October 2024

I did my monthly bird count on the 28th. This confirmed that Grey Herons are now more numerous on the lake, perhaps because they are nesting on the island.

Leaf fall had begun, with most Lime trees mainly bare, Oak less so, Ash and Elm just beginning and the Weeping Willows had yet to shed any leaves. Ivy was in flower, providing valuable nectar for insects at a time when most other flowering was over. Some Elms were falling over in Horse Close Wood, perhaps the third die off since the virulent strain of Dutch Elm Disease took all the tall trees in the 70s.

The "Wildflower" plots around the Great Field had been mown off, so sacrificing a scattering of late flowers.

A new fence had been erected over the Brook where it flowed from the AELTC land into the Public Park. This will make it harder for the youngsters who would use the land around the lake outfall to have a quiet time undisturbed by other park users. 

The ex-golf course had been mown, making it more difficult to see the quality of the grassland.

September 2024

When I did my monthly bird count on the 17th I found that one of the four young Mute Swans standing by the main watersports jetty was trailing a length of fishing line from its leg. It was already tangled in twigs, waterweed and other debris, disabling the bird. Fortunately it was tame enough that I could catch it readily and remove the barbed hook. I saw all the swans in subsequent days, so it appears that the bird recovered. Grey Wagtails have long occurred in small numbers around the lake and occasionally on the brook in the public park, but I have the impression they are now more frequent, perhaps as a result of the substantially longer stretch of open brook available for them.

On the night of the 22nd-23rd there was significant rainfall, which hit the national news because of the "sink hole" in the corner of the AFC Wimbledon pitch, some 1.5 kilometres away to the east. Unfortunately, I don't know just how much rain fell in the catchment of the lake (which includes much suburbia to the west and extends as far as the Windmill and Rushmere on the common), but there was a significant flood in the park. If anyone used a rain guage and got the figure, it would be of interest to know. The new outflow to the lake performed according to design and dumped the excess water straight into the stilling pool in Ashen Grove Wood, from where it rushed down to quickly flood areas all around the cafe and the crazy golf. That the flow went this way, means that the dam safety works were successful as there was no overtopping of the dam, so no risk it would fail. A very big rainfall would overtop the dam between the watersports building and the stadium entrance, but I heard of no overtopping there. Again, if anyone was there to check, please let me know. However, the flood revealed significant design faults in the new parts of the brook. The engineers had made a last minute design change to the part of the brook within Ashen Grove Wood, down to the toilet block, saying that this change should perform OK. But, it didn't. The bed of the brook was badly eroded, washing away much of the landscaping and wooden steps and eroding the underlying London Clay. Three pipes that had been buried below the bed where they crossed the brook were now exposed at the bottom of the brook. Clearly, this part of the brook is eroding its own course. Just how this can be remedied remains to be determined. 

I'm not sure what the pipes carry: perhaps sewage from the golf clubhouse and fresh water supply, possibly, gas or electricity. Whatever they carry, the intregity of the pipes may be in doubt as they are now subject to flood flows, where previously they were supported by the surrounding clay soil.

It appears that the flood in the public park was exascerbated by debris washed downstream and accumulating on the grille near the payment booth. This acted as a dam and the water backed up and overflowed the path and down beside the crazy golf to make its way back to the downstream part of the brook. As usual, when the park has a flood, the water entered the equipment store beneath the cafe. The debris that blocked the grille perhaps originated at the upstream eroded part of the brook, but anything loose would have joined it. At the other end of the large diameter pipe that runs under the access road to the cafe, recent works have allowed the grille to be removed. This is fortunate, as previously debris used to accumulate there where it was very difficult to remove. This second grille has been left off. It has long puzzled me why there needs to be grilles on this pipe at all. It was rumoured to be for public safety, but I don's see any special safety issue with a short length of large diameter pipe. With or without these grilles, the third grill, on the pipe that runs under the tube line embankment, would have blocked and the flood would have been just as great.

