A group of five Ryenats members met at the bottom of Cowhouse Bank on a pleasant summer day – some sun but not too hot – to explore the upper reaches of Riccaldale. We started by walking along the bottom of the wood (downstream) so we picked up a good number of woodland species. We continued just beyond the crossing with the footpath coming steeply down through Carlton Park Wood to a magnificent stand of marsh orchids: we decided that these were mostly northern marsh but some were definitely hybrids with common spotted orchids – the Dactylorhiza orchids are a very difficult group which hybridise freely.

Hybrid marsh orchid

Northern marsh orchid

We then backtracked, followed the footpath across the Riccal and stopped to have our lunch on a grassy bank overlooking the river. After lunch we continued up the track past Hasty Bank Farm and the the marshy fields, continuing back upstream on the east side of the valley past Howl Wood Farm and into the very interesting open access area called Coning’s Birks. We spent a long time here and picked up some interesting species because it is very varied – rough grassland at the top but with acid-loving species such as cross-leaved heath and creeping willow; a scrubby area with gorse in the middle but also remnant woodland species including wood anemone and wood horsetail; at the bottom is a marshy area with such things as bog asphodel, heath spotted orchids, ragged robin (below), lesser spearwort and marsh valerian.

We completed our walk by crossing the river again, going through the hayfields and visiting the interesting East Moors church with its painted wagon roof (see here), then back down to the road which we followed back to the cars, picking up some interesting verge species including meadow cranesbill and red campion.

Overall we recorded more than 200 species of plants and some very interesting insects. Butterflies were in short supply (we got a brief glimpse of what may have been a red admiral) but Sam found plenty of other species, and showed us a delightful green tortoise beetle, northern hairy wood ants, a golden-ringed dragonfly and the best find of the day, a 6-spotted longhorn beetle Anoplodera sexguttata – a species associated with ancient woodland/wood pasture – the Helmsley/Pickering area is one of just six places in the UK with modern records. (See photo below, and note it is quite small– it is on hogweed flowers.)

Green tortoise beetle Cassida viridis

Northern hairy wood ant nest

6-spotted longhorn beetle Anoplodera sexguttata on hogweed

We also saw a large toad (which we helped cross the track) and Sarah recorded 20 species of birds.