Molescroft Wildlife Network update

Since we featured as a case study in the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust’s State of Nature in Yorkshire Report we’ve been busy not just restoring nature in the parish of Molescroft but also, as our name suggests, building a strong network of local community groups and supporters. 

On our home patch last November we held a Creatures of the Night event in the parish hall. The bat boxes made by locals there are now installed in St Mary’s graveyard (eleven of them!) with the help of volunteers from the East Yorkshire Bat Group. 

Using funds granted mainly by Molescroft Parish Council, we commissioned a management survey from Yorkshire Wildlife Trust (YWT). We’ve now carried out their recommendations to coppice hazel and remove 25 Laurels from the Millennium Wildlife Haven, which we  replaced this spring with native shrubs and bushes.  This involved two volunteer days with locals supported by tireless Andy Steele from YWT. He brought along heavy equipment, the trees he’d sourced for us, and volunteers from Alderman Kneeshaw Park in Hull with their #TeamWilder Community Champion, Barry. Great days, with plenty of graft, good humour and fruit cake, and dead hedging using coppiced hazel brash as a bonus. 

We’ve had volunteer days in St Mary’s Graveyard to clear the arisings after cuts from East Riding of Yorkshire Council (ERYC).  Their staff have been supportive in agreeing different cutting regimes for different parts of the graveyard, tricky for a busy team.

Our tiny Postbox Meadow is now looked after by two committed trustees, Sharon and Angie, who replace the boards, monitor the Yellow Rattle which is doing really well, and clear the arisings after cuts agreed with ERYC. 

One of our partner groups is the Keldmarsh Wildlife Network, who are working to preserve the chalk stream that flows from the YWT Keldmarsh Reserve through an expanding housing estate, threatening its population of Water Voles. Another is BUG (Beverley Urban Gardeners) who are gardening for diversity in twelve public spaces in the town, having agreed with ERYC not to spray glyphosate there. These groups are now represented in one of our most exciting recent developments: the creation of the Hull and East Yorkshire Biodiversity Action Group (HEYBAG). 

HEYBAG has now had three meetings, with representatives and contributions from volunteers and professionals across the region, including YWT, ERYC, North and East Yorkshire Environmental Data Centre (NEYEDC), Yorkshire Rewilding Network, East Yorkshire Bat Group, Leconfield Defence School of Transport, plus smaller local groups supporting biodiversity in their parishes including Wawne, Tickton and Cherry Burton. Exchange of expertise has already taken place, and we hope for much more to come. 

We have just received a grant of £750 from the Christopher Eden Education Foundation. This will be divided between the three Molescroft schools to buy equipment such as lenses and field guides for our ‘Mighty Minibeast Hunt’ in the graveyard this June, which we hope will be as successful as our event last year.

As a result of these initiatives, we have been shortlisted for the HEY Charity Awards Environmental category, winners to be announced in late May.