Flooding in the public park is entirely expected, as I pointed out at the LB Merton Council Meeting that approved the works to the dam and brook. The engineering reports made it clear that the new downstream works would prevent any worse flooding than before, not make the situation better. The reason for accepting this is that it was decided to maximise the depth of the lake and so sacrifice the ability to use the lake as a temporary storage for storm flows. The dam safety works, therefore, send much bigger volumes downstream in a flood peak than before, requiring more storage in the downstream brook to prevent much bigger floods there than before. Council Members were misled by their officers when the works were approved. Effectively, flooding in the public park is by design choice. This means that the park is used for temporary storage of flood water that would otherwise overcome the pipes downstream to the Wandle, or even flow under the railway bridge at Revelstoke Road to flood the grid. All this would be prevented were the weir at the lake outflow be lowered by 20cm or so. Then the lake, rather than the public park, would act as the temporary flood storage. One wonders, also, about the wisdom of effectively using the tube line embankment as a dam to hold the flood waters back in the park, so protecting residential areas downstream. That embankment was designed to carry trains, not as a flood control structure. Might it fail? 

The flood we saw was well within the designers' maximum flood. We will certainly have much bigger floods, it's just a matter of when. The maximum would flood most of the tennis courts and right up to the Revelstoke Road car park. It would rise nearly to the level of the floor of the cafe. 

Birds benefitted from the flood. I saw a Little Egret and two Grey Herons in the crazy golf area scavenging the fish that were carried over the weir by the flood flow.

Another interesting observation this month was confirming the identity of a large-leafed plant under the hedge on the south-east corder of the stadium. This was Deadly Nightshade, Atropa beladonna, and just the third record of this species I know of in a wide surrounding area. There was a plant on the tube line embankment a few years back, but not seen recently, and a large plant in the St Mary's Wimbledon graveyard. This species does well in disturbed, chalky soil and is doubtless spread by squirrels, or birds that are not susceptible to the poison. It favours disturbed chalky soils, in these places probably concrete as the local soils are not chalky. I have seen more than one white-flowered Cyclamen in Horse Close Wood this year, perhaps liberated there by people after flowering of a house plant ceased.

There were several waterbird corpses and ill-looking birds this month, probably bird 'Flu. The blue-green bacterial bloom diminished over the month as temperatures cooled and was virtually gone by the end of the month. The predominant species this year was Aphanizomenon flos-cuculae, which seems not to have harmed any dogs this year. I was rather disturbed to see much watersports activity through the months when the bloom was obvious.

August 2024

 I did the monthly bird count on the 28th. August is a quiet month, with only Robins, Wrens and Stock Doves singing. The single dove was in Ashen Grove Wood, but surely others would have been present but silent. The geese were mostly out on the Great Field in the early morining and the Greylags continue to outnumber the Canada Geese (75 to 30). Some of the summer wildflowers were still showing, with Yarrow showing in several places. There was a single white-flowered Cyclamen in Horse Close Wood. This year's acorn crop looks quite light and is heavily infected with Knopper gall.

At the end of a wet summer, the bowls court and the restoration work following the tennis queue were being watered at 06:30. One wonders about the sustainability of this? The park gates were opened at 06:45. The Crazy Golf area and the strip of meadow between the tennis courts and the tube line hedge had been mown short recently with the arisings left as a thatch, preventing users from enjoying the wildflowers there. It seems that the desire for meadow management hasn't got through.

July 2024

Sadly, a visible  bacterial bloom of Aphanizomenon flos-cuculae had developed in the lake when I took a look on 26th. Contact with this blue-green should be avoided. Water clarity was 750mm, a decline from early summer, as evident also in the last five summers. 2019 was the last year when water clarity remained high through the summer. These blooms are caused by high levels of nutrients in the lake water, perhaps exascerbated by water temperature. Just what has caused the increase in nutirents is not known, because there is no monitoring of nutrinets in the three main tributaries of the lake (typical of the Environment Agency elsewhere, unfortunately). It is possible that the increase is from the flow of the AELTC drain, from diffuse sources in the rest of the catchment, or from disturbance of the sediment on the lake bottom caused by waterweed clearance. It is most strange that AELTC and LB Merton express concern over lake water quality and have proposals to exascerbate the problems, but have done no work to diagnose the cause! Ticking the box will not solve the problem. Indeed, the watersports people had recently removed waterweed from the lake and left it in untidy heaps on the prominade. Such removal risks disturbing the sediment and liberating nutrients that would otherwise remain locked away a depth.

