Ruxley team in coppicing action to maintain reedbed

Martin Watts reports on yesterday’s action (Jan 18th) from Ruxley Gravel Pits SSSI, just over the Bexley border in Bromley:

‘Sunday morning saw a light drizzle but it didn’t deter a party of nine from getting stuck into the re-growing willow saplings. The sun soon shone through and a large amount of the re-growth was cut back to allow the Common Reed (Phragmites) to thrive. A short break for lunch by the weir was followed by a rapid return to work as it was too cold to sit for long. It was a beautiful picturesque spring like day the only downside was being able to see how much more needs doing.’

Getting stuck in to coppicing work at Ruxley

Getting stuck in to coppicing work at Ruxley

Timber!

Timber!

Lots done ....

Lots done ….

Posted in coppicing, Reedbeds, Ruxley Gravel Pits, Volunteering | Leave a comment

Mass litter pick Danson Park

Danson 29 January 2015

Posted in Parks, River Shuttle, Volunteering | Leave a comment

Two weeks to second FotS@Danson lake clean-up – sign up now!

Friends of the Shuttle is looking forward to its second mass litter pick of Danson Park Lake at the end of this month, after the successful ‘premiere’ last June. The water from the lake flows into the Shuttle in Bexley Park Woods, taking litter with it. Event details are as follows:

Venue: Danson Park Lake

Date: Thursday 29th January

Time: 10.30-13.30

Meeting place: The Boathouse, Danson Park.

Parking: Danson Road/Bean Road

Please let the FotS team know at   friends.of.the.shuttle@gmail.com  if you will be attending by 26th January at the latest and tell them your shoe size so appropriate waders can be provided. You may be able to reach some of the litter around the margins of the lake wearing wellies, but we recommend you wear waders so you can go a bit further in if necessary.  Danson Park Canoe Club will be assisting with a few boats to reach rubbish in the middle of the lake.

FotS is advertising this event more widely than usual (see poster below which will be going up in Danson Park) and hopes as many of you as possible can attend to make this a really successful event.

FotS@Danson poster for the lake clean-up event on January 29th

FotS@Danson poster for the lake clean-up event on January 29th

Posted in Friends of the Shuttle, Litter, Parks, River Shuttle, Volunteering | Leave a comment

Eighteen enjoy Hall Place/Crayford Rough bird walk in sunny interlude

RSPB Bexley Local Group Walk – Hall Place South and Crayford Rough

Tuesday 13th January 2014 – Leaders Ralph and Brenda Todd

Ninety minutes before our walk began the skies were thick grey and heavy rain had just ceased, within 90 minutes of us ending our walk this morning there was 100% dark grey cloud cover then high wind driven rain across the skies. The 18 members who joined us would hopefully have been delighted that the intervening period proved to be a lovely Spring-like day with a clear blue sky, sunshine and great tits calling as if seeking a mate.

Attendees, sevaral ofwhom has never been to Crayford Rough before,  enjoy bird-watching in the winter sun. (Photo: Brenda Todd)

Attendees, several of whom had never been to Crayford Rough before, enjoy bird-watching in the winter sun. (Photo: Brenda Todd)

The earlier rain had made walking a little slippery and as we made our way from the car park into the open meadows and along the River Cray we constantly stopped to look at the common birds, blue, great and long-tailed tit with the latter seemingly the most numerous. Robins and chaffinches and a single coal tit also fed amongst the willows and alders. On the waterlogged football pitches a large gathering of gulls were quite difficult to sort through given the powerful sunshine but we did eventually decide most (around 120) were black-headed gulls with about a dozen common and a single herring gull amongst them (almost all on the fringes of the black-headed).

Michael Heath, Thames21 Cray River-keeper explained some of the recent work undertaken by the North West Countryside Project and Environment Agency (EA) to enhance the wildlife value of the river margin where gabions had been put in as part of the flood defences.

The River Cray approaching the boundary of Hall Place and Crayford Rough. (Photo: Brenda Todd)

The River Cray approaching the boundary of Hall Place and Crayford Rough. (Photo: Brenda Todd)

Goldfinches, jay and singing song thrush were encountered around here as was a lovely male sparrowhawk briefly circling overhead -well spotted by one member.

Goldfinch (Photo: Ralph Todd)

Goldfinch (Photo: Ralph Todd)

Continuing towards Crayford we passed through the gate accessing Crayford Rough, an area apparently new to the majority of the group. In addition to the relatively large number of magpies and parakeets there were moorhen and mallard on the river, the odd chaffinch and probable greenfinch in the nearby trees but all was overshadowed when a water rail broke cover and flew a short distance dropping into an area of broken reed/vegetation. Some time was spent trying to relocate it when it suddenly flew back into another dense area of vegetation, some were lucky to see it whilst a few others were watching a grey wagtail. After more perseverance it ran into cover giving most a good view before walking up a bank and into very thick ivy/vegetation on the river’s edge.

