Our Top Tips Will Encourage Butterflies and Moths to Your Patch, Whatever Its Size
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Issue 120 | Spring 2020 The magazine for London Wildlife Trust members 10 WAYS TO Attract butterflies Our top tips will encourage butterflies and moths to your patch, whatever its size THE SECRET LIVES OF SWIFTS They are masters of the air, but need our help YOUR WILDLIFE- FRIENDLY HOUSE Follow our 10 simple steps to make nature feel at home \ Contents Welcome 16 8 12 4 Your wild spring Spring is in the air From meadows awash with wildflowers to singing warblers and amorous amphibians, This spring brings in not only we reveal the best of the season’s wildlife a new year, but a new decade and where you can enjoy it in London as we welcome 2020. We have so many exciting events Your wild spring: events Maya Gadjourouva Maya 7 coming up that we look forward There’s so much going on over the coming to sharing with you. months. We help you plan some great days out Camley Street Natural Park will reopen this year with a 8 Your wild garden new visitor centre. The build Even the smallest patch can welcome moths was partly funded by our and butterflies, says gardener Kate Bradbury Andrew Parkinson Andrew first-ever crowdfunding campaign – thank you to everyone who Edwardes Guy donated. We’ll announce the reopening date on our website and 10 Wild reserves social media shortly – and look forward to seeing you there soon. Spring is a great time of year to get outdoors We’re excited that the London Wildlife Festival will go ahead 20 and visit our beautiful reserves this summer. We hope you can join us on 25 and 26 July to celebrate our city’s wonderful wildlife and its conservation. Upton Nick 12 Wild news Last year, fierce winds forced us to cancel the first-ever festival, A roundup of the latest news from London so we’ll be crossing our fingers for good weather! and the Wildlife Trusts movement The London mayoral election will be held on 7 May. It’s your chance to ask candidates to work towards a wilder future, so 16 The secret lives of swifts we’ve provided a handy list of green commitments to look for 10 They may be masters of the air, but when on page 12. Wildlife is in serious decline, and the UK is one of the they’re ready to nest, swifts need our help, most nature-depleted nations in the world. But public concern says The Wildlife Trusts’ Sarah Gibson for the environment has never been greater, so we must use this momentum to urge all parties and their candidates to act now – 20 Your wildlife-friendly home before it’s too late – to turn things around. Follow our 10 simple steps to make your Though it’s easy to feel helpless in the face of the current global house a haven for wildlife climate and ecological emergency, there are lots of things you can do locally to help wildlife. London is a hotspot for threatened 22 Your letters and photos stag beetles, and, from mid-May, these handsome insects will be A roundup of your views and photography blundering around on the wing. Please keep your eyes (and ears!) peeled and report sightings of stag and lesser stag beetles to us at: 23 My wild life wildlondon.org.uk/stag-beetle-campaign. Meet some of the people working with London Wildlife Trust to keep our city full Penny Dixie Penny Go rd o n S co re r Sam Brewster of wildlife. This issue: Netty Ribeaux Chief Executive, London Wildlife Trust London Wildlife Trust Get in touch 4 ways you can support London Wildlife Trust Wild London is the magazine Wild London is produced for you Our vision Volunteer Donate Visit a reserve Leave a lasting legacy for members of London Wildlife Trust. by our editorial team: Laura Mason, for London Could you spare some time to You can help build a better future Our 37 nature reserves span Protect your city’s wildlife for Email: [email protected] Ildikó Connell, Aoife McGran, join our powerful volunteer team for London’s wildlife by donating much of the capital. They range tomorrow by remembering Phone: 020 7261 0447 Rosie Oldham, Mathew Frith A London alive with across London and help our city's or helping us to raise money for from small, inner-city havens and London Wildlife Trust in your Will. Post: Dean Bradley House, Contact the editorial team at: nature, where everyone wildlife thrive? Whether you’re our vital conservation work. By spacious woodlands to buzzing Leaving us a gift is a great way 52 Horseferry Road, London SW1P 2AF [email protected] can experience and Registered charity number: 283895 a nature novice or an ecology donating to London Wildlife Trust, wildflower meadows and thriving to make a lasting contribution enjoy wildlife Website: www.wildlondon.org.uk