I did my bird count on the 26th. Things were quiet, with most breeding over and little song. Remarkable, however, was thirty Swifts hawking insects over the lake. This big number could have included birds already on their way to central Africa where they spend most of their annual cycle, as well as later birds still commuting to and from their nests all over this quarter of London. Swift populations are very difficult to monitor because they travel long distances to flock at feeding sites, but it's noteworthy that this is the third largest July count at our lake and those two larger counts were in recent years, 2011 and 2023. So, there is little local evidence of the claimed decline in UK populations.

There were around 50Adult Black-headed Gulls and just five young of the year. Interestingly, whilst mot of the adults had already moulted their head feathers to loose that black head, a few were still in breeding plumage. I can only speculate why this may be so. Perhaps this reflects breeding failures at differing times, non-breeding one-year-old birds returning earlier, or birds coming from distant places with differing timing. 

The count of 11  Canada Geese was the third lowest July tally over the 39-year study, suggesting a decline in summer numbers, but counts are very variable, so we await a detailed examination for confirmation.

The gates were opened at around 06:55. Most of the flow of the brook was down the new courses, both upstream of the toilet block and within the Crazy Golf area.

Summer flowers were evident: Yarrow in the long grass areas, Cornflowers surviving from previous years in the Hormbeam plots beside the perimeter path in the north-east. Visible through the northern hedgerow, one could see a mass of flowers of Wild Carrot on the 9th tee of the ex-golf course and a few purple flowerheads of Common Knapweed, a native species which provides much nectar for pollinators.

My monthly assessment of the Lofthouse Glade gave 144 species, showing no increase since October last year. So, the accumulation of species has slowed. The number of species found in any one monthly visit is now averaging around 30, which is only a slight decline since monitoring began in 2016. A stand of Great Willowherb and some tall Ragworts provided a splash of colour there. Unfortunately, no-one has chosen to reverse the excess mulch around the path at the southern end of the glade, damage that is readily reversed. 

On the 29th a large Ash growing at the edge of the brook west of the toilet block was taken down. A subsequent ring count revealed an age of around 275 years, so it began life around 1849, around the time that the park was purchased by Beaumont, although it had been in agricultural use since around 1827, when the Spencers became abseentee landlords. Doubtless this historic tree had to come down because it grew right by a well-used path and had a little die-back in its crown, probably the first casulty to the diesease in the public park. It was probably a survivor from the part of Ashen Grove Wood that once extended through this area up as far as the present-day bowls pavilion. The loss has opened up a big area to the sky, presenting an opportunity to restore woodland back to the area.

June 2024

I did my monthly bird count on the 24th. It's a quiet time of year, as many species have raised their young and so are not rushing round collecting food any more. Nevertheless, the Swift breeds late and their nestlings will be newly hatched at this time of year, so the 25 Swifts were commuting to and from their distant nests to take the insects that emerge from the lake. Swifts are very variable in occurrence, making it difficult to detect any trend, but numbers rose between 1986 and 2006 only to decline back down in the last 20 years. In contrast, the Egytian goose breeds very early and numbers rise to a summer peak as parents and their grown young gravitate to the lake in June. There were 40 of them, with just the single late young bird standing out from the rest in size. Numbers locally have been stable since around 2016. It's a similar story with the Jackdaw, where the numbers in the park are swollen in June as parents bring their full-sized offspring to feed in the grasslands of the Great Field and Athletics stadium. There were 55 Jackdaws in the count. Most bird song was over, but there were a few Blackbirds and Wrens still singing. Remarkably, there were two Song thrushes singing: one in Ashen Grove Wood and the other in the railside hedge south of the brook. The huge decline in their numbers since 1990 now seems over.

It seems we have just emerged from the long wet Spring, but the ground was already parched and three parts of the Great field and the bowls green were being irrigated right from the park opening at 06:35. Sadly, it seems we must have everything tidy for the Wimbledon queue: the edge of the northern hedgerow has been pruned to a straight edge, removing most of the Honeysuckles and Dog rose flowers: these are not to be enjoyed by those in the queue it seems. There was a bit of colour in the Lofthouse Glade, however, with yellow buttercups, white Hogweed, Bindweed and Clover, and the purple of Hedge woundwort. The Yellow flag was over. Some of the cornfield annuals added to the Hornbeam plots beside the perimeter path have come again from last-year's seed: there were Common poppies, Corncockle and Cornflower, an echo of the arable weeds that would have been there in the 18th century park.