Relatively good, albeit brief, views of that elusive species the  Water Rail, were a highlight of the walk. (Photo, Ralph Todd)

Relatively good, albeit brief, views of that elusive species the Water Rail, were a highlight of the walk. (Photo, Ralph Todd)

Upbeat after this encounter we continued on to where the EA were undertaking some mitigation work to protect common lizards and slow worms in advance of work they will be carrying out to the weir in the Spring. Chris Rose (Vice Chair of Bexley Natural Environmental Forum) outlined a nearby site for pyramidal and bee orchids.

We wandered through fairly dense vegetation (fantastic in spring/early summer for warblers and other breeding species) before arriving at the now flooded drainage ditch that we had hoped to walk down. From here, some explanation was given about the management of the site before being interrupted by a calling great-spotted woodpecker – most eventually managed a good view – one description of it “pirouetting around the trunk”. From here we were also able to look across to Braeburn Park, a site recently taken over by London Wildlife Trust, which has now commenced habitat management work there.

We retraced our steps along the River Cray towards to the Sports Pavilion car park adding dunnock, wren and mistle thrush to the morning’s list.

Mistle Thrush (Photo: Ralph Todd)

Mistle Thrush (Photo: Ralph Todd)

So with muddied boots but sun soaked warmth the walk was concluded with a modest 27 common species but hopefully enjoyed by all those present.

Species seen: Cormorant (over), Mallard, Sparrowhawk, Moorhen, Water Rail, Black-headed Gull, Common Gull, Herring Gull, Woodpigeon, Ring-necked Parakeet, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Grey Wagtail, Wren, Dunnock, Robin, Blackbird, Song Thrush, Mistle Thrush, Long-tailed Tit, Coal Tit, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Jay, Magpie, Carrion Crow, Chaffinch, Greenfinch.

 

Posted in Bexley, Bird watching, Braeburn Park, Cray Riverkeepers, Crayford Rough, London Wildlife Trust, Open spaces, River Cray, RSPB, Thames21 | Leave a comment

Danson Parakeet roost rockets to 1,500 birds

The news that Ring-necked parakeets have now set up an overnight roost at Danson Park, rather than flying to Hither Green Cemetery or one of the other roost sites in south-east London, was reported here on 23rd December. At that point Chris Rose estimated 940 birds by roughly counting the silhouetted animals once they had settled.

Shortly thereafter Ralph Todd attempted to count in-flying birds on his own and got a figure of just under 900. Chris did the same thing on December 8th, when all the action happened between 16.16 and 16.48, and came up with a figure of 1,309 by trying to count each individual. Both found it difficult to keep track of incoming birds which ‘tree-hopped’ along the edge of the lake until they get to the final roosting trees, making it’s hard to know at what point to start counting them, then whether they had been accidentally double-counted – or not counted at all. In addition, others moving in from the west became hard to see against the dark line of trees in that direction.

Chris felt that 1,309 was an under-count so also counted the ‘roosted’ birds twice, in estimated tens, giving figures of 1,560 and 1,650.

Whichever count is taken, all three point to a significant increase over the 900 or so counted only a couple of weeks previously. Furthermore, at that time two Poplars and two smaller trees were being used for roosting. Now an additional four Poplars are being used.

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Danson Park in October 2014, looking north across the lake to some of the Poplars now being used as an overnight Ring-necked Parakeet Roost (Photo: Chris Rose)

Posted in Bird watching, Parks, Recording, Ring-necked Parakeet, roost site | Leave a comment

Bexley Bird Report for July – December 2014 published at ‘BW’

Ralph Todd’s July – December 2014 Bexley Bird Report, a compilation of the important bird records made by a number of recorders around the Borough over the last 6 months, has been published on our ‘Bexley Wildlife’ page

http://www.bexleywildlife.org/bird-watching-bexley/

where there is also a link to the cloud location where you can download both this and previous editions.

Ralph with Usain Bolt in Moscow Airport on the way back from the World Championships in August 2013

Ralph’s the guy on the left. The other chap is a little-known athlete from Jamaica with no known bird-watching records to his name ….. When he retires, perhaps?