Consultant Editor: Sophie Stafford expert, everyone’s welcome. Get you’ll be playing an important role wetlands. Wild Reserves (see page to nature in the capital. Every Follow us on social media: Consultant Art Editor: Dylan Channon outdoors, have fun and make new in protecting the capital’s wild 10) showcases the best places to gift protects our wildlife for the facebook.com/LondonWildlifeTrust Contributors: Hannah Bailey, Amy-Jane Beer, Cover image: Common brimstone friends. To find out more about spaces and their inhabitants – explore right now. Discover a new future. For more information, call twitter.com/WildLondon Kate Bradbury, Anna Guerin butterfly(Gonepteryx rhamni) feeding instagram.com/wild.london Printer: RAP Spiderweb Ltd, Manchester on a buddleia by Sander Meertins how to volunteer with us, visit now and for the future favourite this spring wildlondon. Rosie on 020 7803 4274 or visit wildlondon.org.uk/volunteer wildlondon.org.uk/donate org.uk/nature-reserves wildlondon.org.uk/legacies 2 Wild London | Spring 2020 Wild London | Spring 2020 3 Jon Hawkins Your wild spring The best of the season’s wildlife and where to enjoy it in London Woodlands in bloom You might think you’d need to get out meadows, hosting a rich array of insects. in the London Borough of Bexley. They of London to visit wildflower meadows, Threecorner Grove, a chalk woodland give their name to the Abbey Wood but if you know the right places to look, in New Addington, is a butterfly spotter’s district. The abbey kept fish ponds, which you can find meadows humming with life paradise and a great place to find carpets were fed by a small stream running and the first flowers of the season. These of bluebells and wood anemones. through the woods, and these are still precious habitats are not only beautiful, Chapel Bank features rolling chalk visible today, though the water level is but also an important source of food and grasslands, studded with wild primroses often low. The woods are adjacent to shelter for bees and butterflies. Here are and hairy violets, as well as scrub and Bostall Woods and boast several features some of the best places in and around enchanting ancient woodlands. dating back to the Bronze Age, as well London to enjoy wildflowers... Sydenham Hill Wood is the Trust’s as fine spring displays of wild bluebells, Gutteridge Wood in Hillingdon sits oldest nature reserve. Here, you’ll find a daffodils and wood anemones. in an area of traditional countryside, unique mix of new and ancient woodland. If top of your wishlist this spring is to where ancient woodland and wildflower and the remains of a Victorian garden. see bluebells in bloom, you’ll find all these Did you meadows meet. This part of the Yeading Springtime in this beautiful ancient woods are well worth a visit: Perivale Brook Valley is a haven for birds. In woodland brings bluebells, bursting Wood (probably London’s finest display), know? We manage many woodlands spring, oak and hazel coppice woodlands tree buds and territorial birds. Petts Wood, Ruislip Woods, Selsdon sympathetically for wildlife. burst to life with blankets of bluebells. Lesnes Abbey Woods are ancient Wood, Oxleas Wood and many areas Coppicing, cutting scrub, Wildflowers and grasses dominate the woodlands near the ruined Lesnes Abbey of Epping Forest. maintaining rides and simply leaving them alone all help woodlands to thrive. 4 Wild London | Spring 2020 YOUR WILD SPRING GET INVOLVED NATURE’S LACE SPLASHES OF COLOUR STAR OF THE MIRE With its delicate, frothy white flowers and fern-like The large, golden flowers of marsh-marigold provide The eye-catching, exotically fringed flowers of foliage, cow parsley brightens London’s hedgerows, early nectar for insects and shelter for frogs along the bogbean bloom briefly atop a sturdy stem. Look for it bramble thickets and young woodlands. Philip Precey fringes of slow-flowing streams, ditches and ponds. Mathew Frith Mathew Frith from March to June in shallow ponds and wet ground. Lewis Amy 6 spring events We have loads of great wildlife events for adults, kids and families in London. Come and join the fun! Butterfly bonanza Centre for Wildlife and activities to help you find Xxxxxxxxx Gardening your wild side and discover the Spring Aldridge Neil While butterflies are one of summer’s joys, arguably the Toad Day wonderful wildlife supported by songsters most important stage of their lives is spent as a caterpillar. Sunday 15 March chalk grassland. After emerging from tiny eggs in spring, most British A free open day celebrating Spring is a time of change. For our feathered friends, thoughts turn caterpillars spend up to seven weeks munching leaves. amphibians and ponds.