The pillar on the northern edge of Horse Close Wood car park has been vandalised and the door is hanging off. Someone has tipped some garden waste behind it, presumably ignorant of the remnant population of Dog's Mercury there. Someone has spread wood chips into the near parts of the Lofthouse Glade beside the path there. The path was already far too wide. It's not too late to rake these off to reveal the buried woodland meadow below!

The ground flora of the part of Ashen Grove Wood within the public park had been mown recently. This area has long been recognised as part of the Site of Borough Importance for Nature Conservation, so it's sad that such an inappropriate treatment has been applied. This part of the ancient wood has long been used for informal play, which would benefit from a more naturalistic vegetation, sadly denied to the children.

May 2024

It's interesting how plant species can hide in plain sight. When I walk along the access road to the athletics area once a month, I make a list of the plants to be seen in the adjacent hedgerow. On the 29th, it was great to see several Dog Roses in full flower and there were many also in the tree planting areas around Horse Close Wood, but this is a seasonal phenomenon. This fine native rose is actually quite inconspicous when not in flower or fruit in the winter. In my list that day I failed to note other species seen regularly at other times when they flower. One is the single Laurustinus in the hedge, which has flowered there mainly in late summer and autumn, when I ususlly spot it. This seasonality is even more pronounced for the non-woody plants that grow between the perimeter path and the bottom of the hedge. On my visit I spotted some species that can be seen year round, like the common Daisy, Perrenial Ryegrass and Annual Meadow-grass, but others die back for the winter and grow again for summer, so the Spear-leaved Orache, Wall Barley and Knotgrass weren't spotted. The Spear Thistle, that I noted in late May was just growing back. Of course, there's also a good element of chance in whether or not I happen to look in the right place. When a species is not widespread, and is growing amongst the mass of more common species, it can be missed. In late May I spotted the single Swedish Whitebeam in that hedge, but missed the equally uncommon Sycamores, Cow Parsley, Horse Raddish and Snowberry. The few Yews in the hedge are more obvious in the winter when their deciduous companions are leafless. 

For such reasons, to get a good handle on the plant composition of even a tiny area needs, not only expertise, but a thorough survey. So, it's interesting that I found 99 grassland species on the ex-golf course in recent surveys, but AELTC admit to finding only 23. The combined list is just 102 species, and certainly an underestimate, as my surveys weren't enough for such a large area. That AELTC reported 23% of the species known to be present and I found 99% has nothing to do with the expertise or professionalism of the ecologists working for AELTC, it's simply due to them not looking at the right time and not having enough time to have a good look at most of the grassland. If you don't look you don't find. Does this matter? Of course it does if you are spinning a story that the pastures back in Capability Brown's time were acid grassland and have been ruined since. You actually need to look at the evidence, and when you fail to find Bracken after a good look, you can be confident that acid soils are not widespread on that ex-golf course and never were. So, good data, and a knowledge of indicator species and history of the site, would allow a professional ecologist to reach the right conclusion. AELTC fail at the first hurdle.

The spring flowering was not over, with Elder in full flower although the Hawthorns, Lord's-and-Ladies and Wild Cherries were in fruit and flowering was just starting on the Brambles and the native and the Japanese Honeysuckles. Dandelions flower over a wide season, but the spring flush was over. There was a nice display of Yellow-flag Iris around the lake, a species that AELTC proposes to replace with big new reedbeds, so compromising the prospect.

