8/8/10: Croydon - Coombe Lane heath to chalk slopes near New Addington

LNHS field trip from the Coombe Lane tram stop to heathland on the Addington Hills for invertebrates, followed by chalk downland further down the line at New Addington.

Addington Hills heathland

Species seen here included:

• A few Common Lizards
• Tawny Cockroach
• Beautiful Yellow Underwing moth (larva and adult)
• Emperor butterfly - very brief view
• Common Green Grasshopper
• Mottled Grasshopper
• Meadow Grasshopper
• Long-winged Conehead
• Gorse Shield Bug
• Gorse Lace Bug

LNHS members search Hutchinson's Bank - a rich chalk slope surreally close to a New Addington housing estate - for unusual invertebrates

Species here included:

• Marjoram
• Agrimony
• Eyebright
• Greater Yellow Rattle
• one plant of Sainfoin
• Kidney Vetch
• baby Common Lizards
• a Brown Argus

plus ......

Stemless Thistle (Cirsium acaule)

My first ever Small Blue (Cupido minimus) butterflies

Restharrow (Ononis repens)

On the way to Chapel Bank were ......

a lot of Wild Parsnip in flower

a couple of Brimstone butterflies, a Large Skipper, a Ringlet, Black Bryony, Woodruff, Wood Spurge, Figwort, Bush Vetch,

this Broad-leaved Helleborine in flower

and on/in the environs of the bank Thyme, Hemp Agrimony and Common Gromwell (a new species for me).

22/5/10: Thames Road Wetland - crash chaos

A quarter past 7 p.m. on a sunny May evening, and all looks peaceful at Thames Road Wetland

Now road traffic accidents aren't a typical threat to nature conservation work, but a delivery lorry had managed to career off the Thames Rd at an improbably sharp angle, had demolished part of the wooden fence, gone up the bank and flattened a traffic sign in the process .....


Elsewhere on the site - predominantly the south and east banks - the waterside was rimmed by a broad yellow band of Creeping Buttercup.

Slender Thistles (Carduus tenuiflorus), common on the bare soil areas of the site, were coming into flower, as here:-

There were 2 Rabbits in the bowl of the TRW itself. A teneral (freshly-emerged) Large Red Damselfly was on the Sewer Embankment, as was a modest-sized Common Lizard. 4 Whirligig Beetles were on the canalized River Wansunt. There were 2 largish Geese on the wet fields south of the Sewer Embankment. My notes (including orange bill) suggest Greylag or Bean, but I'm not great on goose ID.

3/9/09: Barnehurst allotment Lizard blizzard

At least 7 (and possibly more) different individual Common Lizards on my Dad's allotment at the Grasmere Rd site in Barnehurst today.

A sometimes blustery cool breeze, and the odd bit of dark cloud, were enough to lower the temperature to a level at which the Lizards needed to come out and bask quite a bit. The two salvaged car tyres again proved popular, with a record-equalling 4 animals using one, and 2 using the other. Here are some pictures of them (taken on a 3MP mobile phone cam, without good close focussing - so some have been cropped and enlarged ......).

As usual, the majority of the Lizards seen (5 out of 7) were on the banking below the main path, either side of the steps

View of the most popular tyre - part-buried, with bits of rubble and a clump of grass in the centre


Two adults on a tyre

Two adults on tyre, one to right trying to be inconspicuous

Adult on one of the bits of rock placed in 'embayments' cut in the grass on the bank. These provide additional basking sites

Very young lizard poses for the camera on the mound of a disused ant's nest



Two's company as a second youngster - with a re-grown tail - appears (right)

17/8/09: Barnehurst BAP priority species

Three national Biodiversity Action plan priority species today.

Grasmere allotment site:

Insects: Several Gatekeepers, 1 x male Common Blue, 30+ Dock Squash Bugs on the Rhubarb patch and 1 x Common Darter Dragonfly - my first of the year.

4 Common Lizards (BAP priority species) on my Dad's plot - 1 adult and 3 small 'baby' animals. One of the latter was basking on one of the tyres I salvaged from rubbish dumped over the boundary fence by irresponsible neighbouring home-owners. The other 3 were basking on bits of rubble, again 'recycled' from material found on site. One of these babies had already lost the whole of its tail. It would be interesting to know what it is that predates the lizards here.

