Kestrels feeding their chicks on St. Peter’s church, alongside Cox’s Walk, June ‘14 (Krisztina Fekete)
In this issue: Spring cheer The Ambrook and the Effra New plans for Greendale The return of the cuckoo And now we’re on Twitter: @wildlondon_SHW Want to receive this newsletter? Email ‘subscribe me’ to dgreenwood@wildlondon.org.uk
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Sydenham Hill Wood News Kestrels rear three chicks on St. Peter’s church spire The value of Sydenham Hill and Dulwich’s diverse green spaces and habitats has been highlighted in the success of a kestrel pair in raising three chicks on the St. Peter’s church spire (home to the Deeper Life Bible Church), next to Cox’s Walk. Hunting small mammals on the playing fields and golf course, this is a bird which needs traditional grasslands or verges to survive. London Wildlife Trust volunteers stationed themselves on Cox’s Walk to photograph and observe the kestrels returning to feed the three chicks. After fledging the chicks were seen sitting on the roof of the Malborough Golf Club pavilion building.
Bats draw in a crowd On Friday 4th July 80 members of the public came to the wood for our annual Bat, Moth and Owl Prowl. Even the onset of showers wasn’t enough to stop the hardy soprano pipistrelle bats from feeding overhead, with great views of the little bats’ silhouettes printed against the grey evening sky. There are a good number of myths still held in the public conscience – that bats are blind and that they are a threat to humans – when in fact bats are an important part of the ecosystem, keeping insects such as midges and mosquitos in check. Thanks to everyone who came, you helped us raise £95.07 towards conservation at the wood.
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Detecting bats in the old tennis court (@SE26recorder)
Kestrel chicks © Krisztina Fekete
Cuckoos return to the woods of Dulwich Iconic and severely declining bird overheard by several visitors to Sydenham Hill and Dulwich Woods in May A buzzard was mobbed by a crow on 2nd April. On the 10th April a bat roost survey identified a possible pipistrelle maternity roost as well as roosting Leisler’s, and an amphibian survey later that night found nine smooth/palmate newt and one common frog in the Dewy Pond, whilst two common pipistrelle hunted overhead. A male cuckoo was heard by several different visitors between 1st-3rd May and on Low Cross Wood Lane on the 14th. We observed our first swift overhead on 7th May, great spotted woodpeckers were breeding on the 11th, nine mallard chicks were on the Dewy Pond on the 15th but were gone in a few days, likely predated. Another great spotted woodpecker nest was observed, this time on Cox’s Walk, on the 19th. The first red admiral was seen on the 25th. Fledgling long-tailed tit and robin were present on 28th and a bat transect that evening recorded soprano and common pipistrelle and a Leisler’s bat. Volunteers were also afforded good views of wood mouse foraging from cow parsley on Cox’s Walk with fox cubs in close attendance. The nationally rare stag beetle was observed on the 2nd, 4th and 11th June. Kestrels were observed nesting on the St. Peter’s church tower on the 11th, 18th, 19th and three chicks were seen from the 22nd onwards, having fledged to the site of the Malborough Cricket Club pavilion by 1st July where they were duly bothered by magpies. A silver-washed fritillary, the first in approximately five years, landed with the volunteers at lunchtime on 2nd. Gatekeeper and ringlet butterflies were on the wing by 3rd July. (Sightings: LWT Volunteers, E. Dare, A. Tuke)
London fields – vanishing grasslands and disappearing species
Wildlife-rich grasslands are in dramatic decline across Britain, according to new research from The Wildlife Trusts. Viewed from afar all fields may look the same, but a closer look at native grassland reveals a rich abundance of species, from wild grasses and flowers, to butterflies and bees. The Greater London area still supports a surprising number of important, wildlife-rich grasslands. Some of these are managed by London Wildlife Trust, but other sites can be vulnerable to urban and agricultural development, tree planting and mismanagement by landowners. The naturalist Charles Darwin once roamed the slopes of Saltbox Hill SSSI near Biggin Hill, where London Wildlife Trust now manages a fragment of downland that is recognised as one of the richest wildlife sites in Greater London. Rare species of wildflower and grasses have been recorded on the site, including pyramidal orchids, wild basil and quaking grass. Sunny west-facing slopes provide ideal conditions for over 20 species of butterfly to breed, including the increasingly scarce chalkhill blue, grizzled skipper and dark-green fritillary. On the other side of London, the ancient hay meadows of Totteridge, in Barnet, retain a remarkable diversity of wildlife, such as sneezewort and weasel. Today they remain a relict snapshot of the meadows that once surrounded London in the 19th century, providing hay that fuelled the city’s horses. Mathew Frith, Director of Policy & Planning at London Wildlife Trust, commented: “There are fantastic species-rich grasslands around London that have survived the pressures of urbanisation, but these sites are increasingly threatened