It was distressing to see so much spraying of wildflowers "weeds" along the edges of paths, around trees and below the athletics hedges and fence lines yet again. It seems that this is done as a routine without much thought about need. Spraying was under way before the opening of the park to the public, suggesting a deliberate attempt to avoid notice. Most of these places would be nicer were the vegetation allowed to grow and flower, and strimmed a couple of times a year, so treated as natural edge vegetation. What we get instead is ugly desiccated vegetation followed by bare soil. This restricts the species to a few, quick flowering ones that can survive this attack. Strimming could well be cheaper, but would require some thought and discussion, as I'm sure that the clean and tidy brigade will have a counter argument. The same could be said of the mowing of long grass in places like the crazy golf area and the cuckoo flower verge. Here, the cuttings are left as a thatch on top of the grassland, so preventing easy regeneration of interesting species in the gaps. These places are not flower-rich meadows, but would be better with meadow management. Raking off is what is required, but it seems that there's no co-ordination between those who mow and those who may wield a rake. As I walk around noting the vegetation of these areas, users sing the praises of what wildflowers survive this treatment and credit the management for it. I don't dare explain that these flowers that they value aren't valued by the management.

Sadly, there was more tipping of shrub prunings at the edge of Horse Close Wood, this time near the western edge of the car park. Yet another reason for closing this car park and restoring the woodland that once occupied the area. Not all those using the car park are irresponsible, but almost all are able-bodied people quite capable of using a more responsible mode of transport.

Water management in the new course of the brook keeps changing. Most of the flow in May was in the new course, both upstream of the toilet block and within the Crazy Gold area. Other parts of the park were still very wet, following the recent rains. This included Horse Close Wood and an area on the western edge of the Lofthouse Glade, where the restoration by National Grid imposed a low dam across the natural flow.

April 2024

My bird count was on the 16th. The news was a pair of Mandarin Ducks beside the new course of the brook beside the toilet block. Subsequently, park users have reported three of them on the lake. This is a feral species (established in the wild but of captive origin). It nests in trees and is probably considering breeding in the nearby Ashen Grove Wood. It's found regularly in other nearby sites, such as the water bodies on the commons, so its arrival is no surprise. It was a quiet time for the birds of the lake. On the lake, coots were sitting on eggs, with one nest on the canoeing rafts, at risk of disturbance. There was a single Grey Heron on its nest in the Evergreen Oak on the island. The Mute Swan was still on its nest on the Wimbledon Club lakeside. Another nice record was a Garden Warbler singing in the hedge between the tennis courts and the tube line. There was quite a lot of social interaction with other birds there, so possibly a breeding territory, but I suspect the birds were on passage to better habitat elsewhere. More prosaic was the usual Spring Chiffchaff singing in Horse Close Wood and Blackcaps also singing there, in Ashen Grove Wood and in the northern hedgerow bordering on the ex-golf course.

The native Bluebells in Horse Close Wood were in flower. Sadly, the main concentration was harmed by trampling when big numbers went through there in Covid times, but there is a good scattering of survivors. There were many hybrid (non-native) bluebells also in the wood, and elsewhere in the park, including on the downslope of the dam and beside the path through the bowls area.

The future of the waterfall is being considered. Sadly, the landscaping has fallen into disrepair and there is a leak in the base of one of the basins, so it would be a big project to fix it. Some believe that the water supply from the lake is compromised, but I don't think so. The inlet from the lake is low enough, even when drought lowers the lake level the flow continues, but the debris screen there is a poor design and needs frequent clearance. This used to be a routine operation by parks maintenance people. A better screen would be a simple project, but fixing the landscaping around the waterfall itself is a much bigger job. Children used to really enjoy informal play in the waterfall, despite the advice to keep out! There is potential further downstream in the brook for informal play, but the only easy access is to the old stretch of the brook from the toilet block down to the water garden. Some of the planting around the waterfall survives. There are six Trachycarpus palms, but just the one struggling Dicksonia antartica tree-fern.

One-by-one the old arboretum planting is succumbing from competition and old age. The latest casualty was a Tulip Tree Liriodendron tulipifera on the dam downslope close to the Bowls depot. Its potential as an informal playspace was discouraged by it being taped off.

The old drain that gets its flow from Home Park Road and that emerges beside the toilet block had milky water. I saw just the same a year or so back and had an unpleasant experience when I reported the obvious pollution to Thames Water as one is supposed to do. Thames Water were reluctant to turn out until I pointed out the guidance to them. The investigation team didn't turn up for two hours and expected me to attend promptly, but by then the flow was clear. They were reluctant to talk to me about it, relying upon their own observations, after the event! I urged them to take my photographs as evidence of the incident, but they refused! I presume this one has been recorded as non-pollution in their statistics, if at all. So, this time I didn't bother. I didn't want another long wait followed by a high-handed dismissal.