My Barnehurst Garden - 2 more BAP priority species:

I was delighted to find 2 Slow Worms together under one of my dry-vegetation-covered-with-black-plastic piles, specially constructed to attract and allow easy examination of this species.

In addition, the first Common Toad seen here for quite some time was in the garden, a 3" body length individual being found after dark in my new greenhouse .

11/7/09: Barnehurst allotments + Lewisham

Barnehurst: On the allotments, the pregnant Common Lizard, previously seen on the old tyre to the right of the steps from the main path, was now basking a few feet away on a tyre - re-positioned from further down the plot -to the left of the steps. She stayed put even while I spread some compost 18" away.

There were three small-sized Skippers flitting about around the top of the plot feeding on Lavender and Red Clover. Two were positively identified as Essex Skippers.

Two small Black Bindweed plants were noted, along with several Scarlet Pimpernel seedlings. A White Campion was in flower.

Bexleyheath railway line: Two Wild Carrot plants were in flower behind the Bexleyheath 'down' platform. Having caught a fleeting glimpse of what I thought were Caper Spurges (Euphorbia lathyris) on the low bank north of the line between Welling and Falconwood, I was able to concentrate harder today and got a positive ID - despite the speed of the train. There were about half a dozen plants close together, and another couple further along.

There was a large clump of non-native Chrysanthemum maximum in flower on the bank between Charlton junction and Blackheath station. I hadn't notice dthis before. (At least one of the two plants of this species that were behind the 'down' platform at Barnehurst is still there, though these might have been planted a long time ago).

Lewisham: In the Cornmill Gardens area by the River Ravensbourne were a couple of Goat's-rue (Galega officinalis). In a 'wild' zone at the foot of Hilly Fields, by Adelaide Avenue, there were, besides the usual Creeping and Spear Thistles, and Red and White Clovers, several clumps of Tansy (Tanacetum vulgare), which I've previously only seen under cultivation in gardens. Ladywell Fields, to the east of Ladywell station, is taking on a more naturalistic aspect around a new, artificially re-created, meandering river channel - part of a scheme to free the river from the 'straight jacket' it had previously been put into.

See the London Rivers Action Plan:

http://www.therrc.co.uk/lrap.php

18/6/09: Here be Dragons ... and Toads

Common Lizards and Common Toads, both now UK Biodiversity Action Plan Priority Species because of a worrying decline in numbers, occur on the Grasmere Rd. allotment site in Barnehurst. Both were seen there today. The site was once an orchard and has remnant heathland vegetation, including Pedunculate Oak, Silver Birch, Gorse, Broom and Bracken. A third UK BAP species, the Slow Worm, is found in my garden less than 100 metres away, but I have never found one on the allotments, despite searching suitable in places.

Yeah, we know you're watching us - we're watching you too

Here a pair of Common Lizards (Zootoca (Lacerta) vivipara) enjoy some habitat enhancement in the form of an old tyre, part-buried in the ground, with a 'bolt-hole' / possible hibernation facility excavated underneath at the rear, and bits of broken brick and rubble - also found on site - and a clump of grass put in the middle.

Last autumn I found four lizards on this tyre at once. Tyres are known to be lizard 'magnets' because they warm up quickly and retain some heat so are ideal for basking/raising body temperature, especially in cooler and changeable weather.

Here's a closer view of one of them - not pin-sharp because my mobile phone cam has trouble knowing exactly where to focus in this sort of shot.

Surrounding gardens are unlikely to provide suitable lizard habitat, so it's likely this is an 'island' population that has survived here since the site became hemmed in by houses in around 1933.

And here's a two inch body length young toad. A couple of larger ones were seen recently. Numbers are never high here, but specimens keep turning up, so there must be a breeding pond not too far away. There isn't one on the site.


Juvenile Common Toad (Bufo bufo)

Other amphibian species here are the Common Frog and Smooth Newt. The latter has bred in a pond made from an old bath.