Fishweb

 On the face of it, its good to see things holding on  amongst the sorry debris at the filter beds. Ducks aplenty on the remaining water as well as a great number of gulls, herons and cormorants- although they are mostly the predators.


Water is the basis of life, generating  food resources for birds, bats, amphibians etc. These webs are complex and involve multiple networks that take time to evolve. Deep in our common sense -we know this- we know it very well.


Except for when it is destroyed. There's a sudden  deficit of this knowledge, it goes 'south' or is it 'west'? Echoes of the cyclist who 'didn't like cycling in the dark'-castigating any percieved preference over moths to people; its only fish. Assistance? direction? tenacity? call it  policy, good practice, or legislation. Therein lies the deficit. In our borough we haven't adopted any of the polices that assist.


We have made redundant the borough ecology officer, we have revoked our subscription to Greenspace Information for Greater London; our Local Biodiversity Action Plan remains unadopted, we have severed  these networks.



 
Everything we do has an impact, but our standard of proof is so high when it comes to wildlife; it has to be big, bloody, very dead and stretched out before us. 

Dust and rubble, bark chippings, roots and  we assume that next year everything will rise. But in the meantime it can also take time to slowly die.


                                                                          

Look beyond the railings  at FB7; look beyond the dead fish, where is the web?

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 roads that were
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 offspring
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 young).
Read more