Anette Lien of Trees for Cities writes: In partnership with Tower Hamlets Council and with funding from Bloomberg, Trees for Cities arranged a tree planting event in Jolly’s Green with volunteers and the local community earlier this month. With the help of 59 volunteers, 17 Wild Cherry and Copper Beech trees were planted on Saturday 12 October. The new bright and beautiful trees across Jolly’s Green will create habitats for wildlife and add splashes of colour throughout the seasons. The park will benefit greatly from the trees planted, as it’s situated directly next to the highly trafficked A12/Blackwall Tunnel Northern…
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A new Local Biodiversity Action Plan (2019-24) has been launched in a bid to protect and enhance the variety of plant and animal life in Tower Hamlets. The blueprint sets out what the council, registered housing providers, developers, community groups and residents can do to help conserve the borough’s important habitats and species. John Biggs, Mayor of Tower Hamlets, said: “I am very pleased to adopt the Tower Hamlets Local Biodiversity Action Plan for 2019-24, which has been produced by Tower Habitats, our biodiversity partnership. It is very important that we continue to protect and enhance our biodiversity, not only…
Tim Elliott of the Holland Estate Management Board writes: We installed a new playground on the estate this summer, in the rear courtyard of Toynbee Street. Residents were keen to introduce planting to green up the estate courtyard and provide habitats for wildlife, and with the help of a Tower Habitats biodiversity grant from the Tower Hill Trust, we’ve been able to do just that. We have a hedge with five different native species, and the other flower bed is planted up with a wide variety of nectar-rich plants which we hope will be hardy and provide year-round cover, but…
Michelle Lindson of the Friends of Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park writes: Two weeks ago we did a ‘Bat Walk’ in Swedenborg Gardens and it was bat-tastic! We saw our first bat flying above the playground before the event had even started (see photo below). As it got darker we switched on the bat detectors and heard the ‘shouts’ of several pipistrelle bats nearby. Their ‘shouts’, which we hear as clicks on the bat detectors, hit obstacles and insect prey around them. These ‘shouts’ are then echoed back to them which helps to build a picture of their surroundings and to…
Anthony Iles of Tarling West Estate Tenants & Residents Association writes: In the last couple of years, we’ve established a fantastic, active gardening group that’s done some great stuff greening the Tarling West Estate. The Garden group: Builds, plants, sows and maintains the community garden at the Resident’s Hall. Applies for grants to improve the environment on the estate. Looks for space on the estate which could be greener and environmentally richer. Encourages wildlife on the estate. Encourages other residents to get active, do healthy exercise and meet in a welcoming social atmosphere together. Shares skills and knowledge around gardening,…
Tom Bradford and James Clark of Malmesbury Residents Association write: After a very busy weekend, we have just about finished our planting project at Tom Thumb’s Arch and the surrounding area. Many people walking past, some of whom joined the planting, were taken back by how beautiful this small but prominent site now looks. This is part of Malmesbury Residents Association’s Green Project and is just one of a number of locations around Malmesbury Estate that the residents have been ‘greening’ with help from a Tower Habitats biodiversity grant from the Tower Hill Trust. You can read about the first…
Common Terns have bred successfully in Tower Hamlets for the first time since 2015. After three years in which no young Common Terns even hatched in the borough, one youngster almost certainly fledged at Blackwall Basin. From the 1990s until 2015, Common Terns nested annually on rafts specially provided for the purpose on a number of docks in Tower Hamlets, with double figures of pairs breeding in some years. 2014 and 2015 were both good years, but since then no chicks have been seen, and there were appeared to be no breeding attempts at all in 2017 or 2018. It…
Edward Milner, who surveys beetles and spiders in Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park, writes: My beetle expert Norman Heal has looked at beetles collected in May and June last year, and has identified seven new species for Cemetery Park. He’s got a lot more to catch up with so I suspect there will be a lot more new ones to come! No new spiders yet this year but you never know… The best find was Ophonus stictus, a smallish ground beetle (family Carabidae): a Red Data Book species with a very restricted distribution in southern England, it is carnivorous. In a…
Catrin Szewczyk of Stebon Primary School writes: Stebon Primary school received a Tower Habitats biodiversity grant for £2000 from the Tower Hill Trust in 2017. We have used it in two areas of the school grounds, to create an allotment and a woodland area. The Allotment The Allotment was a mad patch of bare ground where a shed had once stood. Over the course of a year we transformed it into an allotment-type space, with six planters, one for each year group. Each one links to the curriculum in a different way and also offers a different purpose, and all…
The Big Butterfly Count is a nationwide survey aimed at helping assess the health of our environment, and the largest butterfly survey in the world.. This year it is celebrating its 10th anniversary. It was launched in 2010 and an impressive 10,000 people took part, counting 210,000 butterflies and day-flying moths across the nation. Over 100,000 people took part in 2018, counting almost a million individual butterflies and day-flying moths across the UK (see the 2018 results). This year’s Big Butterfly Count is taking place from Friday 19 July to Sunday 11 August 2018. The survey is run by the…