The South London Folk Collective (Kirsty McIver)
In this issue: Unusual butterfly returns Summer events recap African falcons discovered Hedgehogs need our help
Contact Daniel Greenwood dgreenwood@wildlondon.org.uk 0207 252 9186 www.twitter.com/wildlondon_SHW www.facebook.com/sydenhamhillwood
Protecting London’s wildlife for the future
Registered Charity Number: 283895
1200 people for wildlife We had a great time putting on more than 20 events in 2015. More than 1200 members of the public attended our events helping to raise the profile of bats, birds, butterflies, trees and mushrooms. Wildlife depends on the interest of local people so it is greatly encouraging to see more and more people joining in. Highlights include the 120 people who turned out for our winter tree ID walk, 170 for a bat walk at Nunhead Cemetery, the 60 who turned out for a very, very wet bug day and the annual open day where 300 people came to enjoy folk music, wood turning, guided walks and lots of homemade cake. The wildlife highlight was surely the sight of a tawny owl hunting during the dawn chorus in May. We have lots more planned for 2016, please look at our website for full information: www.wildlondon.org.uk Bob the bat whittler (Philip Braude www.philipbraude.com)
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HS2 threatens precious reserve
London Wildlife Trust has recently learnt that an access road for the proposed HS2 rail link between London and Birmingham is now set to cut across one of our most valuable nature reserves. Frays Farm Meadows in Hillingdon is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), one of only 37 in the entire Greater London region. Frays Farm Meadows supports what is probably the largest remaining sedge fen in London; a rare wet grazing meadow that is home to species such as water vole, snipe and slow-worm. The proposed haulage road would slice across the northern boundary of the site, destroying habitat and threatening the entire sedge-beds for which the meadows are designated. Significant levels of pollution will result from the resulting road, particularly nitrogen dioxide. It is feared that other pollutants will be soaked up by the wet, sponge-like conditions of the meadows, potentially harming the sedge-beds entirely and irrecoverably. Although temporary, HS2 say the haulage road would be required for up to six years. With an anticipated start date of 2017, it would take nine years before the road could be removed and the full damage ascertained, in 2026. Aside from pollution, destruction of habitat and severe disturbance to wildlife, the access road will also cause serious disruption to London Wildlife Trust’s care of this site. The Trust’s ability to access the reserve will be significantly constrained. The meadows are grazed by cattle and without such grazing the habitats will rapidly become overgrown and deteriorate, threatening the many species that depend on this scarce and valuable environment. Mathew Frith, Director of Conservation at London Wildlife Trust said: “Politicians may trumpet the questionable economic value of HS2, but nature also has a huge value – providing benefits that cannot easily be measured or understood by the bean counters and their profit and loss sheets. Frays Farm Meadows is only one small slice of nature that HS2 is threatening to destroy, but this road would reverse all the work London Wildlife Trust has undertaken to restore the nature reserve over the past decade, and may damage parts of it irrecoverably. We will fight to save it and we would urge our supporters to petition against HS2 both locally and in its entirety.”
Volunteer power London Wildlife Trust’s volunteers turned out in force in 2015 to keep Sydenham Hill Wood in good shape for people and wildlife
Volunteer Action for Peace
Much is made of the negative impact people make on wildlife and the landscape. Inexorable species declines and extinctions resulting from global deforestation, farmland birds disappearing because of intensive agriculture, raptors on the brink because of illegal persecution. But there are good things – the fact that conservation volunteering is booming, even in a place like London where few people really ‘’appreciate how much wildlife there is. In 2015 our volunteers made it down to the Wood for over 950 individual days. Our volunteers are a rich blend of cultures, with some hailing from Streatham, Forest Hill, Herne Hill, India, Kenya, Spain, France, Italy, Poland and even Yorkshire. In December our numbers were swelled by Volunteer Action for Peace, with a team of volunteers from Vietnam, Hong Kong, South Korea, Germany and France, helping us finish the year off with a dose of goodwill. For all the world-weary headlines of 2015, conservation is proof of how people can be united for a good cause. Our main tasks in 2015 were completing the green roofs project, but it is the ongoing tasks which make the Wood welcoming and attractive to visitors. Fencing is often damaged by vandals or fallen branches but is quickly replaced by our volunteers. Last year we used home grown ash paling (not on an industrial scale) to replace broken pieces.
Reducing duckweed (DG)
We pick litter each week, keep the paths clear of vegetation and remove any fallen trees or limbs that may come down in storms to block paths. With less of an easeful manner our volunteers get into the ponds each autumn to reduce the vegetation and try to quell the dense matt of duckweed which spreads each summer. Light-scale coppicing takes place to maintain a varied woodland structure. This is an important practice in the Wood as a number of declining plant species have over centuries developed a dependency on sunlight reaching the woodland floor at intervals. There are many areas of shade in the Wood and cutting hazel to encourage regrowth causes no harm to the habitats. Already some of our holly clearance in a remote part of the Wood has given (very) early bluebells the warmth to leaf. Ancient woodland wildflowers can remain dormant for centuries and we are hopeful that some ‘lost’ species such as lily-ofthe-valley may be able to flower again given a return to the more hospitable conditions afforded by coppicing. In other places that volunteers have cleared encroaching bramble, yellow pimpernel, another uncommon ancient woodland wildflower, has increased by over 50%. We need to act now to save our wildlife. Thankfully there are many good people out there who want to be a part of the movement.
