Wildlife Circus

Last week saw the appearance of John Gringrod at the Richmond Literature Festival to discuss his latest work 'Outskirts'. It  features his upbringing on the 'last road in London' alongside the Green Belt in New Addington. John presented some Green Belt factoids: Green Belt comprises 13% of the total land in England to stop towns merging formerly known as the Green Girdle. Octavia Hill first coined the phrase Green belt in  1882. New ribbon development started eating at the countryside after WW1. The Campaign for the Protection of rural England (CPRE) first proposed the Country Code in 1934.  (BTW they have a London branch, which is keeping a close eye on London's Outskirts). Patrick Abercrombie designed the Green Belt ring of a width of 5 miles around London, housing was planned for the future on designated areas of white land now all used up. There is still white land on the A-Z although much of these areas are electrical installations, MOD land and other  pre...

What bat is that (photo, M. Wagstaffe).    Five bat species were caught at a Chessington location, during a harp-trapping session, convened by members of local Bat Groups as part of the National Nathusius' pipistrelle project.  This included several common and soprano pipistrelle bats; two Daubenton's bats; a brown long-eared bat and another that took observers a little time to identify.   By looking at the dentition under a magnifier it was possible to see which of the small Myotis bats matched  the cusps and protocones present or absent on the teeth. It turned out to be a whiskered bat; there are no recent records for this species in the borough. This is because the genus is difficult to record on bat detection equipment, emerging slightly later than pipistrelle bats and as a woodland specialist has specific habitat requirements. At a similar trapping session at Kempton Park, a whiskered bat was caught in the harp-trap which was a first f...