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ARE FRIENDS ELECTRIC? BATTERY BRUSHCUTTER BRINGS MORE POWER TO THAMES ROAD WETLAND VOLUNTEER'S ELBOWS ....Readers of previous posts about this site will by now be familiar with the proportion of our time being taken up with trying to control Reed (Phragmites australis) growth, which outcompetes other species, leading to a monoculture, as well as speeding up the drying out of the site by reducing water depth through a rising rootmat and production of large amounts of leaf and stem litter.
Since we first started rotational cutting a few years ago, all Reed management has been done manually, with either slashers, shears and/or scythes. None of these kill the Reed, which grows back quickly, and needs cutting again - rather sooner and more frequently than volunteers can fully manage, which has led to some grumbling from the seasoned veterans who come dowm most weeks. Just to illustrate the point, thanks to rising temperatures, new Reed growth had put on around a foot in height in just the one week since our previous event.
Help is now at hand. After succesful trial last December, using machines kindly brought down by Braeburn Park (LWT) chief Simon Hawkins, which showed that battery brush cutters could deal with dense stands of dead winter Reed stem, that we could get a sensible period of use off each battery charge and that noise levels were acceptable, Thames21 has now met our request for such a device - which also means we can nomially use renewable energy and not petrol - and it was put to use for the first time last Friday (12th April). Volunteer Ray, who is currently the only one of us who has previously had the necessary training in brushcutter use, pronounced himself well pleased with the device.
We're hoping that cutting fresh stems below the surface will start to 'drown' the plants (as shown by academic research), significantly slowing re-growth. This will also reduce the total amount of biomass that needs stacking on our already gigantic 'compost heaps'.
While the new kit dealt with the cutting, other volunteers were freed up for raking out cut material along with accumulations of silt and partially rotted material, helping to restore more depth to the water.
On another positive note, we had an excellent turnout of 10 volunteers, on what was yet another sunny day at the site, plus our staff suport worker Michael O'Neill. Due to the 12th being in the easter school holiday period, we were able to welcome a school student with her father, as well as our older contingent. She saw her first Lizards, and was amongst the group that also saw a pair of Buzzards fly over. Thanks to Clare, Ian, Alex, LIz, Elio, Chris, Amelia, Ray and Pamela
Our next staff-supported event will be in June. Message Ray Hudson <rayhudson28@gmail.com> for details of the smaller volunteer-led sessions prior to that, which alsio take place of Fridays.
Photos by Michael O'Neill.
Chris Rose, Volunteer Site Manager.
Friends of Foots Cray Meadows - photography competition.Entries can relate to any aspect of the wonderful public open space that is the Foots Cray Meadows, its beauty, its landscape and its wildlife.
Closing date is 1st June 2024. Photographs must be submitted in digital form. Up to 5 are allowed per entrant.
The winner will receive a £50 Amazon voucher plus a mounted copy of their winning picture and a year’s free FFCM membership.
Only FFCM members can enter, but anyone wishing take part is invited to join the group - cost is £5 per year per household. For details of the competition and membership, see:
Photography Competition 2024 | Foots Cray Meadows
www.footscraymeadows.org
The Friends of Foots Cray Meadows (FFCM) committee invites you to take part in our inaugural Photography Competition 2024. With just a camera or your mobile phone, you have the exciting opportunity t...
DATE FOR YOUR DIARY - RUXLEY GRAVEL PITS CLEAN-UP EVENT** Please share to anyone who may be interested in helping **
From: Lucy.Sawyer-Boyd@kent.gov.uk <Lucy.Sawyer-Boyd@kent.gov.uk>
I am organising a big volunteer litter clearance day at Ruxley Gravel Pits on Friday 2nd August.
This large Site of Special Scientific Interest is usually closed to the public, but the River Cray flows through the site and brings with it lots of litter.
We will be attempting to remove as much of this litter as possible.
I am inviting several different groups to take part and hoping to make a big impact.
Whilst most of the area is in Bromley, the northern edge falls within the London Borough of Bexley.
Please feel free to forward this to any individual contacts and local volunteer groups who might want to get involved.
Many thanks.
Best wishes.
Lucy Sawyer-Boyd
Partnership Officer, North West Kent Countryside Partnership,
Hall Place, Bourne Road, Bexley, Kent, DA5 1PQ
Tel: 0300 0410589/ Mobile:07809334071
HOLT HOSTS NATIONALLY RARE PLANTS INITIATIVE AT LESNESEstate Manager Ian Holt reports that Lesnes Abbey Woods volunteers, working with Dr Mark Spencer, have recently sown both
Tower Mustard (Turritis glabra) and Copse Bindweed (Fallopia dumetorum) seed in an effort to aid species recovery.
Until its discovery at Lesnes in 2018, the last known Tower Mustard record for Kent (where it was believed to be extinct) was in 1964. It has declined nationally, especially since the 1930s. The seed has good longevity in the seed bank, so it can reappear years after it was last seen.
Thanks to a book about the woods by Marriott, which provides lists of species present at the site in the early 1900's, we know that Copse Bindweed was present back then. Ian says he thinks they have identified where the Copse Bindweed was last found. Volunteers have helped clear this area of vegetation, and a mature oak at this location has also fallen, so the team is hoping that increased light levels will encourage germination from the seed bank. There is one case from Kent where the species came back after 124 years.
As a back up, seed collected from London's only current Copse Bindweed site has been sown in pots . At the moment the
plan is to tend to any successful seedlings and then sink the pots into the ground in the wood. If plants emerge from the Lesnes seed bank, the pots will be whipped out and used elsewhere.
Mark Spencer is co-ordinator of work to produce a new atlas of wild and 'escaped' plants in London, and has also been behind the recovery of the nationally scarce Marsh Sow-thistle, having fortuitously saved seed from the last individual in the capital at Crayford Marshes. This was subsequently destroyed. Plants from these seeds were planted out at Thames Road Wetland where over the ensuing 13 years the population has thrived and increased in numbers.
Pleased to see Thames Road Wetland s 1st Green Hairstreak of the year at the Thames21 workparty on 12/4.The site was excavated to form the wetland in 2007, and the wildlife has been closely monitored by myself starting in 2010. This species was first seen here in 2016. It tends to form small colonies, and from memory I've only ever seen 2 or 3 t at a time here, so it's always a minor relief to find it's persisted through another winter.
The adults are usually found along the south-facing Thames Road bank, and the larvae are likely to be feeding on the Gorse and/or Dogwood at this location, and possibly the Bird's-foot Trefoil up by the road, though this has suffered badly in the last couple of long dry springs.
Peacock, Comma, Brimstone, Speckled Wood and unidentified 'small' Whites were also out on this date.
Chris Rose. Volunteer Site Manager.
Category Archives: Planning
CROSSNESS UPDATE, DECEMBER 2019. From Karen Sutton, Reserve Manager.
CROSSNESS UPDATE, DECEMBER 2019. From Karen Sutton, Reserve Manager . Dear Friends of Crossness Nature Reserve, I hope you have enjoyed all that autumn offers at Crossness, and are now getting ready for those crisp, frosty, winter mornings, which can … Continue reading
How Bexley Council voted yes to concreting Crayford Marshes Green Belt and yet another designated wildlife site
Back on February 16th a majority of Bexley Council’s Planning Committee voted with the chief planning officer’s recommendation to approve the Roxhill ‘Strategic Railfreight Interchange’ scheme on the southern part of Crayford Marshes, termed the landfill and agricultural area. This … Continue reading
Posted in Bexley, Bexley Council, BNEF, Crayford Marshes, development threat, Environment, London Wildlife Trust, Open spaces, Planning, Uncategorized
Tagged Alan Deadman, Alan Downing, Ben Thomas, Bexley Council planning committee, Corn Bunting, Crayford Landfill and Agricultural SINC, Crayford Marshes, June Slaughter, Roxhill, SINC, Skylark, Slade Green Community Forum, SRFI, Stef Borella, Strategic Railfreight Interchange, Susan Clark
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Two years on and Bexley Council planning pages still mislead on objections
Twenty four months after Bexley Natural Environment Forum first raised the matter, Bexley Council’s ‘view planning applications online’ webpages continue to wrongly state that the group has made no comments on proposals to damage Sites of Importance to Nature Conservation and … Continue reading
Tree Preservation Order – Bexley Street Index
Useful information on the location of TPOs in Bexley from the Council’s website at: https://www.bexley.gov.uk/services/planning-and-building-control/trees-and-hedges/questions-about-trees-and-hedges#tpo Scroll down to find a list of TPOs by road in the Borough. Information was previously at the following link, but that now generates a … Continue reading
Posted in Planning, Trees
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Online Borax Fields petition launched as Friends of Crossness NR and BNEF slam Cory claim that the rarer something is in Bexley, the less important it is to protect it.
Following a second, but still grossly inadequate ‘ecology report’ from Cory ‘Environmental’s Riverside Resource Recovery arm – that once again misses out red-listed breeding birds, and offers no credible onsite ‘mitigation’ or creation of off-site ‘compensatory’ habitat for the losses … Continue reading
Posted in Bexley Council, Biodiversity Action Plan, Bird watching, BNEF, Crayford Marshes, Crossness Nature Reserve, development threat, Erith Marshes, Extinction, Invertebrates, Planning, SINC, Sustainability
Tagged Bexley Natural Environment Forum, Borax fields, Chris Rose, Cory 'Environmental', Crossness, Friends of Crossness Nature Reserve, petition, Ralph Todd, Ringed Plover, Riverside Resource Recovery Ltd, Save our Skylarks, Skylark, sustainability
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Old Farm Park group eyes biodiversity improvements, as it emerges Council’s 12m strip won’t protect SINC area
Save Old Farm Park campaigners announced some time ago that they would be looking to increase the park’s wildlife value whether the sell-off of the eastern half by Bexley Council went ahead or not. We can report that some initial … Continue reading
Posted in Bexley Council, development threat, Old Farm Park, Open spaces, Parks, Planning
Tagged Bexley Council, Cllr. Peter Craske, copses, London Wildlife Trust, planning, SINC, UKIP
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Now Bexley Council officer recommends building on 10% of Crayford Rough, a wildlife site of regional importance.
The onslaught against the most valuable wildlife sites in Bexley is set to continue this week as the planning committee meets on 14th April to consider an application to redevelop the old Electrobase industrial site between Hall Place and Crayford … Continue reading
Posted in Bexley, Bexley Council, Biodiversity Action Plan, BNEF, Braeburn Park, Common Lizard, Consultations, Crayford, Crayford Rough, development threat, Environment, Open spaces, Planning, Plants in Bexley, Reptiles and Amphibians, SINC, Slow Worm, Uncategorized
Tagged BAP, Bee Orchid, Bexley Council, Bexley Council Core Strategy, Bexley Council planning committee, Bexley SINC review, Common Lizard, Crayford Rough, Crayford Strategy and Action Plan Bexley Council July 2005, London Plan, Metropolitan SINC, NPPF, Pyramidal Orchid, Slow Worm, Yellow Vetchling
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Save our Skylarks! More than 50 protest at Cory plan to kick birds in conservation danger off Erith marshes and out of Bexley
Forty-six adults and eight children turned out for today’s ‘Save our Skylarks’ demonstration at Erith marshes, organised by members of Friends of Crossness Nature Reserve, at which our new campaign banner was unveiled and kites were flown with cut-out Skylarks … Continue reading
Posted in Bird watching, Crossness, Crossness Nature Reserve, Demonstration, development threat, Erith Marshes, Planning
Tagged Bexley Council, Cory 'Environmental', Crossness Nature Reserve, demo, Friends of Crossness Nature Reserve, Little-ringed Plover, planning policy, protest, Ringed Plover, Skylark
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Cory ‘Environmental’ doesn’t believe its own propaganda
Cory ‘Environmental’, the company that has submitted to Bexley Council – in the name of its Belvedere incinerator arm – a plan for two four-storey buildings to cover most of the former Borax fields next to Crossness Nature Reserve, has not … Continue reading
Posted in Belvedere, Bexley Council, BNEF, Crossness Nature Reserve, development threat, Erith Marshes, Grass Snake, Mammals, Planning, Reptiles and Amphibians, Uncategorized
Tagged Belvedere incinerator, Bexley Council, Cory 'Environmental', Crossness Nature Reserve, ecological survey, Erith Marshes, Great Crested Newt, reptiles, Water Shrew
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SAVE OUR SKYLARKS! CORY ‘ENVIRONMENTAL’ SUBMITS PLAN TO DESTROY HABITAT OF BIRDS IN SERIOUS DECLINE. FOUR-STOREY BUILDINGS PROPOSED NEXT TO CROSSNESS NATURE RESERVE. PLEASE OBJECT BY FEB 29th!
‘Bexley Wildlife’ has previously drawn attention to three schemes that will destroy even more of what little is left of the inner Thames marshland on the south side of the river . This post provides more detail on the recently … Continue reading