Balsam Pulling

We’re running sessions regularly with teams of no more than six and fully socially distanced. If you’d like to know more let us know via info@riverfosssociety.co.uk . If you’d rather try it en famille or as a small group and would like more information on where to look and how to go about it, ask us your questions. It’s around … Read More

Our Weedy River – Again!

There have been several questions recently about weed in the river. There is a lot of a filamentous alga growing and in some places a surface covering of duckweed is developing. Duckweed, though the individual plants are tiny, is a flowering plant, unlike the alga. Both these are quite normal and tend to occur when flows are low, as now. … Read More

A fishy tale!

This was snapped by Neil Nicholson near Huntington Church a few day ago. Low water levels and plenty of sunshine show just how many fish there are in the Foss – some are quite a fair size too.    

History of the River Foss

There’s been a fair bit of interest recently in the still visible relics of the days when the Foss was canalised, some 200+ years ago, so the section on the river’s history has been revised and expanded. There are remains, mainly of the locks, to be seen all the way from Yearsley Baths to above Strensall. If you’ve got any … Read More

Bird Song

Bird song is a wonderful and uplifting sound. OK, too much Green Woodpecker, Great Tit or even Cuckoo can drive you bonkers, but…………………. It’s world of different sounds that most of us don’t tune in to. I’ve been on walks where I comment “What a lovely song, but what is it?” The response tends to be “What song?” Now is … Read More

Otter playground

The photos below were posted to the RFS on Facebook by Jon Noble  – thank you! These are the closest we’ve seen, and it’s becoming clear that they are around for a while at least, as we’ve had several sightings. I wonder whether they are getting used to people.  Some years ago I followed an otter along the banks of … Read More

Making the Foss Walk More Usable

RFS Waymarking and Maintenance  The society has for many years traversed the Foss Walk, both in sections and in its entirety over a couple of days. Two facets have become ever more apparent recently; the lack of clear signage and poor maintenance: both leading to the walk becoming less and less used, particularly above Strensall. North Yorkshire County Council have … Read More

Castle Mill Basin Clear-up

Lynette Mills tells us that she has been working for some months now with Community Police Liaison officer Amy Hunter and the Community Payback Scheme to get the towpath in the Foss Basin cleaned up, and the bushes cleared and cutback.  You can see from the photos below some of the work done last Thursday with the towpath looking much … Read More

RFS at St. Nicks Autumn Fayre

The Society ran a stall at St. Nicholas Fields on Saturday 5th October to highlight the work we’ve been doing with St. Nicks Environment Centre. We talked to lots of people about walkover surveys of the river, watervole populations and habitat and water quality monitoring which form the bulk of our work with the team at the centre. We also … Read More