of Intensive Care and into rehabilitation

Posted on 24/08/2015 by North York Moors National Park

Taken from final report for the Cornfield Flowers Project: ‘Out of Intensive Care’

The Cornfield Flowers Project was set up originally to save rare plants of arable fields in north-east Yorkshire. It is spearheaded by the Carstairs Countryside Trust in partnership with the Ryedale Folk Museum, North Yorkshire Moors Association and the North York Moors National Park Authority. The core project area covers the south of the North York Moors National Park. Beyond this it links across the Vale of Pickering, Howardian Hills and on to York and the Yorkshire Wolds in the south and across the moors to Cleveland in the north.

The grant funding for the 3^rd five year phase of the Cornfield Flowers Project (‘Out of Intensive Care’) came to an end earlier this year. This phase was funded through the National Park Authority’s Sustainable Development Fund, the North York Moors Coast and Hills LEADER programme, the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Carstairs Countryside Trust.

Phase 3 of the Project has managed and enhanced

a dedicated public demonstration field at the Ryedale Folk Museum in Hutton-le Hole;
a cornfield and recreated species-rich meadow at Silpho, near Scarborough;
and in addition a new sandland arable site at Water Fulford near York – which was sown in one year due to the available amount of volunteer-grown seed.

Species counts at these sites were either maintained or more usually, raised.

Corn buttercup - Ian Carstairs, Cornfield Flowers Project Millennium Seed Bank Exhibition 2012

During Phase 3 the Project introduced suitable open ground species into four disused quarries where the conditions could be manipulated to offer opportunities to increase the number of places where the plants can be allowed to thrive. However the low soil nutrients and harsh micro-climates at these sites have suited only some species e.g. Red hemp-nettle, whilst most others have struggled, suggesting the use of such sites is limited. However one of the conclusions of the Project is that the target species are not just plants of farmed land, but properly plants of disturbed ground and a focus for the future could be other places where the ground is regularly disturbed.

Venus's-looking-glass - Ian Carstairs, Cornfield Flowers Project Millennium Seed Bank Exhibition 2012

The Project is only possible due to the dedicated work of volunteers and the involvement of participating farmers. Phase 3 set out to engage the wider public in further participation in rare plant conservation through recruiting volunteers to expand seed stock and to act as species custodians as well as people, groups and schools willing to plant cornfield flower areas. A core of custodians has remained dedicated to the aims of plant conservation over the years, enabling a vital consistent supply of seed. The creation and management of cornfield beds has proven popular because they are effective even in small areas and the intense flowering display provided by the mix of species has attracted people along with the obvious signs of benefit to bees and other insects. One of the issues that became apparent initially was the widespread misunderstanding about the difference between arable land and meadow land, and the differences between their plants and required management. The ground the arable plants grow in needs to be disturbed (as if cultivated) for them to survive.

The Project has worked directly with 14 volunteer farmers managing areas of their farms for arable plant conservation and as species reintroduction sites. The greatest determinant of arable wildflower success is the dedication of the individual farmers themselves, and their willingness to encourage these plants above and beyond what would usually be required from an arable management regime. Maintaining a variety of core farms throughout the project area is essential to provide the widest range of conditions (soil type, microclimate etc.) to benefit the greatest variety of arable plant requirements and mitigate against localised losses at one site. In addition the Project has reached out to farmers through organised events and provision of advice and through working with agri-environment scheme providers to establish what species remain where in the wider area.

The sharing and spreading of knowledge is an essential element for the future of the species’ conservation. Hands-on growing of plants has proven to be the very best method for volunteers to become familiar with arable wildflowers, learning as they go through experiences of failures, pests, flowering times and seedling identification, with ready access to a Project Officer to answer any queries when needed.

Documenting the origins and movement of seed to ensure locations and provenance are recorded has been vital and will serve as an historical record of the Project’s work. Because much conservation targeting is based on species rarity, clear distinctions need to be drawn between native sites / plants and those reintroduced by the Project, so as not to impair wider conservation efforts or devalue any species by misrepresenting its true status. The Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (BSBI) study UK plant distribution and taxonomy, and operate a recording and mapping scheme that informs national plant Atlases and County Floras. The Project has provided them with records for local vice-county areas 61 and 62 (North-east Yorkshire and South-east Yorkshire respectively). One outstanding issue is how many years an introduced plant must be self-sustaining, without further reintroductions, before its ‘introduced’ status can be relaxed.

Steadily expanding survey coverage, along with increasing botanical expertise of the Cornfield Flowers Project and its volunteers, resulted in continuing species discoveries of national or regional significance, including a number previously thought regionally extinct. As well as new species found in the area during Phase 3, rare species were also found at new sites.