Ralph writes:

A particular mention goes to Ian Stewart from Sidcup who from Ian Stewart who, either on foot or bicycle, has covered huge areas of the Borough and whose own totals for the year are quite staggering, 76 species seen from his garden, 100 in Sidcup and 146 in the Borough of Bexley. Such enthusiasm has occasionally been rewarded with the finding of some special birds including spotted flycatcher, yellow wagtails, whinchats, firecrests in the Glade and just before Christmas a Siberian Chiffchaff probably only 2nd record for Bexley and found through perseverance and checking out all the common chiffchaffs at Foots cray Meadows.

Posted in Bexley, Bird watching, Recording | Leave a comment

Urban Birding Challenge – Londoners challenged to take on major cities worldwide

The gauntlet has been thrown down. Binoculars have been draped around necks and telescopes slung over shoulders. The call to compete in The Urban Birding Challenge has been issued!

The birders of London have been invited to compete in a worldwide urban birding extravaganza. London has been challenged to go toe-to-toe with other cities around the world in a Big Year Competition. Our quest: to find as many species in the Capital during 2015 as possible.

At least a dozen cities have signed up including New York, Lima, Toronto and Miami with many others like Jerusalem, Singapore, Paris and Beijing on the verge of involvement.

How does it work?

It’s all about the number of species we can register in the Greater London area over a year. It’s important to note that the recording area is boundary of Greater London (and not the London Natural History Society recording area which is a 20 mile radius around St. Paul’s cathedral). So it really is urban.

All you have to do is to report the birds you see in your London local patches or casual records during your daily lives on eBird http://ebird.org/content/ebird/

eBird will be the online checklist program within which all the competing cities will enter their records. If your bird lists are not entered on eBird then they will not go towards the grand total. Obviously, we don’t stand a chance in a straight head-to-head against the Beijing’s or Nairobi’s of this world so a handicap system will be put in place. Details of the handicap system plus our particular target number of species will be circulated in due course.

Indeed, further details on The Urban Birding Challenge will shortly be available on:

http://www.urbanbirdingchallenge.com

You can sign up on the site now to be notified of  when it goes ‘live’.

David LindoKaren Sutton (pictured with David 'The Urban Birder' Liondo) at Crossness earlier this year) has been promoted to Biodiversity Team Manager at Thames Water, putting her in charge of a portfolio of sites. (photo: Brenda Todd)

David Lindo, aka ‘The Urban Birder’, who is promoting the Urban Birding Challenge, pictured with Thames Water Biodiversity Team Manager  Karen Sutton back in May 2014.  (Photo: Brenda Todd)

So please get involved. It’s really easy. You don’t need to be an expert as we are all working as a collective and will be great fun. Plus, The Urban Birding Challenge will be a great way of promoting patch watching.

So, come on London let’s get birding!

Happy New Birding Year

David Lindo – The Urban Birder

Posted in Bird watching, Recording | Leave a comment

Is failure to replant street trees damaging local property values?

TREES IN BEXLEY.

David Webb comments on Bexley Council’s cut backs in street tree planting.

 ***

Scissors-Stenciled Stump (Baltimore, MD)

photo:

During the summer of 2014 some trees along Berkeley Avenue were removed due to safety and disease reasons. These trees will not be replaced until 2018 at the earliest due to financial constraints in the council’s budget.

The council has offered an ‘adopt-a-tree’ scheme where residents can pay £230 to have a tree replaced. Whilst the vast majority of residents would like the trees to maintain the original look of Berkeley Avenue several other issues have come to light after investigating the general issue of tree replacement in the Borough of Bexley.

The Woodland Trust has offered free trees but the council has said that they are not the correct type of tree.

The Mayor of London raised a ‘Street Tree Initiative’ and awarded grants to London boroughs. Although intended for new planting these grants can be used to replace street trees that have been removed but not replaced after 3 years. Has Bexley applied for any grant in the latest round?

Whilst Bexley has a high level of green spaces (over 200) compared to other boroughs figures for 2011 show that of all the London boroughs Bexley came 31st out of 33 for street trees per sq km. Now that trees are not being replaced whilst other boroughs maintain theirs Bexley may now be lower.

The council has also proposed selling off 27 open spaces. Despite a request under the Freedom of Information Act to name these sites the council has so far declined. It expects to raise approx. £1.6 million for these sales.

In a report by Bexley Council (January 2008) ‘Climate Change Stratergy) under the heading HEALTH are the following statements:- ‘Increased mortality amongst the elderly due to heat stress during 2003 and 2006’. The issues moving forward – ‘Higher levels of mortality related to summer heat stress are expected’

From the Bexley Council website regarding trees are the following statements:-

  • ‘Reduces mental fatigue and stress
  • Provides a sense of place and community
  • Lowers levels of dust and noise
  • Provides direct shade and reduces ambient temperature through the cooling effect of evaporation from leaves and the soil.
  • Intercepts rainfall lowering the risk of surface water flooding.’

