I’m back to my local patch for number 26 and it’s the perfect time to enjoy the deep pink spikes of Rosebay Willowherb flowering alongside the old railway bed. This feels appropriate as I see it so often growing along rail tracks in this part of London. A nickname for this flower is Bombweed as […]

I’ve been down to the church tower a few times over the last week, but didn’t get a glimpse of the kestrels nesting there until Friday when I was without binoculars and camera. I thought I could just make out an adult and two young ones. This morning I set off down Cox’s Walk to […]

This is the last site on my tour east across the North Downs. The golf course spreads along a narrow chalky valley and above the greens, the rough really is rough. We work our way through the woods on the ridge until I find a narrow path through the hedge down onto the rough grass. […]

We visit more chalk grasslands today further east along the North Downs.  Riddlesdown was the most westerly on my list of sites to visit this month, then Hutchinson’s Bank and now Saltbox Hill. After parking in a strangely quiet housing estate, we follow a footpath between houses and into a small woodland. Despite the heat […]

Steep steps lead up to a glorious chalk meadow and thankfully, given how hot it is, there are lots of shady patches round the edges. I spot common and greater knapweed, agrimony, yellow rattle, hedge and lady’s bedstraw, quaking grass, perforate St John’s wort, kidney vetch, pyramidal orchid and goatsbeard… and hundreds of marbled white […]

A KINGFISHER! I’ve just set off along the River Wandle from Wilderness Island to Spencer Road Wetlands when I see it fishing from a curved branch.  It’s not a great photo as I don’t have my birding lens with me… but amazing to see this in such a built up area. I stay there long […]

Leaving urban Hackbridge Road behind me, I follow a footpath along the River Wandle to the entrance of the reserve.  It’s the perfect day for visiting a shady river-bounded reserve. The understory plants includes green alkanet (pictured), bittersweet (aka woody nightshade), hemlock water dropwort, a plant in the mint family I can’t identify and a […]

London Wildlife Trust website tells me this the southernmost remnant of the Great North Wood.  Bounded by the busy Croydon Road and housing estates, it’s clearly well used. It’s a relief to be in the cool under the old oaks and after I beaten the bounds, I stop to listen to a chaffinch making a […]

It’s drizzling after breakfast so I hang on for a bit to see if it will ease off, and it pays off. A pair of swifts are feeding over the tree tops as walk down the road. I was worried back in May when it felt like there were much smaller numbers here than in […]