Wildflower Walk Along the Banks of the Foss

Dr Margaret Atherden led a leisurely stroll along the Foss, from All Saints’ Church, Huntington to the footbridge over the river at Earswick and back to Huntington looking at many of the wildflowers found on that stretch of the river. These included the Common Spotted Orchid, Bittersweet, Grass Vetchling (much prettier than its name implies!), Ground Ivy and garden escapees such as the Multiflora Rose and Red Valerian. Many questions were asked and answered so, hopefully, those of us on the walk will look out for these flowers in the future and also feel encouraged to find and identify more.

RFS walk with York’s Hidden History

Dr Liam Herringshaw guided RFS members around York City for his interesting and entertaining York’s Hidden History Earth Walk. Liam explained the ancient, natural and scientific secrets of the city including the age of the city, finding York’s unexpected oldest building, the remarkable scientists who lived and worked in York and ending with the entirety of Yorkshire in pebbles!

RFS Information Stand for City Nature Challenge

Our stand near the Hound Lounge, New Earswick on 27th April, 2025, was there to encourage people to take part in the City Nature Challenge where cities around the world collaborate to share observations of nature. York secured a position of 47th out of the 669 participating cities from 62 countries, securing a GOLD award for the total number of species observed with 1487 different species recorded. Apart from all of these species found, photographed and uploaded to the iNaturalist app for confirmation of identification and counting, one or two more undesirable items were also found in the Foss! Stalwart volunteers from the Society dragged the offending items out of the river in New Earswick and they were then collected for disposal by City of York Council.

Biological Monitoring

Biological monitoring, by kick-sampling, takes place from spring to autumn each year, currently at 19 sites on the main river and some tributaries. We use professional equipment and sample to professional standards i.e. using a 3-minute kick-sample followed by a 1-minute hand washing of stones where possible. The animals are sorted, identified to family level using the Extended Riverfly Groups and then professional biological indices are calculated to assess the biological health of the river. Teams of two or more trained citizen scientists do this work at most of the sites, some of which are very close to excellent cafes and pubs! One or two sites are rather difficult due to depth of the water (see Haxby Weir!) or depth of the bank sides (Black Dike) so sweep-sampling might be used when necessary. It’s important work which will hopefully identify any future improvements in water quality so if you would like to get involved and find out more about the smaller animals in the Foss, just contact us.