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High Batts Reserve, June 14th 2000

For species lists, see below

12 Members joined the trip to High Batts Nature Reserve near Ripon. We were shown round by the Warden, Colin Slator and his assistant. The weather was fairly kind and we had a most enjoyable day. Colin told us a great deal about the history of the reserve and the management carried out to encourage wildlife of all kinds. The area, which is part of the Norton Conyers Estate, lies on the floodplain of the River Ure; it has been managed as a nature reserve since 1973 and is now an SSSI. It has an interesting variety of habitats, underlain by river gravels and the magnesian limestone bedrock, which leads to a great diversity of plant life (see for instance the guelder rose bush, right). Colin made us green with envy when he said that in the spring part of the reserve was “yellow over” with Yellow Star of Bethlehem (Gagea lutea) which is a rare plant indeed in Ryedale!

The reserve has several hides from which one can observe the birds, although there were not too many about when we visited. Unfortunately we also did not see many of the insects which frequent the reserve, especially dragonflies in the ponds which have been created for them. There are also numerous moths but we did not see them either...

I do not have lists of all that was found, but we did record the following:

• Birds
• Plants
• Vertebrates
• Fungus: a splendid example of hoof fungus on a dead birch trunk

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We saw 150 species, which I have divided into plants in bud, flower or fruit; plants represented by leaves only; trees & bushes; ferns and horsetails; and grasses and sedges. The lists for grasses and sedges include only those which are easily identifiable or notable.

I took a few photos (see below).

Tormentil	Buckthorn (female flowers)	Rockrose
Milkwort	Cut-leaved Geranium	Field Mouse Ear
Welted Thistle	Wild Thyme	Yellow Flag or Iris
Guelder Rose

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Vertebrates

Small toad

Great Crested Newt (small specimen...)

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