Some time back, the old pipe which took the lake outflow underground to emerge at the toilet block was re-opened at its upper end within Ashen Grove Wood. Since then much of the outflow came that way rather than down the new course of the brook. Now, however, the predictable is happening and the entrance to the pipe is becomming clogged with debris, as there is no grille to screen this pipe entrance. This even threatens to compromise the flows from the Home Park Road surface water drainage, as it joins the pipe underground. If this happens, expect the storm flows to emerge at the man-holes and an accidental return to the channel that used to flow there before the children's play area was created. Old-timers recall playing in it!

I did the lake water sampling on the 30th. The water clarity was good, as is usual at this time of year, but there was very little sign of water weed, just a few whispy fragments of Fennel Pondweed, and the blue-green Aphanizomenon flos-cuculae was visible to the naked eye: looking like tiny fragments of lawn cuttings. So, there is a looming risk from toxicity as sunlight and water temperatures increase. Whilst that is a different species of blue-green than the one that left a dog crippled last year, the official advice is to avoid contact with Aphanizomenon. I will tell Merton, but I fear that park users have become accustomed to the warning notices and that nothing extra will be done.

An attempt to assist drainage of the Great Field was seen. Tines had been towed behind a tractor to disturb the soil, I would expect without much effect. This is because such underground disturbance is supposed to provide for drainage of saturated soils into a deep subsoil with free drainage. Here, however, the soil has a high content of silts and clays, giving even the subsoil a heavy, poor-draining structure. Another counter to drainage is that heavy traffic should be avoided over loosened soils, as re-compaction can be worse than the original! What did I see? - regular traffic by the park runabouts and compaction by the use of tractors in setting up Zippo's Circus.

Park management is compromising people's enjoyment of wildflowers. The crazy golf rectangle has been mown without raking off the resulting thatch, so beheading and supressing wildflowers. It would be easy to mow just around the golf plots to allow ready access, and to extend this to the brook edges if concerned with safety, but it's edge to edge. Allowing those other areas to grow tall would enable people to enjoy quite a nice meadow. This attracted praise from users of the facility last year. It's not too late to do this. Sadly, the tiny area of grassland between the tennis courts and the paths to the Home Park Road steps has been mown, so breaking the long standing agreement to leave this to grow for the Cuckoo Flowers, Germander Speedwell, etc. Drastic clearance of colonising vegetation has taken place below the athletics area hedges for no obvious reason. The many interesting wildflowers that have thrived there before have been set back, even compromising Elder, Yew and White Bryony. This area would become an interesting hedge bottom flora if given a chance. Instead, those many people who pass by on the adjacent perimeter pathway have nothing to look at but the ugly, bare lower trunks of the Leyland's Cypress. 

After a wet Spring there was still standing water in several places, showing where it would be possible to create wildlife ponds. Water was still flowing over the perimeter path at the northern edge of the athletics area and within the hedgerow not far south of where the brook leaves the park. Two areas of ponding are the result of the National Grid works to remove their cables: one in the Lofthouse Glads and the other at the edge of the Great Field nearby.

Work was under way providing steps down to the new course of the brook either side of the tunnel between the two grilles near the cafe. I was told that this was for access to the brook so that accumulated debris could be removed. That's a puzzle, as such clearance has gone ahead for years without any special access arrangement. 

Zippo's Circus was being set up in the Great Field near to Horse Close Wood, taking over the car park there for the duration, once more showing no need for a public car park there if it can be sacrificed to the alter of an attraction. The vehicles on the damp grassland were causing damage, as usual. One hopes that re-instatement will be more prompt this time. In keeping with Merton's much vaunted energy policies, I noted a big bank of diesel generators running day and night.

