Community Engagement: January- April

March

March events: LUCT’s stall at Sights and Sounds of Ripon, Little Explorers spring session and beautiful views from the new Kiln Screen on the March wellbeing walk

LUCT joined more than 40 community groups at Ripon Cathedral, Community House, the Library and Museum for the Sights and Sounds of Ripon event in March. It was a fantastic day and a great opportunity to connect with people from the local area and other community organisations.

Our Little Explorers group for preschool children focused on what’s happening in our ponds in early spring. We looked at the frog life-cycle, did some pond dipping and made a collaged frog.

We had beautiful weather for the March wellbeing walk and enjoyed spending time at the new Kiln Screen with fantastic views of Gadwall, Wigeon, Teal and a Great Crested Grebe courtship display.

April

Our World Art Day workshop this year also celebrated World Curlew Day! Thanks to everyone who attended. We had a fantastic morning, starting off with mark-making with the lino cutter and then developing a Curlew-inspired print for the rest of the session. A Curlew flying over and calling was the perfect end to the morning!

Prints inspired by the Curlew in our World Art Day workshop

We also have a Curlew-themed display in celebration of World Curlew Day in the Main Hide at Nosterfield Nature Reserve at the moment, with lots of information about this special wading bird and photographs of Curlew at Nosterfield. There are also Curlew-themed resources for children incuding wordsearches and colouring pages- please help yourselves!

Look out for our new display coming soon for BEAD: Butterfly Education and Awareness Day on 6th June.

World Curlew Day display in the Main Hide, Nosterfield Nature Reserve

We had our first pond dipping sessions of the year in the Easter holidays. Both sessions were well-attended and thanks to help from Mike, children were able to have a closer look at their catch through the microscope. Throughout the day, we identified:

3 different species of Caddisfly

Freshwater Shrimp

Hoglouse

Dragonfly nymph

Damselfly nymph

Diving beetle larvae

Diving beetles

Our next pond dipping sessions are on 28th May, click here for more information and to book: https://www.luct.org.uk/events-1/2025/4/7/spring-pond-dipping-894g2-rbh4y

Eggs found in the dipping pond Mike Samworth

We had a fantastic tour of the reserve in April, starting at the Main Reserve in the morning then spending the afternoon at Nosterfield Quarry. Luckily the rain held off until much later than was expected! Many thanks to Adrian for leading the tour and to Keith Dickinson and Neil Turner for kindly sharing their photographs of the day.

Photographs taken on April’s Reserve tour by Neil Turner and Keith Dickinson

We had a fantastic time on the Nature Walk: Plants and insects of Nosterfield Nature Reserve and Camp Wood event with Helen, Ken and Pat. Although the day was chilly to start and visibility was poor, this soon lifted and we had lovely sunny weather with a number of insects seen, especially in the second half of the walk.

‍ ‍ Nature Walk: Plants and insects of Nosterfield Nature Reserve and Camp Wood

‍ Photographs by Helen Hays

North Yorkshire Nature Explorers visited Nosterfield Quarry on a lovely spring day for a workshop about beetles at Nosterfield. We talked about Bloody-nosed beetles and Green Tiger Beetles, then made some mark-making and collage beetles inspired by Green Tiger Beetles. The group are going to see if they can spot the beetles we talked about on the Main Reserve in a few weeks time- fingers crossed!

Collage and mark-making Green Tiger Beetles at the Quarry Visitor Centre

Upcoming Events

23rd May: Spring Birds and Words https://www.luct.org.uk/events-1/springbirdsandwords

28th May: Pond Dipping https://www.luct.org.uk/events-1/2025/4/7/spring-pond-dipping-894g2-rbh4y

13th June: Conservation Club- Meet the Moths!‍ ‍https://www.luct.org.uk/events-1/2026/6/13/june-conservation-club-meet-the-moths

15th June: Summer Little Explorers https://www.luct.org.uk/events-1/2025/3/24/little-explorers-bser3-rd2hh

20 June: Dragonflies on Flasks Fen‍ ‍https://www.luct.org.uk/events-1/2024/5/20/dragonflies-on-flasks-fen-pn2w9-r3yxn

3 July: Moth Morning https://www.luct.org.uk/events-1/mothmorning2026

11 July: Butterfly Walk at Nosterfield Quarry‍ ‍https://www.luct.org.uk/events-1/2024/4/23/g5j7gtuuylq21sjcztpagjgzjdsnz3-fbx55-m8kdr-sd4pn

11 July: Community Work Day - More information coming soon

8 August: Conservation Club- all about butterflies- more information coming soon