Lucky streak Volunteer and lepidopterist Emma Pooley was delighted with her sighting of an elusive butterfly this summer
White-letter hairstreak Š Emma Pooley
If you visit Sydenham Hill Wood during July, you could be treated to a whole array of butterflies on the wing. Gatekeepers and meadow browns are likely to be two a penny, commas can be found basking on bramble and several species of whites will be dancing past. But this year a much more elusive butterfly has been spotted in the Wood, the white-letter hairstreak (Satyrium w-album). The species was last recorded here in 2011 and is currently a high priority species for Butterfly Conservation due to a decline in numbers in recent decades. The larval food plant of this hairstreak is elm and the decline in numbers has been a result of Dutch elm disease which swept through the country in the 1970s and resulted in the loss of most of our mature elms. The beetle which causes the disease flies through the tree canopy so is unlikely to infect any trees shorter than 10m. However, white-letter hairstreaks seem to favour mature, flowering trees which is why the species has suffered so badly from the loss of the elms.
There are a number of elms to be found in the wood, with a few along Cox’s Walk (where the 2011 hairstreak was recorded) and in the old tennis court, which is where I saw 2 hairstreaks this year. Both were spotted walking in tiny circles on the floor before they flew into the air ‘dancing’ with each other. This in-flight behaviour would suggest it was two males fighting over a mate and it would be excellent to think we had a small colony currently residing in the Wood. The two sexes of species look remarkably similar, with the ‘sex-brands’ on the forewing of males being the main distinction between them. These are only visible when the wings are open and as hairstreaks usually only settle with wings closed, my only view was of the tattered underside. The flight season of the white-letter hairstreak begins in June, peaking in July and finishing no later than August. It lays its eggs at the base of elm buds and these will not hatch until the following spring, when the young caterpillars are perfectly camouflaged among the expanding elm buds. This is a similar trait to other hairstreaks such as the purple and black hairstreaks, helping the caterpillar to remain hidden and eventually form a pupa around the end of May. It's fantastic to see the white-letter hairstreak present at the Wood again, although it may never have actually left. All the hairstreak species are very elusive, preferring to fly through the treetop canopy and often only spotted with binoculars and a bit of luck. We know that purple hairstreaks breed in the wood but it can sometimes be several years until one is actually spotted, so the white-letter hairstreak may have been here all along, just hiding out of sight. But either way, hopefully it shall continue to live here for many years to come, even if the colony is only small. Purple hairstreak (DG)
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Raptors enrapture 2015 has shown that south London’s habitats are proving attractive for birds of prey
Juvenile hobby © Ernie Thomason
In September, long-term London Wildlife Trust volunteer Ernie Thomason photographed two juvenile hobbies being fed by adult birds in Dulwich Wood. For months we had pondered whether the ‘’calls of falcons heard at dusk during moth surveys were those of this African migrant falcon. This was all the proof we needed. The hobby is a Schedule 1 species meaning that its nest site can’t be reported publicly or disturbed. We do not know where they nested but it is likely to be on the slopes of Sydenham Hill. In June we witnessed what was a hobby and a tawny owl in the same tree. There were seven raptor species recorded in the Dulwich Woods and surrounds in 2015, including tawny owl, sparrowhawk, kestrel, peregrine, a little owl on the golf course and two buzzards that probably stayed in the area for two weeks in September. These sightings suggest there is good habitat and food available to birds of prey in the Dulwich Woods and other local green spaces. The fact also remains that, unlike elsewhere in Britain, London’s birds of prey are not persecuted.
Help our hogs Once hunted, now endangered, these charming woodland animals are clinging on in the south-east London
© Tom Marshall
Today London’s hedgehogs are in trouble but it wasn’t always the
‘’case. They were once so common in Southwark that in the 18th
century a bounty of 4d was placed upon an individual hog (Southwark’s varied wild life, Jill Slaney, Country Life, 1976). They were seen as pests. In 2016 there is no such abundance. Ten years ago there were over 3 million hedgehogs snuffling in hedgerows throughout Britain but research shows their numbers have suffered a staggering decline. There are now thought to be fewer than 1 million hedgehogs left and records suggest that they have virtually disappeared from many parts of London. But why are hedgehogs in decline? One of the main problems in urban areas has been the loss of gardens, which London Wildlife Trust research has found to be occurring at a rate of 2½ Hyde Parks per year between 1998-2008. Gardens are also being quarantined by impenetrable fencing, leaving no chance for hedgehogs to spread through the landscape.
At Sydenham Hill Wood and Cox’s Walk there have been records of hedgehog every year since 2012. Most of our records have been from carcasses or skins, with only two of the records being of live animals. Recent reports of dogs attacking and disturbing hedgehogs in Dulwich Wood is cause for alarm and all such incidents should be reported to the police’s wildlife crime unit. The woodland ride management undertaken on Cox’s Walk, where bramble is left for three years before being cut, appears to be offering hedgehogs the chance to move between areas without being disturbed. Further sightings of juvenile hedgehogs have given evidence that they continue to breed. One of the main problems for the hedgehogs of Sydenham Hill Wood is the south circular where tens of thousands of vehicles pass every day. Hedgehogs were recorded on several occasions on Wood Vale and the Horniman Nature Trail in 2015, and the surrounding Tewkesbury Lodge estate of Westwood Park and the Horniman Gardens is a stronghold for them. To find out how you can help, please follow this link to our hedgehog campaign.
Protecting London’s wildlife for the future