by development, as well as inappropriate tree planting and mismanagement. Many sites lie within the Green Belt, which is itself threatened by those who wish to unleash urban sprawl.” “London Wildlife Trust and others have carried out much work on grasslands over the past 20 years, and arguably some of the capital’s acidic and chalk grasslands are now in a better shape than they were in the 1980s. However, as a habitat that is frequently overlooked and misunderstood, the need to champion grasslands’ contribution to our heritage and well-being has never been more important.” The Wildlife Trusts have drawn up a five point plan to protect Britain’s grasslands, alongside an online petition calling for Owen Paterson (Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) to save our vanishing grasslands. Petition: http://www.wildlifetrusts.org/dontfadeaway
Petition: http://www.wildlifetrusts.org/dontfadeaway
Greendale Spring Walk, April 2013, Š Jonathan Coe
Southwark Council to begin consultation on vital urban wildlife site home to hedgehog, whitethroat and green woodpecker Southwark Council have announced a public consultation regarding the Greendale playing fields, known locally as the Greendale. On Saturday 16th August a forum will be held at Dog Kennel Hill Open Space. You can read about it here and complete an online consultation here. The Greendale is an open space most recently used as cricket pitches and once a site for grazing cattle that produced local milk. It has never been developed. The Greendale is owned by Southwark Council and is leased to Dulwich Hamlet Football Club until 2015. The football club’s new owners, Hadley, are proposing to demolish their current football stadium to build housing on the site and build a new football pitch on the current artificial pitch on the Greendale. The pitches and grasslands of the Greendale are all protected as Metropolitan Open Land. A Friends of Greendale group has been formed. The Greendale provides nesting and foraging habitat for a number of Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) red-listed species: hedgehog, house sparrow, common whitethroat, song thrush and starling.
The Greendale is a remnant of East Dulwich and Camberwell’s rural past, where much of the area will have been farmland for centuries. The biggest change in the area came about when the Sainsbury’s supermarket was built in the 1990s along with the car park which took up another large chunk of green space. Southwark Council have commissioned an ecological survey which has confirmed the presence of hedgehog, a critically declining species in England. The proposals suggest retaining much of the mixed habitat and the naturally generating oak and ash woodland to the west of the site. London Wildlife Trust have led two walks at the Greendale in the past two years in support of the Friends of Dog Kennel Hill Wood. During this time we have been delighted by the amazing wildlife discovered but concerned by the uncertainty over the future of the site. Southwark’s proposals to conserve and enhance the site (below) are heartening.
Cuckoos and kestrels bring spring cheer The warmth of spring brings an end to hard labour of a wet winter Volunteers delivering oak sleepers © Emma Pooley
Memories of a wet and muddy winter were banished this spring, as an assortment of species brought Sydenham Hill Wood back to life. We stop all major habitat works between 1st March and 31st July in line with the breeding bird season. Volunteers were amazed to hear a cuckoo singing on Thursday 1st May having not heard one for four years. Cuckoo would once have been common at Sydenham Hill Wood and the surrounds in its rural past, but the species has severely declined and the farms and woods that once attracted it to south London have mostly been dislocated or developed. A bat roost survey in April set the survey tone, with bat transects conducted in May and July. The transect is part of the National Bat Monitoring Programme (NBMP) and is conducted by volunteers up and down the country. Results suggest a number of European bat species are recovering after horrendous declines in the post-war period. Volunteers monitor the Dulwich and Sydenham Hill Golf Club, Dulwich Wood, Sydenham Hill Wood to Cox’s Walk using bat detectors and a strict survey method. Daytime volunteers have continued the Wood’s fourth year of
habitats between Dulwich and Sydenham Hill Golf Club, Dulwich Wood, Sydenham Hill Wood and Cox’s Walk using bat detectors and a strict survey method. Back in April we conducted the annual spring bat roost survey and discovered a good number of soprano pipistrelle and Leisler. One box contained more than ten bats. An impromptu survey has been conducted on Cox’s Walk as volunteers observed adult kestrels feeding three young before they fledged to the cricket pitch next door. Volunteers have also continued the wood’s fourth year of butterfly transects as part of the British Butterfly Monitoring Survey (UKBMS). Speckled wood has once again proved the most common with good years for the comma, too. But there has also been hard work, with large sleepers delivered for a new 20ft container. Spring and summer provide a good opportunity for staff and volunteers to engage the public and discuss the importance of the wildlife that lives in the wood.
