Joanna Milewska and Tunde Morakinyo of the Friends of Meath Gardens write: Meath Gardens is a jewel of a park that is still one of London’s best kept secrets. Set back from Roman Road, it is often overlooked for better known green spaces in East London. Formerly Victoria Park Cemetery, it was converted into a park in 1895. It fell into decline during the wars and even had a chemical plant built on part of its grounds in the 1950s and 60s. In 2005 and the following decade, new buildings were added to the east along the canal and to…
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Bird and bat boxes have been installed in two of Tower Hamlets Council’s parks as part of the commitment to enhance biodiversity under the Green Flag Awards scheme. Four bat boxes (photo left), four hole-fronted nest boxes (header photo) and one sparrow terrace box were attached to trees in Poplar Recreation Ground. In Trinity Square Gardens, one sparrow terrace, one hole-fronted box and one bat box were installed. The installation, which involved some impressive tree climbing, was carried out free of charge by City Suburban Tree Surgeons, the Council’s tree contractor. Hopefully, the boxes will soon be home to House…
Charlotte Tottenham of the Bromley by Bow Centre writes: A big thank you to all the lovely tree planters and orchard-helpers for your enthusiasm and energy in planting the Bromley by Bow Community Orchard yesterday. And another big thank you to The Orchard Project for all their support, including funding our orchard and running the planting day. Bob’s Park is now home to apple trees, cherry trees, quinces, rare and little-known medlar trees, four jostaberry bushes, two elderberries and many more yummy fruiting varieties, which will be in the Park for everyone to share for years to come. We were…
Local spider expert Edward Milner writes: I found a male specimen of the tiny money spider Tapinocyba praecox in my traps in this week from Circle Glade in Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park. This is a fairly scarce, largely winter-active species. Nearly all the males recorded in London (from about 10 other sites, including Hampstead Heath and Greenwich Park) have been from the winter months (December to March). This shows the value of all-year trapping. They are so tiny (the photo above is many, many times larger than the spider in life) and live at soil-level so are very difficult to…
It’s been another fantastic year of work for wildlife in Tower Hamlets! The Council and Tower Habitats, the Tower Hamlets biodiversity partnership, have published the third annual progress report on the Local Biodiversity Action Plan (LBAP). The report covers the year from October 2017 to September 2018 and can be downloaded here. The report illustrates the great work to enhance wildlife habitats that has been done in our parks, gardens, water spaces and the built environment. Our numerous partner organisations, including housing associations, charities, community groups, developers and the Council, have completed loads of great projects to create and enhance…
Edward Milner, who undertakes spider and beetle surveys in Tower Hamlets parks, writes: Following on from the two new beetles identified in October last year, my beetle expert Norman Heal has identified four more species new to Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park from specimens collected in May and June 2018. Micrambe ulicis (see photo below, which is much bigger than the beetle in life) is a small beetle of the family Cryptophagidae which is associated with gorse. This is a good example to show why planting native species is good – they gradually attract the insects associated with them. The tiny…
Michelle Lindson of the Friends of Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park writes: We are now taking bookings for an exciting, FREE, six week course called “Growing and Knowing Wildflowers”. You will discover wild flowers, learning how to grow and care for them, and, as if that wasn’t exciting enough, the course is being delivered in the wonderful setting of Stepney City Farm! The course runs for six Sundays between 3 March and 7 April 2019. It is suitable for beginners and those wishing to improve their knowledge and skills, or those wanting to develop a community project involving wild flowers. It…
Dave Bedford & Molly Gadenz from the Lower Regents Coalition write: So we’ve made it through another year in our humble efforts to make the lower Regent’s Canal better for all. This year marked our 5th anniversary as a group. It also marked the first of what we hope will be more Green Flag Awards for our stretch. We’ve lots to be thankful for in getting us to this point – most especially all of the incredible individuals and groups of people that got stuck in at our events large and small. You motivate us to keep going and do…
Local author and naturalist Bob Gilbert writes: It is my regular habit, when walking about Poplar, to look out for whatever I can in the way of local wildlife; the Long-tailed Tits that feed in the lime trees, the Kestrel that occasionally haunts the Brownfield Estate or the Grey Sallows that spring up in municipal flower beds. It was in this way, whilst en route to Chrisp Street market a few weeks ago, that I spotted a bunch of Mistletoe (Viscum album) growing high in the branches of a maple set in a children’s playground on the Brownfield Estate (just…
Around half a million people from across the UK are set to take part in the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch by counting the birds in their gardens over the weekend of 26-28 January 2019. They’ll also make a record of the other wildlife they see throughout the year, providing a vital snapshot of UK nature. The largest wildlife survey in the world, the Big Garden Birdwatch has been running for over 30 years, and last year 420,000 people took part and over 6.7 million birds were counted. Despite its much-publicised decline in numbers, the House Sparrow (see photo above) was…