Welcome to Alexandra Park
Alexandra Park is a delightful mixture of informal
woodland, open grassland, formal gardens and attractions such as the boating
lake, cafés and the pitch-and-putt course. It covers 196 acres around Alexandra Palace in North London. The Friends of Alexandra Park is a voluntary group that promotes the use of the Park, encourages the conservation of its wildlife and protects the Park from unwanted development.
 Friends Events
Members' Walk: Plant Galls Saturday, 13th October 11am to Noon  Most people have heard of Oak Apples which are not apples at all, but caused by a gall wasp. The oak has many types of gall with lots of knopper galls underfoot at this time of year. (picture) On the leaves we will see silk button gall, spangle galls and smooth spangle galls. Galls can be caused by insects, mites, fungi, bacteria..... Where will we be meeting? Still working on that - will post at least a week before. Friends' Past events
Autumn 2018 Bird Walk and Ringing Display  We saw plenty of the usual magpies, crows, robins and the noisy parakeets.... Highlights this year were a greater spotted woodpecker in the Grove, starlings and goldfinches near the pitch and putt hut, a great crested grebe on the reservoir and house martins over the reservoir. Bird ringing was also slow with only a robin being ringed (and the group missed that!). It's all down to the vagaries of chance - I suppose - and next time, we will be back to a more spectacular list of birds seen. Family Bug Hunt
 Shieldbugs were also scooped up including Green Shieldbugs, Bishop's Mitre Shieldbugs and Dock Bugs.
Roesel's Bush Cricket and Common Field Grasshoppers were found in the grass.
Spiders of all sizes were found including a particularly smart Garden Spider.
Rebecca explained to us that Ichneumon Wasps are the more primitive forms with the social wasps evolving more recently.
Earwigs were also found and we were told that the females look after their young.
One attendee was not so interested in the finds and had to entertained in other ways.
What else was found? Red spider mites and caterpillars as well as some other beetles.
Great Fete  To test the kids and the adults, we had a Tree Leaf Quiz (middle pic) with leaves from Lime, Weeping Willow, Holly, Sycamore, Silver Maple and Cherry. This gained in popularity with trees close to stall being labelled to help the learning process. Some children were impressively knowledgeable.  The quiz is, at present, on display in the Park Information Centre in The Grove open this Sunday, 2pm to 4pm.
What else was going on? Lots! The whole event was concentrated, this year, on the South Slope and in spite of some worry about having stalls on a slope, it worked really well. There was lots for kids to do and most of it free (as were our activities). Music in various places of all types Brass Bands and original work from locals as well as more "commercial" stuff. The Streat Life food and drink
 An example of the other stalls included the Friends of Alexandra Palace Station, Thrillseekers, Friends of Ally Pally Theatre, Viva City, Wild about our Woods, Tryhard Clowns. Next to our stall was Haringey Council promoting healthier lifestyle and allowing people to mix their own drinks via pedalling a cycle.
Later on there was a film on the South Slope "The Dream Girls". The Conservation Volunteers
August 2018  A lot of sawing and chopping took place and this will now allow a lot more light into the area. The removed branches were loaded up and removed by the Park Contractors, John O'Conner.
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