Wildlife Circus

This Autumn we emptied about 30 bat boxes on Tooting Common. These were situated mainly on the great two-hundred year old oak trees, but also on the occasional ash and clumps of willow trees. Every single one had been used by an animal or bird. Mostly blue and great tits had used the boxes for bringing up their broods, but wrens had used them as night roosts (quite recently according to fresh droppings). Wood mice had entered a few (near the lake) and we suspect a pygmy shrew in the one below, where there was a clearly defined small exit hole, near the pink area in the photo.   In some cases birds will nest in the box bottom and bats can hang in the top, benefiting from the warmth of the birds. In all cases, spiders had used the boxes for breeding and we found centipedes, large numbers of two species of slug, woodlice and earwigs. Althouh we didn't find any bats but with the range of species recorded- it is more than likely- that bats  spend many nights within these ...

Scything workshop TCFMM Butterflies did not do so well in the wet early summer period, but the sunshine in the past week has bought them out. The highlight is the white-letter hairstreak seen across the Surrey boundary near Ewell Court Park; this species can be found in selected places along the Hogsmill by the keen-eyed. The change in grass-cutting regimes has assisted grassland species, although skippers have been hard to find. Tolworth Court Farm Moated Manor has been especially good for marbled whites :) ornamental carp with chub We have been undertaking a reptile survey at TCFMM, which so far has not priduced any reptiles, but short tailed voles, pygmy shrews and woodmice have enjoyed constructing their nests under these refuges. This ornamental carp was spotted underneath the bridge along the A240-along  with a chub with the dark tail-, which can just be seen in the photograph. At the next bridge - the one with the passing places that leads to Riverhill- we r...