March 2024

I did the monthly bird count on the 21st. Notable observations were a Peregrine Falcon over Horse Close Wood, and a Common Sandpiper calling in on migration to forage around the lakeside promenade. The Sandpiper is normally seen in April or May, and again in August on its return journey, so this record is early. The Peregrine has been increasing in London and has been reported more often locally. This is the second record in the course of my counts. The Common and Black-headed Gulls have made off to their breeding sites, but a bunch of Herring Gulls remains. These began to increase in 2012 and we now have up to 60 seen in the breeding season (May to July), but with no sign of breeding here yet. Birds can be heard calling somewhere off to the east, but I haven't confirmed any nesting as yet. I wonder if anyone else knows? There were 2 Cormorants remaining from the winter visitors and some seven Pochards remaining from the winter flock. The cob swan still had the new mate. The yaffle call of the Green Woodpecker was heard on the ex-golf course, confirming its liking for the parkland landscape there. There were Chiffchaffs singing in Horse Close Wood, a migrant newly arrived back. The resident Great Spotted Woodpecker was drumming in Horse Close Wood. As usual, Great Tits were singing in Horse Close Wood and also along the tube line hedgerows, where they find nest sites in the heavily pruned Railway Poplars, one fears susceptible to the tree works that have continued in recent weeks. Egg laying is usually in early April. It was good to hear Greenfinches in Horse Close Wood as this species declined greatly from trichomonosis. Perhaps it is recovering from that epidemic? Wrens were in full song. Ring-necked Parakeets remain in good numbers and a pair was planning to nest in a woodpecker hole in the veteran oak.

At this stage of Spring one can pick up trees that are much less conspicuous later. There are two Wild Cherries in Horse Close Wood: one near the main path entrance in the south-east and a second smaller one beside the main path just west of the biggest oak. The Cherryplum clump near the splash pool building was in flower. The many Evergreen Oaks were readily spotted also. Hazel catkins and Sweet Violet flowers were over, Blackthorn was in full flower, again allowing its distribution in Horse Close Wood to be discovered. Hawthorn was just beginning to leaf up. The Dog's Mercury there was in flower. Elsewhere there were flowers of species that can be seen in most months, such as White deadnettle and Green Alkanet, but the remarkable display was the carpets of Lesser Celandine which seems to have benefitted from the very wet Winter and early Spring.

The ivy that was killed by senseless cutting was dying and shedding dead leaves in Horse Close Wood. The good news is that the cutting spared a good number of less accessible trees, so a depleted ivy habitat will survive.

The park was opened to the public at around 06:35, which was greatly appreciated by the early runners and dog walkers, much though this displaced the geese on the Great Field, which resorted to the lake or ex-golf course where they are free of disturbance.

I sampled the lake water on the last day of the month, finding an unusually early surge in numbers of the Long-spined Waterflea. Presumably it has benefitted from the mild Spring temperatures. It was feeding on a bloom of a microscipic Eugenophyte alga. There was no sign yet of any blue-green bacteria. Otherwise there were also plenty of non-biting midge larvae, promising emerging insects for birds and bats for feed upon.

February 2024

I did my monthly bird count on 27th, an early Spring (or is it late Winter?) visit. There were still plenty of Redwings around and not even any song, as is sometimes the case as they prepare to depart for breeding areas further north. They were busy feeding on the remaining Ivy berries, as were Woodpigeons and Starlings. Sadly, someone has taken it into his head to treat Ivy as an enemy and has cut the stems of climbing Ivy throughout Horse Close Wood. This is wholly against the adopted management plan for the wood, because the expert concensus is that Ivy causes little or no harm to the trees it climbs, and that this climbing Ivy is a great nature conservation asset: providing an abundnace of nectar in late autumn when little else is flowering and the fruit provides an abundance of natural food for birds. There was still quite a lot of fruit left on the ivy, but one wonders how much there will be next year on the depleted remains. Ivy also provides valuable shelter both for nesting birds and for roosting birds and bats in the winter, when shelter is scarce. Ivy supports a range of interesting insects, such as the Holly Blue, one of the common species seen in and around the park, and the recently-arrived Ivy Bee. Of course Ivy can fend for itself very well, and can obscure the statuesque trunks of trees and the Bluebells and other woodland wildflowers, but such drastic cutting back is clearly disproportionate and based upon ignorance. The cutting was done inexpertly and there was much damage caused to the bark of the trees, causing further harm. The winter flock of Starlings was beginning to sing. Many of these have come to England to avoid extremes of weather in northern Europe and will soon be returning to breed there. The same is true for Woodpigeons. Horse Close Wood had drumming Great Spotted Woodpeckers and singing Stock Doves and a range of other resident bird species were singing: Great and Blue Tits, Robins, Wrens and Greenfinches. Blackbirds will already be nesting and the others will not be far behind.

