Editor :

R Middleton
12 Meaux Road
Wawne
East Riding of Yorkshire
HU7 5XD

email:
r.middleton@hull.ac.uk

Field visit to Drewton Dale

March 2008

Eleven members and friends attended this meeting on a bright morning in late March. The sunshine was particularly welcomed after a week of unseasonably cold weather. Although still a little early to see many of the plants which we know to be present along the Dale, it was good to see Sweet Violets (pictured right) and Primroses, flowers which are missing on our Summer visits to the area. Relatively unusual for East Yorkshire was the hybrid, Pink Snowberry (Symphoricarpos x chenaultii), some well established clumps of which were found growing beside the path just to the west of Weedley Springs. The shrubs are clearly a deliberate introduction but seem to be thriving and expanding.

The raptors were, without doubt, the highlight of the meeting, with good views of Red Kites and close encounters with Buzzards and Kestrels.

A curious encounter

On the 18th May 2008 I was walking on the Public Footpath beside Engine Drain, Wawne [TA 081 374]. I had seen a Kingfisher with a fish in its beak, presumably feeding young, I had also seen a Water Vole. However, I was less pleased with the next sighting, on a log in the centre of the drain was a Red-eared Slider (Trachemys scripta elegans). These terrapins are natives of southern USA.

Red-eared Sliders, so called because they slide into the water at the first sign of danger, are omniverous and eat fish, molluscs, carrion and vegetation, taking more vegetable matter as they get older. It was about 30cm long by 20cm wide. I had seen a similar sized one several years ago on Pocklington Canal. They are traded as pets so it is almost certainly a discarded pet.