The Woodlander Sydenham Hill Wood’s seasonal newsletter Winter/Spring 2013 In this issue: Surveying hibernating bats in the old train tunnel London Wildlife Trust’s position on foxes Confusion reigns on Cox’s Walk And…migrating waxwings invade Dulwich Great tit on Cox’s Walk, January 2013 by D. Greenwood Protecting London’s wildlife for the future Registered Charity Number: 283895 Want to receive this newsletter? Email ‘subscribe me’ to [email protected]
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The Woodlander Sydenham Hill Wood’s seasonal newsletter
Winter/Spring 2013
In this issue: Surveying hibernating bats in the old train tunnel London Wildlife Trust’s position on foxes Confusion reigns on Cox’s Walk And…migrating waxwings invade Dulwich
Firecrests ignite excitement Sydenham Hill Wood volunteers were delighted by the arrival of a very special migrant bird in January, as birdwatcher Gavin Horsley reported a pair of firecrest amongst a flock of goldcrest foraging for ivy berries at the Crescent Wood Road entrance. Firecrest differ from goldcrest in the heavy black and white striping on their head and the striking orange and yellow crest from which their name is drawn. The bird was confirmed by London Wildlife Trust staff and volunteers at 13:00 on Thursday 17th January, staying for over a week to be enjoyed by visitors willing to wait for the birds to appear. Previous records in the 1990s drew the attention of the local media. The birds visited the Wood for at least 6 weeks following the initial sighting. Read the blog article in full on our website.
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New pond enhancement works begin in Sydenham Hill Wood With money from the SITA Trust funded Ambrook and Dewy Pond project, Sydenham Hill Wood volunteers have coppiced willow, hawthorn and ash trees which have been over-shading the small pond situated in the main glade. Money has been set aside for a new chestnut paling fence to run the full perimeter of the pond and give its inhabitants full protection. Keep an eye out in the spring and summer for damselflies, dragonflies, butterflies and other invertebrates that will benefit from the sunlight that will now reinvigorate the pond.
Following the recent incident involving a fox and a baby in
London, here is London Wildlife Trust’s position regarding
urban foxes.
We recognise the impact this incident has had on the family, and
hope that the child concerned makes a quick and full recovery.
Fox attacks on people are extremely rare; most foxes usually go to
great lengths to avoid contact with people. By comparison,
thousands of people are admitted to hospital with dog bites every
year.
Any cull of foxes in London would be extremely controversial,
complex and expensive to implement.
A cull is also unlikely to be effective in the long-term, as it would fail
to address the underlying issues that are causing an increase in the
London fox population and bringing foxes into closer proximity to
people.
Fundamentally, we need to change our behaviour. For example,
people shouldn't be feeding foxes. They are wild animals, not pets,
and doing so will only encourage foxes to develop a greater
tolerance of people.
In addition, we all need to put food waste in closed, secure bins,
beyond foxes’ reach. Taking simple measures like these will ensure
foxes rely on natural prey, such as rats, and the reduction in the
overall amount of food available should lead to a fall in fox
numbers.
This is the most effective way to control the urban fox population -
and a solution that can be achieved without resorting to a
widespread cull.
Workday update
The majority of volunteer tasks in late winter have been to coppice overgrown hazel trees and craft the poles into stakes and timber for dead hedging and path edging. This is one of the volunteers’ favourite tasks, using the primitive billhook to hack sharp points into the freshly cut wood. The sound of metal clapping on wood is commonly heard in the autumn and winter months at Sydenham Hill Wood. Money from the SITA Trust funded Ambrook and Dewy Pond Project will go towards new fencing for the small pond in the glade and path material to help maintain access across the site. Volunteers have enjoyed coppicing willow and ash trees which, up until now, had been creating excess shade over the pond. The new lease of light will create the perfect conditions for invertebrates loving of warm pockets to feed and breed. The vegetation around the pond will benefit also from the enrichment brought about by the coppicing. The thought of cutting down trees causes great concern to many, but in a woodland with a history of coppicing (cutting certain species at the base at some stage every 7-15 years, depending on the tree) it is a sustainable way to harvest resources to maintain the path systems and protect the woodland from trampling and erosion. In fact, species like small leaved lime, though absent from Sydenham Hill Wood and the surrounds, can live indefinitely if coppiced correctly. Some planted by the Romans still thrive in England. Wildflowers like English bluebell will react to coppicing positively in the years following the cut. It is the case that much of what makes a woodland is already in the soil. Sydenham Hill Wood has an ancient lineage, with species like wood anemone, dog violet, wild garlic, hornbeam and sessile oak indicating that the land has, in part, remained as woodland for more than 400 years. As March begins (and hopefully spring, too) volunteers will turn their hands to observing and surveying, as our work takes a backseat, allowing birds to breed and plants to flower and leaf in peace.
