Wildlife Circus

  Glow worms can be found at least two locations in north Surrey including Epsom Common and Princes Coverts. We found GW's at the Covers (as Richard Jefferies referred to the site in Nature Near London) several years ago when listening for night jars after the great western hemlock compartments were clear felled to be replanted with wildlife-friendlier broad leaved woodland trees.   Our understanding of the best way to manage a GW site is surprisingly poor. Just as we think we know what they like, they turn up in some seemingly quite unsuitable location, shunning what we would think is a much better habitat. In general, however, we aim for a mosaic of weedy areas where the larvae can find snails, and open areas where they can display as adults and the males can fly to find them. They may also like a fairly loose soil, or at least places where they can get down into the undergrowth during the day and find a cool, moist spot to lay their eggs. Sometimes they may even tu...

Large skipper   burnet companion Now onwards is the best time to go out butterfly watching: Kingston Cemetery is one of the top local sites  for sheer diversity of species with lots of browns; including good numbers of ringlets, which have made a come back locally  as well as meadow browns (although they won't like the hot dry weather to come next week). Large and small skippers are showing well, now that the grass has been left to grow long. pupating caterpillar  Burnet companions are a dayflying moth - a confusion species for dingy skippers - especially when they are found on their food plant (birds-foot trefoil). A migratory painted lady butterfly was a random sighting in the old part of the cemetery last weekend. It was seen whilst admiring a caterpillar pupating on the branch of an elm, only  recently planted by members of the Cemetery Wildlife Group (see earlier post). Unfortunately, it is not thought to be a white-letter hairstreak where Lon...

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...

Jet ant It was a splendid day, and eventually, I found the ancient oak tree with its processing jet ants. However, I felt exhausted after three hours of engine noise from the direction of  Great Hollands field - the one closest to Jubilee Way car park- made worse by the fact that I was in Great Meadow field - its polar opposite. Eventually the noise found me, as young motorcyclists - looking more like they should be on a beach- began tearing up and down the newly mown pathways, outstripping the noise of the drones being flown.   Attilla is allowed allowed?     No-one has landowner permission to fly drones on Tolworth Court Farm. I know this, as I checked with a council officer who said, 'no-one has permission to fly drones on Tolworth Court Farm'.  In fact, despite being named Atilla, the only vehicles allowed on TCF are the grasscutters.   Motorcycles not allowed     After three hours of noise and 25 degrees of sun, it was becom...

  Ham Lands is a mass of yellow buttercups as well as white hawthorn and cow parsley; with three species of buttercup in the first meadow north of the  Thames Young Mariners. Buttercup identification features  are in a handy guide produced by the BSBI on Twitter below.    During my walk I heard sedge warbler in the burnt out reed bed, many dunnocks and blackcaps and > 15 song thrush territories over the two sides of the Mariners; this fell short of the usual standard walk but was sufficient to confirm that this is still one of London's top sites for song thrush. A common tern was flying over the lagoon despite the water sports and a brief kestrel appearance over the grassland. Sadly only a few whitethroat and no hirundines were seen at the moment .

Marina at Kingston Cemetery This is the  new website of the Kingston Biodiversity Network www.kingstonbiodiversitynetwork.org Talk to Marina Pacheco about getting involved in any of the projects at marina@kingstoneco.org.   We have just planted a disease resistant elm in the old part of the cemetery. These trees can be obtained from organisations such as the Conservation Foundation; they are usually grafts. In the meantime elm is an important component of our hedgerows and although we lost 60, 000,000 trees to disease, there are still nearly as many elm 'suckers' creating habitat for elm-specific insects such as white-letter hairstreak butterfly; recorded nearby at Lower Marsh Lane. New Elm   It is looking pretty good and a second elm will be planted in September. Andrew Rossabi, President of the Richard Jefferies Society, will give a talk about the writer's time in the area. Richard Jefferies lived in Tolworth for five years, from 1877-1882, at 296 Ewell Road, t...

  Yesterday, Richard Jefferies exited his blue-plaqued villa at Woodside, 296 Ewell Road, opposite the former St. Marks school(built on Tolworth Common during his 5 year  residence). Here he wrote, ' The copse adjoining the back gardens of Woodside was visited by pheasants, which sometimes strayed into the neighbours’ gardens. Early in the March mornings he woke to the ‘three clear, trumpet-like notes’ of a missel thrush ringing out from the copse. From his window in the evenings he could hear partridges calling. Stone-chats perched on the furze bushes of Tolworth Common. He strolled towards Tolworth Broadway and Greenway, followed by 30+ participants keen to locate RJ's observations from 'Nature Near London'; first published as a series of articles in the Pall Mall Gazette for the commuting public. In 1920 the very same paper celebrated his work by reprinting excerpts from his regular column - along with joining instructions for his walks - by tram and motorbus-b...