Wildlife Circus

Option 3 of the Coombe antiquities walk is to visit Coombe Wood Local Nature Reserve.  Once at the top of Traps Lane - head across the road to Coombe Hill and then onto Henley drive where there is an access board. The nature reserve can also be reached via the A3 slip road, where there is a public footpath/cycle route. Hopping and Coombe wood are split in two (north- south) by the Kingston by-pass. The western half is more established and not as disturbed  that the eastern half, which can be reached by an overbridge, although the latter is more 'alive' and biodiverse. If leaving via the alternative route; the slip road at Coombe Lane West by the New Victoria hospital, then the sign for Hoppingwood Farm denotes a modern office site and not the original farm, which was in New Malden. The site has some magnificent oak trees, two old ponds and  understory of bluebells and wild garlic. However a lack of attention,  the dumping of garden rubbish an...

We held a wildlife walk at Claremont Gardens, Surbiton for 25 Brownies from the local pack, with assistance from a member of the recently constituted Surbiton Wildlife Group (thanks to Stephanie).  This centred around the main attraction, which is the pond. A bat walk was initiated as it grew dark and twenty participants from the Wildlife Group, were able to hear bats echolocating, whilst using bat detection equipment.  Although late in the evening (sunset + 30 minutes) common pipistrelles finally arrived to drink and feed over the pond. In fact it was here that two bats spent a lot of their evening foraging over the water.  Surbiton Wildlife Group wish to improve the pond area, which is partially dry, and have submitted an application of  £10k  to Aviva now online for VOTING! Once you have registered on the site you have 10 votes to use. If they receive sufficient votes to beat other projects in the same category, the project goes through to a ...