Movement, displacement, migration: Dave Clark’s update on local birdlife
Movement is the common thread that links the species that have brightened up our local winter bird scene. The principal driving force behind this movement is the search for food, quite different to our spring arrivals who are motivated by the need to find suitable and safe habitat to achieve breeding success. In these turbulent climatic times, these movements are displaying year on year variation whilst the underlying species-specific mechanisms enabling these movements are a fascinating science within themselves, holding few hard and fast rules. At the turn of the year the local bird scene was enhanced by the arrival of firecrests in Sydenham Hill Wood; one staying for 5 weeks. Ornithologically placed within the Old World warbler families the firecrest is closely related to our more familiar and resident Wood dweller the goldcrest. Distinguished by a fabulous flame punk hairdo and white eyestripe identifying can be easy as they are often confiding birds flitting between branches to pick at the meagre reserves of winter insects. Nationally, firecrests do breed but the majority of our sightings are winter migrants from Northern Europe escaping inclement weather before moving back during the breeding season. The increase in Southerly UK sightings is potentially a sign of our changing climate. Siskins have been traditionally one of the favoured caged finches because of their bright happy song and striking yellow and black features. This winter season, they have been seen more regularly on the birches in Cox’s Walk; symptomatic of a national winter surge in these Scandinavian migrants. Our local birds are either southerly migrants from Northern Britain moving from conifer plantations to feed on birch and alder or easterly migrants from Northern Europe and Scandinavia. Part of their success in recent years is down to supplementary feeding, the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) noting that nationally there has been an increase of this species in our gardens. Belair Park is notable for this species with the prevalence of alders surrounding the lake.
Gulls over One Tree Hill,
Feb 2013 (DG)
Winter thrushes along with waxwings have been present all around the area this winter particularly favouring the edge habitat by the allotments. 2012/13 winter is notable for the amount of fieldfare that have been seen. Both fieldfare and redwing are so-called winter migrants as they purposely travel a route between Scandinavia and Great Britain and more southerly parts of Europe and back again, the fieldfare potentially travelling as far as Siberia. Early in the season, they tend to prefer berry yielding bushes whilst towards the end of their stay they were seen gorging on the plentiful supply of worms on local parks and playing fields. Waxwings, however, are described as an irruptive species, we see them when their usual wintering grounds fail to provide. Their penchant for rowan, cotoneaster and pyracanthus means that they have turned up in the most unlikely places with our local sightings predominantly in urban side streets. This winter has also seen some amazing congregations of black-headed gulls, up to 900 on Peckham Rye, these birds driven inland by poor weather and moving locally between grassy areas and waste sites. Finally since January there have been 4 separate sightings of common buzzards over the Dulwich area. These movements are intriguing and harder to pinpoint as the buzzard is largely a sedentary bird in Britain yet a migratory bird in other parts of the world. Adding to this confused picture is the tendency for young birds to change their home range over the first season. Undoubtedly the sightings were driven by the cold weather and lack of food but where had those birds come from…and so to the pleasures and optimism of spring. We await our first arrivals from exotic locations and the stories their movements will tell.
Local ornithologists were left scratching their heads in February as birdwatcher Gavin Horsley photographed an unusual bird on the feeder of a garden alongside Cox’s Walk. The bird was a long-tailed tit but not as we know it. The white crown led some to question whether this might be the rare (in London at least) Scandinavian subspecies Aegithalos caudatus caudatus. Britain is home to the long-tailed tit Aegithalos caudatus (rosaceus) and Central Europe Aegithalos caudatus europaeus, which this particular bird turned out to be. The rare caudatus caudatus species has an all-white head, whereas the specimen photographed by Gavin has some dark streaking across the back of its head and the nape. Thanks nonetheless to Gavin Horsley for another great find and to Tony Wileman and Richard Woolley for their knowledge.
The Dawn Chorus
Celebrating 30 years of nature conservation at Sydenham Hill Wood
Friday 26th
April 2013 4:45am for 5am start Meet at the Crescent Wood Road kissing gate Contact Daniel Greenwood for more information:
With the support of professional Bat Ecologist, Huma Pearce, we have been painstakingly surveying every crevice of the Crescent Wood tunnel’s innards this winter. Recent surveys have revealed large numbers of herald moths (pictured), remaining in the tunnel semi-comatose in temperatures lingering around two degrees Celsius. In contrast, the February survey revealed a temperature of 0.4 outside the tunnel. In the spring we intend to conduct a dawn emergence survey. Previous surveys using mist-nets recovered juvenile brown long-eared bats. We won’t be using the same technique but instead using bat detectors to pick up the echolocation calls of species like common and soprano pipistrelle, noctule and Leisler’s.
The London, Chatham and Dover Railway Company began constructing the Crystal Palace High Level railway and began digging the tunnel in 1861, all of which ended with a party at the Upper Sydenham station entrance to the tunnel 3 years later: ‘On Saturday 12th November [1864] an interesting ceremony took place in the Crescent Wood tunnel, on the South London and Crystal Palace Railway, which was to place the last brick of the tunnel at the entrance to Wells Road, Upper Sydenham. The inside of the entrance was tastefully fitted up with evergreens. A champagne luncheon was provided in the most excellent style by Mr. Collins of the Longton Grove Hotel. All the preliminary arrangements being made the party ascended the scaffold, and the brick having been properly cemented by Mr. Willis one of the sub-contractors it was placed in the hands of Miss Roney, who
cleverly fixed it amidst loud cheers. Miss Roney then announced that the last brick of the Crescent Wood tunnel was placed in its final position; and gave a handsome donation for distribution amongst the workmen present.’ (p.14, The Crystal Palace and High Level Railway, John Gale). It is unlikely that that Miss Roney, the layer of the final brick, could have predicted the current state of the tunnel. No trains pass through now and the only access is for London Wildlife Trust staff and volunteers to survey the hanging walls and bat boxes installed to provide habitat for species such as the brown long-eared bat, last recorded in early 2011. Brown long-eared bats are undetectable with the usual survey method of the bat detector because they hunt by stealth and do not call when in flight, unlike the common and soprano pipistrelles, Leisler’s and noctule which are recorded in Sydenham Hill and Dulwich Woods.
