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 […]
I know I’ve arrived when I hear a cetti’s warbler asserting himself from a stand of reeds. I take a deep breath… I first came to this area for nature watching back in the early nineties. An old friend had admitted to being a birdwatcher too and we decided on a cold and windy winter’s […]
This is another one of the sites which is not open at the moment, but is one I’ve visited often so know well what it looks like from inside. Although not much more than a big pond with some nice planting in the shadow of blocks of flats, it’s so much more than that. During […]
While I knew this little jewel just round the corner from King’s Cross station hasn’t been open to the public for sometime, I decide to visit today to see where it is and how the development is going. The park is a long thin oblong running more or less north south. I walk round it […]
