St Nicks

Written by St Nicks Wildwatch members who meet every Wednesday to record wildlife in the nature reserve. All photos were taken at St Nicks by volunteers, including Lewis Outing, during the given period.   Highlights Painted Ladies star in abundant butterfly summer while Shieldbugs and Hoverflies are everywhere. Warblers stay to sing all summer and […]

Written by St Nicks’ Natural Habitats Manager Jonathan Dent. This autumn, thanks to funding from the Postcode Local Trust, we have been privileged to assist wetland ecologist Martin Hammond to survey the upper reaches of the River Foss to determine to state of native white-clawed crayfish populations. White-clawed crayfish are the UK’s only native freshwater […]

Our hard working and hardy volunteers have been at it again, day and night, come rain or shine. Apart from our regular weekly sessions, we offer plenty of drop-in opportunities if you’d like to volunteer with us to look for wildlife or to help York to bloom and buzz. Here is a summary of recent […]

What happened when St Nicks worked with volunteers to give our local green spaces some love and attention: a report on the Meadow Keepers project compiled by Natural Habitats Manager Jonathan Dent and Projects Assistant Esther Smith. Grasslands are all around us in York, but we can often walk past them without a second thought.  […]

Written by Wildwatch volunteer Sean Garvey in the summer 2019, as an update to our page on climate change at St Nicks This heatwave seems as good a time as any to consider climate change. Extreme weather events of all kinds are set to become more frequent as global warming affects us all. Here in […]

This blog was written by our Projects Assistant Esther Smith. The average UK wedding produces a third of a metric tonne of solid waste and 14.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide. That’s a whole extra UK resident’s average carbon footprint for a year and a half, in one day. Probably the most environmentally conscious way to […]

Our 24-hour BioBlitz in Heworth Holme revealed signs of over 200 types of wildlife, including otters, bats, frogs, owls, foxes, mice, beetles and water scorpions as well as trees, grasses and other plants. We have been working at Heworth Holme for three years to improve its habitat for wildlife after many years of neglect. The […]

Highlights Summer migrant warblers put on a good show while Red Kite surprised everyone. Beetles, Hoverflies and Bees were the stars of the insect world. St Nicks’ trees sprung into leaf and flowered as beautifully as ever, whilst cowslips and fritillaries led the way in brightening up the meadows.   Weather After an exceptionally warm […]

You probably know that charities have “trustees” or a “board” but do you know why and what that actually entails? Could YOU or someone you know become St Nicks’ trustee? In this post we explain what the responsibilities and benefits are. If you’d like to know more, just get in touch. Trustees are a group […]

Highlights Over-wintering Chiffchaffs are followed by St Nicks earliest ever Chiffchaff song. Other bird winter visitors disappoint, but the reserve’s Gorse Shieldbugs, Sage Leafhoppers, Seven-spot Ladybirds and Rosemary Beetles defy winter and appear most weeks.   Weather Winter Wildwatch began (on 5th December) with heavy rain, but that was the last we saw of it, […]