Also the following:- ‘Improving air quality by absorbing pollutants, producing oxygen and reducing carbon dioxide.’

Air Quality

At present Bexley monitors the boroughs air quality using 7-off automatic monitors at various locations in the borough – mainly to the north with the furthest southerly point being at Falconwood (which is shared with Greenwich Borough). There are 59 non automatic monitors throughout the borough. These latter ones have an efficiency rate of +/- 20%. The closest one to Berkeley Avenue is at 315 Brampton Road.

The monitor at Falconwood showed the incidence of Nitrogen Dioxide in exceedance of the hourly mean was 7 times per hour. (Figures for 2011)

In the 2014 ‘Air Quality Progress Report’ for the L.B of Bexley the predictions for the borough shows that concentrations are predicted to widely exceed the air quality standard for this objective in 2015’. This is despite the many measures that the council has introduced regarding roads/buildings/emissions etc.

From the Institute of Medicine a table has been produced showing the number of deaths attributed to exposure to PM2.5 pollution in 2008 was 161. (Air Quality in Bexley – A Guide for Public Health Professionals) These deaths were mainly from the young and elderly.

Bexley Council has one of the highest levels of ageing population in the UK.

A Government Paper ‘ Estimating Local Mortality Burdens associated with Particulate  Air Pollution (2014)’ shows an attributable death rate in the over 25’s as 122 with associated life-years lost as 1255 for the borough of Bexley.

Finally a last quote from the Bexley Council website on trees:-

‘Increases property value’

This echo’s the Mayor of London Street Tree Initiative which includes the statement ‘increased local property values, particularly in tree-lined streets’

However would Bexley be prepared for a reversal in this statement if it could be shown that a house has NOT shown an equitable increase in value where trees have been removed against a similar property where they have been maintained? Could there be a ‘Class Action’ against the Council.  Could this argument also be applied to a potential reduction in the council tax being paid by individual residents where trees have been removed.

Due to the various reasons outlined above I believe the decision to postpone replacement tree planting until 2018 at the earliest to be wrong and respectfully ask that the council re-instates the re-planting programme.

David Webb

Download the PDF file .

The council will replace trees if you pay for them directly. Further impacts of budget cuts by our chop, cut, slash council?

Posted in Bexley Council, Trees | 2 Comments

Environment Forum calls for Tesco tree reprieve as store plan collapses.

Troubled supermarket giant Tesco has today announced that it is abandoning plans for a new store on Bexleyheath Broadway on the site of the former Council offices, offering the prospect of a reprieve for an important row of trees. Given the danger that contractors might simply carry on razing the site regardless, Bexley Natural Environment Forum has written to Council Officers asking them to request that these trees are now left, in order that when a new development application inevitably comes forward, there is at least the prospect of being able to argue for their retention in any new scheme for the area.

In a follow-up telephone conversation with the Council Officer who has taken over responsibility for trees in the Borough, BNEF Vice-chair Chris Rose was told that Officers would now look into whether the trees can be saved, at least for the time being.

London Plane trees outside the old Council offices on the Broadway. Thanks to Tesco (and Bexley's apparent capitulation) these will go ..... Every little bit less greenery doesn't hep.

Bexley Natural Environment Forum is seeking a reprieve for this row of semi-mature London Plane trees on the Broadway, Bexleyheath, now that the plug has been pulled on the Tesco store plan. (Photo: Chris Rose) .

With another supermarket planned for the car showroom land opposite the Marriott Hotel/abandoned Tesco site, and tall ‘modernist’ buildings at the west end of the road, the Tesco scheme would have turned this thoroughfare into a bleak grey chasm with little or no greenery or shade. BNEF will therefore be arguing for long-term retention of the trees if they are indeed saved from the chop.

Posted in Bexley Council, Bexleyheath, BNEF, Environment, Planning, Tesco, Trees | 2 Comments

Friends of the Shuttle sets up own Facebook page

To further boost its profile, promote its work, keep existing supporters in touch and garner new recruits, Friends of the Shuttle has set up its own Facebook page at:

https://www.facebook.com/FriendsoftheShuttle

It’s early days yet, but it will no doubt soon be full of reports on the group’s hard work on the Shuttle, at Danson Park and other sites members may work at from time to time.

Posted in River Shuttle, Rivers, Volunteering | Leave a comment