Upright goosefoot (Chenopodium urbicum)

Small-flowered catchfly (Silene gallica)

Purple ramping-fumitory (Fumaria purpurea)

Few-flowered fumitory (Fumaria vaillantii)

Dense-flowered fumitory (Fumaria densiflora)

Corn parsley (Petroselinum segetum)

Abyssinian kale (Crambe hispanica

Shepherd’s-needle (Scandix pecten-veneris)

Common ramping-fumitory (Fumaria muralis subsp. boraei)

Cornfield knotgrass (Polygonum rurivagum)

The current Management Group are determined to keep the work going to sustain the effective conservation of arable flowers in north-east Yorkshire. A plan for how to move forward – to maintain the momentum of the project, provide responsibility for maintaining the seed stock, consolidate affinity with participants over the future of the project, and provide ongoing enthusiasm and focus – is still taking shape. In the meantime the Carstairs Countryside Trust are providing funding for an additional year.

Tom Normandale and Chris Wilson have been the whole-hearted proactive Project Officers for the Cornfield Flowers Project. Chris is now retiring from that role but will continue his involvement. Tom remains as a dedicated Project Officer.

Cornfield Flowers Project – Latest CFP Newsletter 2014-15

Cornfield Flowers – species cards

Cornfield Flowers Project, Ryedale Folk Museum, Hutton-le-Hole, North Yorkshire, YO62 6UA.

Cornfield Flowers Project – saving rare arable flora from extinction in north-east Yorkshire

Posted on 17/03/2014 by North York Moors National Park

Chris Wilson and Tom Normandale – Project Officers for the Cornfield Flowers Project

By the nature of our work and the annual species we conserve through the Cornfield Flowers Project*, it can’t be helped but to follow the natural cycles of the passing seasons, and ride-out whatever challenges are presented to us through the year by the weather, the vagaries of seed germination and the occasional ravages of hares, rabbits and slugs. Coupled with the profound rarity of many of the species we care for to begin with, it’s important to celebrate our successes, and 2013 was an especially good year.

Always at the forefront of our work are the hard facts behind the plight of these cornfield flowers. Of the UK’s rarest wildflowers that have suffered the greatest declines in the last 50 years, 60% are arable plants. Seven have become extinct during this period, and a further 54 are considered at risk. Since its creation in 1999, our Project has had the single aim of reversing this decline in the north-east Yorkshire area. 14-years on, the results are encouraging.

2013 was undoubtedly such a good year for plants due to the seasonable weather, for once! The efforts we’d invested over the years in seeding-up and managing our numerous arable headlands and demonstration beds paid dividends. Particularly noteworthy were the outstanding displays at John Middlewood’s, our volunteer farmer at Potter Brompton. Situated on ‘blow-away sand’ that quickly droughts-off, John’s fields more than any others any keenly subject to the weather, but last year was a corker for his arable plants. His sandland communities are particularly rewarding due to their relative rarity in our area and the unique species they support. From the endearing but fleeting Prickly poppy (Papaver argemone), the match-head sized blooms of Bird’s-foot (Ornithopus perpusillus), the nationally rare Smooth cat’s-ear (Hypochaeris glabra) that grows in profusion, and of course the iconic Cornflower (Centaurea cyanus), nothing disappointed this year, and the display was appreciated by colleagues and volunteers on guided farm walks.

Our other farmers and growers across the region fared similarly well, and it was pleasing to see a good show at the Ryedale Folk Museum demonstration field and nursery beds despite setbacks the preceding year. A remarkable success was also achieved with the discovery of Shepherd’s-needle (Scandix pecten-veneris) growing naturally on our volunteer farm at Hunmanby – only the third time we have recorded this Nationally Critically Endangered species in 14 years, and efforts are now underway to retain this community at self-sustaining levels.

An encouraging growing season leads, most importantly for us, to good yields of seed, and last year our ‘Species Custodians’ and cornfield bed supporters reaped the benefits. Recruiting volunteers to grow plants for us in protected environments and return collected seed to us each autumn has greatly increased the scale at which we can conduct re-introductions, and makes a huge difference to germination success rates when considering the potentially high percentage-losses for any wildflowers. So successful was last years ‘crop’ that we have been able to seed-up a new 3-acre sandland site at Water Fulford near York, owned by the Carstairs Countryside Trust. Conservation at such scales was not imaginable at the start of our current funding phase four years ago, and it is exciting to feel, for now at least, that we may be turning a new corner – expanding the range in which we can operate and the scale at which we can resist the decline of arable wildflowers, in our particular part of the country at least.

Now we’re looking forward to our last growing season in our current funded phase consolidating our achievements and securing a sustainable foothold for rare arable flora. We can never afford to be complacent though, and the survival of cornfield flowers perpetually hangs in the balance. As annual species that only grow in very dynamic and pressured environments, entire communities can so easily be lost in one year from a simple change in the arable crop management. As we look to the longer term future of these species and our Project, our hope is that we’ve managed to enthuse enough local communities to adopt and fight for these plants, and passed on sufficient knowledge to allow them to successfully care for these sometimes under-appreciated, but always deeply enchanting, true rarities.