The most notable winter visitor on the lake was the Pochard, which comes to us in good numbers, despite the national decline. There were some 15 birds feeding out on the lake. There were two Mute Swans, so the female that disappeared seems to have been replaced. Egyptian Geese were defending territories, the most obvious pair being in the Crazy Golf area and I presume that they will be trying to breed in the lightning-struck oak there. 

Sadly, the Pines and Needles left behind quite a lot of coniferous debris in the edge of Horse Close Wood. What a pity they take the easy way out and just dump this waste. I was unable to locate the Wood Sorrell amongst this debris, and just hope that it can make its way back. It's really sad that Merton seem quite unable to ensure that these concessions treat the park sensitively. One assumes that it's just too much effort to check and enforce. 

The wildflowers also illustrated a transition from late Winter to early Spring. The winter-flowering sweet Violet was still in flower on the southern edge of Horse Close Wood, the early Spring Lesser Celandine was in full flower, and the very first flowers of Spring-flowering Cow Parsley were just appearing. Cuckoo Pint was much in evidence, but no flowers as yet. Elsewhere, Blackthorn flowers were breaking out in the hedgerows as were the early leaves of Hawthorn. The roles will swop next month with flowers coming on the Hawthorn and leaves on the Blackthorn. The last of the Hazel catkins were there at the same time as the first of the Alder catkins. Bright green Weeping willow leaves were out. Before the bud-break in the wood, the early-flowering Cherry Plums stand out and so are readily located. Around the edges of the lake, both Yellow Flag Iris and Sweet Flag were just beginning to emerge from the shallows.

Park users are still wondering if they will ever see the waterfall restored. Now, the bridge over the lower brook had been cordoned off for weeks, with no sign of repair or replacement and the same is so for a seat beside the children's play area. Sadly, Merton missed the opportunity to get a good sound bridge when they allowed London Underground Limited to have a depot in the nearby part of the park some years back. It would be so easy to secure gains out of such events. In the frosts of winter the perennially-leaking freshwater supply near to the Home Park Road entrance leaves the steep access path glazed with ice. This leak has been there on and off for some 30 years, with no significant repair. An other job waiting for action is the brook under the path near the cafe to enable the accumulation of debris there to be cleared. This accumulation causes flooding near to the beach volleyball courts when flows in the brook are high. Water was flowing other the perimeter path on the northern side of the athletics enclosure. The path here seems to impede the flow of ground water downhill towards the brook, bringing more water to the surface than elsewhere in the Great Field, but there was much standing water elsewhere also, the result of a particularly wet Spring. People just didn't accept this might happen as a result of climate change, but it seems that the predictions from 20 years ago are proving correct.

Arboricultural work in the park has been contracted out and there has been much work making the Railway Poplars beside the tube line safe and removing dead branches elsewhere. This is all good, but the lack of public information on the reasons for the work can lead to misunderstandings. It is great that the ugly plastic netting protecting areas of newly planted trees has been removed. The idea of planting whips is that one can suffer a good number of losses of these cheap specimens, and still get a good stand of trees. Where losses are heavy, it's cheap to acquire replacements. Where the aim is to replace an avenue tree by using a small number of whips, a large amount of protection is required. It would seem better to plant unprotected single standard trees insead, as these are visually obvious and they are protected from inadvertent harm by the mulched area around their bases.

I sampled the lake water on the 29th. Water clarity was poor, as is typical in early Spring. The planktonic species that have been seen in late winter in previous years, Daphnia longispina and Cyclops were abundant, but unusual was seeing a few Daphnia magna, which had previously been seen only in April, May and June. This may well reflect warmer water temperatures which have averaged higher in the last 18 months than earlier.                             

Daphnia longispina                                                                        Daphnia magna

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Cyclops