Wild London

Tuesday, 30th October 2001, West Yorkshire

This Month Rocks History Workshop Links Home Page

IT'S SO LONG since we've taken the train to London that I decide to do a bit of bird, plant and animal spotting on the way down. I miss a lot as the landscape rushes past at a hundred miles an hour and more but the highlight has got to be the deer, Roe Deer as far as I can tell, which were standing in a small group in a field at the edge of woodland.

PLANTS
Bramble Rosebay Willowherb Crack Willow Gorse Sowthistle Silver Birch Reed, Phragmites Rush, Juncus Reedmace False Oat Dock Burdock Japanese Knotgrass Oxford Ragwort Bracken Mugwort Old Man's Beard Mullein Ivy Spear Thistle TREES Ash Sycamore Poplar Oak Elder Buddleia Flowering Cherry Lombardy Poplar Pine Horse Chestnut Leylandii Cypress Larch	BIRDS Magpie Wood Pigeon Carrion Crow Black Headed Gull Shoveler Coot Tufted Duck Canada Goose Heron Kestrel INSECT Dragonfly MAMMAL Roe Deer FARM Ayreshire Fresian Charolais Large White Pig

Wildlife Garden

My list can't compare with the 600 species - including 50 birds and a staggering 300 moths - recorded on a small patch of ground on Heron

the corner of Cromwell Road and Queensgate in South Kensington. the Natural History Museum's Wildlife Garden features miniature versions of some of Britain's lowland habitats including fen, heath, woodland, hedge and meadow, centred around a pone which attracts dragonfly, damselfly, frog and toad (although we didn't see these on this dull autumn afternoon). We paused to take a drink of our bottled water at a wooden field gate,

overlooking a tree-fringed meadow; a rare possibility in the middle of town, even though the meadow is no larger than a tennis court.

On our walk back to Kings Cross via Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park and Regent's Park it's good to see two Cormorants resting on posts in the Serpentine and a Heron flying over Regent's Park lake.

Richard Bell,
wildlife illustrator
E-mail; 'richard@willowisland.co.uk'

Next page Previous page This day last year This month Nature Diary Home Page