* The Cornfield Flowers Project is spearheaded by the Carstairs Countryside Trust, Ryedale Folk Museum, North Yorkshire Moors Association and North York Moors National Park Authority. It is supported by the North York Moors National Park Sustainable Development Fund, North York Moors Coast & Hills LEADER Programme and the Heritage Lottery Fund.

End of summer

Posted on 07/09/2013 by North York Moors National Park

Rona Charles – Senior Ecology Officer

As part of Ryedale Folk Museum’s Harvest Celebrations last weekend, the Cornfield Flowers Project cut and collected the wheat crop from the cornfield at the Museum. Project staff and volunteers used traditional scythes to cut the corn, together with the seeding wild flowers that grew with it. The corn was then gathered into sheaves and stacked into stooks to dry. With the Museum’s Iron Age round house as the backdrop (that’s the pyramid like shape) and no man-made sound other than the swish of the scythe blade, this was a timely reminder for visitors of how different most rural life is now!

The Cornfield Flowers Project aims to return arable flowers like the Corn marigold and Cornflower (some still flowering in the Museum field at the weekend) to the edges of willing farmers’ fields. Here the flowers will be avoided by the application of modern herbicides but there is no need for them to be avoided by modern harvesting machinery. Fortunately scythes aren’t compulsory for the conservation management of cornfield flowers.

Arable glory

Posted on 15/07/2013 by North York Moors National Park

Rona Charles – Senior Ecology Officer

The North York Moors may not be well known for its arable land, but we have much more of this than most National Parks and it can be a very valuable wildlife habitat. Several of the recent starters in the Conservation Department were recently shown some of the potential value of arable land to encourage rare arable plants. They visited a farm at Potter Brompton, a bit outside the National Park boundary but one of the key farms in the Cornfield Flowers Project. This farm is in a national agri environment scheme – Higher Level Scheme (HLS) – and we saw several spectacular examples of where arable flower populations are burgeoning with the help of a variety of HLS options. Not everything was going precisely according to plan, of course, and there were interesting discussions on how to accommodate the scheme’s requirements with sometimes fickle wildlife!

Kirsty and Alex took some fantastic photos.

New roles in the Conservation Department – part 3

Posted on 13/04/2013 by North York Moors National Park

Bill Shaw – Ecology and Conservation Land Management Adviser

I have recently moved over the Pennines from south Cumbria to take on this new exciting and varied job with the North York Moors National Park Authority. Over there I was the local officer for the Amphibian and Reptile Conservation Trust with a focus on conserving the rare and charismatic natterjack toad, which has the accolade of being the UK’s noisiest amphibian. Before that I spent seven years as a Ranger with the Lake District National Park.

With the North York Moors National Park Authority my role is split into two parts. For three days a week I am working on the Authority’s land management agreements under our Wildlife Conservation Scheme. These agreements are aimed at conserving small areas of particularly valuable habitat where other funding sources or protection methods aren’t appropriate. I’m also responsible for winding up the last of the Authority’s long running agreements under the North York Moors Farm Scheme. The Farm Scheme began in 1988 and focused on farms in the central dales area providing grant for capital works and annual payments for environmental land management. Over the last few years these farms have been encouraged and helped into Natural England‘s Environmental Stewardship Schemes. Where there are farms with particular environmental features which can’t be protected solely by Stewardship, the Authority is offering top up Wildlife Conservation Scheme agreements. I’m currently managing 41 agreements dotted all over the North York Moors.

For the other two days a week, I’m assisting Rona Charles, the Authority’s Senior Ecology Officer. I’m already picking up on upland water vole issues (water vole are much much quieter than the natterjack toad); the Himalayan Balsam control project along the River Seph and the Cornfield Flowers Project; aspects of the North York Moors species rich road verge project; and the annual monitoring of the wild daffodils in Farndale.

The official blog for the North York Moors National Park

Tag Archives: Arable flowers

Sowing the Seeds of Recovery

Benefiting bees

Link

Out of Intensive Care and into rehabilitation

Cornfield Flowers Project – saving rare arable flora from extinction in north-east Yorkshire

Chris Wilson and Tom Normandale – Project Officers for the Cornfield Flowers Project

End of summer

Rona Charles – Senior Ecology Officer

Arable glory

Rona Charles – Senior Ecology Officer

New roles in the Conservation Department – part 3

Bill Shaw – Ecology and Conservation Land Management Adviser

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Chris Wilson and Tom Normandale – Project Officers for the Cornfield Flowers Project

Share this:

Rona Charles – Senior Ecology Officer

Share this:

Rona Charles – Senior Ecology Officer

Share this:

Bill Shaw – Ecology and Conservation Land Management Adviser

Share this: