Our Facebook Posts
WOODLANDS FARM BEE WALK AND SURVEYJust to let you know that our next wildlife survey will be the Bee Walk on Thursday 25th April at 2pm. As usual please meet in the farmyard outside the office.
If you are able to make it please let me know.
Thank you.
Hannah Ricketts <education@thewoodlandsfarmtrust.org>
Education Officer
The Woodlands Farm Trust
331 Shooters Hill
Welling
Kent
DA16 3RP
Tel: 0208 3198900
Website:
www.thewoodlandsfarmtrust.org
As a charity Woodlands Farm is run as a conservation and education project, which provides an opportunity to find out about farming life and farm animals as well as a chance to experience the countrys...
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.
Category Archives: Recording
Lesnes Spider ID day a success
Fourteen people attended the Field Studies Council spider identification workshop led by Edward Milner at Lesnes Abbey Woods back on 24th April. 30 species from 18 families of spider were found, including 7 new site records. The lists of records … Continue reading
Crossness Wildlife Records for 2018
Crossness sightings for last year. http://www.bexleywildlife.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Copy-of-Q1_2018_WildlifeRecords.pdf http://www.bexleywildlife.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Copy-of-Q2_2018_WildlifeRecords.pdf http://www.bexleywildlife.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Copy-of-Q3_2018_WildlifeRecords.pdf http://www.bexleywildlife.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Copy-of-Q4_2018_WildlifeRecords.pdf Download the PDF file . Download the PDF file . Download the PDF file . Download the PDF file .
Posted in Crossness, Crossness Nature Reserve, Recording
Leave a comment
Volunteers for surveying in arable land in Kent
I hope this email finds you well. My name is Zoe Morrall and I am the Outreach Officer for a HLF funded national project called Back from the Brink, working on one of the umbrella projects called Colour in the … Continue reading
Posted in Recording, Volunteering, wild flowers
Leave a comment
Lesnes moth-trapping session kicks off longer term recording effort
Six people attended a short-notice moth-trapping event in Lesnes woods last night (21st August) that, it is hoped, will lead to further work next year to help plug an important gap in modern records available for the site. This will … Continue reading
Posted in Lesnes Abbey Woods, Recording
Tagged Black Arches, Ian Holt, Lesnes Abbey Woods, Maiden's Blush, moth-trapping
Leave a comment
Bexley Lepidopterist No. 4, and updated ‘first sightings’ list for butterfly species in the Borough
Mike Robinson has published the fourth edition of the ‘Bexley Lepidopterist’, making a first serious foray into starting to cover the Borough’s moth fauna. The Clouded Yellow is the only butterfly species seen in the Borough over the past few … Continue reading
‘Bexley Lepidopterist’ newsletter, butterfly report Jan-April and recording update.
We are pleased to publish issue No. 2 of the ‘Bexley Lepidopterist’ newsletter and a list of Bexley butterfly records from 1/1/18 to 27/4/18, compiled by Mike Robinson. Also included in this post is an update on recording work for … Continue reading
Golf course second haven for Heather in Bexley
Bexleyheath Golf Course, running downhill from Mount Road to the A2, is a Borough Grade 1 Site of Importance for Nature Conservation, almost certainly on account of harbouring the only Heather (Calluna vulgaris) in Bexley outside of Lesnes Abbey Woods, … Continue reading
Posted in Bexleyheath, Heathland, Open spaces, Recording, SINC
Tagged Bexleyheath Golf Course, Broom, Green Woodpecker, Harebell, Heather, Wood Sage
1 Comment
Some more alien, and less common native street and alleyway ‘weeds’ in Bexley
The hitherto rare Jersey Cudweed (Gnaphalium luteoalbum) continues to be found as a street ‘weed’ at new sites in Bexley, principally by Mike Robinson, who has recently found it in some roads near to Bexleyheath railway station. Elsewhere it has … Continue reading
Braeburn Park LNHS meeting 17th June finds over 134 invertebrate species. (Belated report….)
The London Natural History Society’s Ecology and Entomology section visit to London Wildlife Trust’s Braeburn Park site, on a hot 17th June 2017, recorded 134 species of invertebrate, with a few more yet to be formally identified, mainly comprising less … Continue reading
Willow Emerald damselfly colonisation of Bexley takes a leap forward
The Willow Emerald damselfly (Chalcolestes viridis), a recent natural colonist of the UK, was first found in Bexley in September 2016. Now into its second known flight season here, it has been found at three more sites in the Borough … Continue reading