The River Crane and Crane Park Twickenham

Deflectors
Creating in-channel ponds
The Hogsmill isn't the only river to have undergone significant channel restoration in the  southwest London Thames  catchment. However the Crane improvements commenced in the late 1990's with the Environment Agency installing deflectors (using the boulders pictured).



The enhancement work never stops and TCV volunteers have recently been installing bunds to create slack water, in order to protect small fish. Instead of the hazel faggots staked into the river bed (as employed along the Hogsmill) they were able to source sufficient driftwood from upstream. This is very surprising, as such a large area has been accomplished, which is visually  delightful.



Hedge laying along the Crane
Rehung tree limb with hole
Everywhere along the Crane corridor is evidence of the hard work of local volunteers from the illustrated hedge laying near  Lincoln's Fields, to the re-hung bat/bird nesting opportunities.





Citizen Science projects
FORCE community education walks
In addition to the habitat creation, members of the Friends of the River Crane (FORCE) monitor the water quality  and convene educational walks for members of the public. Today, a water vole walk, was led by Ian McKinnon. Here he demonstrates the water vole 'lawns' with grazed areas around their burrows, as well as holding up samples of grass sections with the characteristic chewed ends at a 45 degree angle.



Water vole grazed 'lawns' 
Ian showing the distinctive feeding remains
Water voles eat a wide range of plant material but some of their favourites have had to be specially planted. This includes the  evergreen Greater Tussock Sedge and the Pond Sedge, where water vole runs could clearly be seen in the dense matrix of stems and a nest had been found during the previous breeding season.



Pond sedge
lesser teasel
 On the Crane Park Nature Reserve run by the London Wildlife Trust, a unusual plant was seen, the Lesser Teasel (Dipsacus  pilosus) is sometimes known as Small Teasel, it prefers damp calcareous soils, typically around woodland edges and clearings but also along hedgerows. Flowers are small, globular shape made of white flowers with violet anthers and woolly spines.



Mill race
Shot Tower
The reserve is intriguing, with the perfectly preserved Shot Tower, which is used for classroom study. We have had   interesting bat sightings along the mill race and seen bats emerging from the many bat boxes on the site. You can find details of how to join the Crane from the FORCE website.


Mandarin duck commonly found breeding along the Crane













Comments

Post a Comment

Please share your thoughts

Most viewed

Heritage Trees part 2: street trees.

Image
  Oaks and maples Cambridge Gardens 2019   Street trees can often be the most beautiful objects in our streets. They are important to their communities as well as having environmental benefits. They are a living history in our landscape and can have particular connections. They may be fragments of a previous landscape incorporated into a modern street scene, such as the oaks at Cambridge Gardens once  part of the Duke of Cambridge's estate.  A great read with information on how to research street trees is a  History of Street Trees by Dr. M. Johnston.  London plane trees CRE 1976 Beech tree, Chesterton Terrace 1976 Studies show that the difference in local tree cover can reflect the various socio-economic groups. In Victorian times middle class areas were planted with many street trees or had higher quality front gardens than working class districts; now referred to as 'green equity'. It can be demonstrated by looking at old photos of the seven...
Read more

Fishing the Hogsmill

Image
Fly-fishing the Hogsmill   It is interesting to see the river from a different perspective: the Hogsmill is popular with anglers at this time of year; although it is unusual to see someone fly- fishing. A chub has just been caught on bread and it looks a good size. Trout are sometimes seen in the Hogsmill and can sit in the weir notch by the school. Our own Richard Jefferies in his book 'Nature Near London'  remarked on the Hogsmill trout as far up as Tolworth Hall Bridge (now the A240). chub    This fish was carefully unhooked and orientated in the swim where it soon finds it way - probably to the next father and son - sitting further upstream. These anglers have caught the 'ghost' koi within the last two weeks and appear to be the second successful pair to catch the pond-escapee in the last few days. Ghost koi are a British invention. They were produced by accident in the early 80’s when a farmer allowed a mirror carp and a koi to spawn together. The offspri...
Read more

Seething Wells: they've done it again

Image
The last day of May, I went to see if I could find the black redstart that had been widely reported, no luck but it will turn up again on one of the old buildings. The lush vegetation was looking beautiful between the Filter Beds at Seething Wells. I made a note of the breeding birds: goldfinches twinkling away, blue tits gathering food, sand martins flying over the FB's (only two this year unfortunately) moorhens and some scruffy little coot chicks entangled in the algal blooms.   Proud parents were showing off their four Canada chicks; they can cover a lot of ground in a short space of time they were soon feeding on water pepper and bistort gleaned from  the ziggerat-sided basins. A song thrush sang from the wharf alongside greenfinches as well as the seasonal chiff chaff; although this year all numbers are down, reflecting not only the topsy-turvy Spring but also the continued tumble in insect numbers (even seed eating birds are dependent on insects to feed their youn...
Read more