Volunteers survey the bat boxes in April (DG)
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The Lost Effra Sydenham Hill Wood volunteer and author Chris Schuler walks the path of a now lost river on foot
On this map, ‘Watercourse’ marks the old route of the River Effra*
Standing on the Norwood Ridge, Sydenham Hill Wood straddles the watershed of two river systems. To the east, the springs and streams flow into the Ravensbourne; on its western slopes, the watercourses – including the Ambrook – flow into the Effra, which runs (underground since the mid 19th century) through Dulwich, Brixton and Kennington to join the Thames at Vauxhall. On Sunday 18 May, a walking tour led by local historian and Effra-enthusiast Martin Knight traced the upper reaches of south London’s legendary lost river. Part of the Dulwich Festival, and supported by the London Wildlife Trust’s Lost Effra Project, the walk was fully subscribed, and about 20 people of all ages gathered at the gates of Brockwell Park on a warm spring day. It is here, at the bottom of Herne Hill, that three tributaries of the Effra meet. The area was once known as Island Green and, as local residents and shopkeepers know to their cost, is still subject to flooding when the flow of water overwhelms the storm drains.
We followed the course of one branch of the river along Half Moon Lane and up Burbage Road, where its former bed can still be detected as a slight depression in the playing fields. From there, we made our way through Dulwich Village to Belair Park, to look at one of the few stretches of the river still visible above ground, where it was dammed in the late 18th century to create an ornamental lake. At Belair Park we listened to the first in a series of performances of Floodtide, a work by the composer John Eacott, generated by an oceanographic sensor placed in the Effra’s outflow at Vauxhall Bridge. The flow of the water was transformed into musical notation, sent to iPads and smartphones, and then played by performers stationed at four different points along the walk. From Belair, we continued along the South Circular and up College Road. Martin Knight is a fund of knowledge about the Effra – he was a pupil at Dulwich College and later taught geography there, so he was able to point out exactly which parts of the playing fields get waterlogged as run-off tries to follow its original course. Continuing up Grange Lane, we passed through Dulwich Woods into Sydenham Hill Wood, to follow the Ambrook – one of the original headwaters of the Effra – to the Dewy Pond. Knight remembers travelling on the railway that once ran through the reserve before its closure in 1954 (it was densely wooded on both sides), and pointed out the location of the spring that feeds the Ambrook on the slope south of the trackbed. In wet weather, the overflow from the Dewy Pond runs down through the drainage ditches on the golf course to feed the ornamental lake in Dulwich Park. We made our way via Cox’s Walk down to the park, where the tour concluded. In Dulwich Park, we were ironically prevented from reaching the lake by Southwark Council’s flood relief work. After a four-mile round trip, our band of walkers was relieved to relax and listen as the four groups of Floodtide performers – vocalists, brass players, percussionists and beatboxers – united for an exhilarating finale. For more about our Lost Effra Project contact Helen Spring: hspring@wildlondon.org.uk *Picture caption: Stanford’s 1864 map of London and its environs shows a tributary of the Effra (labelled “watercourse”) flowing north towards Half Moon Lane to the junction at Herne Hill, where it joins another branch running along Croxted Lane from West Norwood. Beyond Herne Hill, the river had already been bricked over by this period.
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Autumn and Winter events 2014/15 Join us for a range of free natural history events Sunday 14th Sept 2014, 11-16:00
Open Day Celebrate 32 years of nature conservation with guided walks, pond dipping, cake and a tombola to raise money for Sydenham Hill Wood
Saturday 20th Sept 2014, 10:10
Crystal Palace High Level railway walk Mathew Frith leads us along the line of the old Victorian railway from Nunhead Station to Crystal Palace, via the Horniman Nature Trail and Sydenham Hill Wood. Meet at Nunhead station Meet at Nunhead station
Oct/Nov 2014: Booking essential
Fungi walks x 2 Learn about the Wood’s diverse and vital fungi from the experts
Saturday 6th December 2014, 1012:00
Winter bird walk Redwing await us in the leafless Wood
Sunday 25th January 2015, 13-15:00
Winter tree ID Learn how to identify the Wood’s range of tree species without leaves
Meet inside the Crescent Wood Road entrance unless otherwise stated
Booking is not required unless stated Contact dgreenwood@wildlondon.org.uk Visit London Wildlife Trust online: www.wildlondon.org.uk www.facebook.com/londonwildlifetrust www.twitter.com/wildlondon
Protecting London’s wildlife for the future
Registered Charity Number: 283895