Galls, Trees, Flowers and Birds..... a seasonal look at many aspects of nature in the park. Members will be emailed details of meeting place. Not yet a member? Join here for only £5/household/year.

We’ll be cutting the grass on the western side of the meadow. Bring gardening gloves if you have them, although we have spares to lend. No special skills needed and refreshments provided. Meet in the Anthill Meadow. Email AllyParkN10@gmail.com for further information.

Adrian will focus on the area north-east of the palace, which contains a very fine old hedgerow line with some veteran oaks, as well as several interesting avenues and a collection of unusual trees.
 

Meet at the BBC tower.

A monthly opportunity for park lovers to join others in a relaxed and friendly group to enjoy time spent outdoors, observing nature through drawing, painting or photography. Bring something to sit on and your own materials (though some basics are provided). The group is free and open to all, whatever your level. Watch out for an email to book in advance, or email allyparkn10@gmail.com to find out more.

We’ll be cutting the grass on the western side of the meadow. Bring gardening gloves if you have them, although we have spares to lend. No special skills needed and refreshments provided. Meet in the Anthill Meadow. Email AllyParkN10@gmail.com for further information. 

Despite an overcast morning the rain held off for our September, conservation work session in the anthill meadow. Seven of us set to, with vigour, to cut back the now dead, flowering plants and grasses at the west side of the meadow. It’s an important part of the maintenance regime for a meadow, cutting and removing the current year’s growth, to give the flowering plants a head start next year. We placed the cut material on a dead hedge, on the edge of the meadow. As you will have heard, butterfly numbers have been low, countrywide, this year, and Alexandra Park is no different, but this project is all about providing an improved habitat for butterflies and insects in general. Having said that, we were very heartened to see a large amount of increased yellow field ant activity, new and active mounds that have appeared this year. Nature is a wonderful thing! 

On hot days bands playing in the Grove often set up in the shade of the trees. This time the band needed to shelter from the rain, which did feature briefly. “But the band played on”, and under the lively direction of Deirdre Waller-Box the band entertained us with popular tunes ranging from ‘Moonlight Serenade’ and ‘Singing in the Rain’ to ‘Hey Jude’ and ‘Shotgun’. 

LMB has done great work teaching people who want to take up or return to playing brass instruments, and the latest batch of beginners demonstrated their skills in the Beginners Band with an accomplished performance in the interval. The Community Band returned with more favourites, none more so than their final number: ‘Baggy Trousers’.

Caroline started off by asking us all to think about the shape of a leaf. It turns out that most people think of something like a cherry leaf: a pointed tip that widens in the middle and then narrows down to meet the leaf stalk. After that we looked at a range of variations from that shape: compound leaves split into leaflets (goat’s rue), variably zig-zaggy edges (dandelion), threadlike (scentless mayweed), featherlike (yarrow). A useful way of identifying plants when they’re not in flower.

We were blessed with a warm and sunny morning. Starting in the Grove, after seeing two swallows fly over the car park, we enjoyed views of a young willow warbler in the oaks, plenty of stock doves and a vocal and showy nuthatch. Walking down the slopes below the palace, we paused to watch the male and female peregrine on the mast, with the latter enjoying a large meal (photo by Greg Smith). 

Moving down to the cricket pitches, Gareth spotted a whinchat fly in from the west and perch briefly in a tall oak. Unfortunately, only Hesha was also able to lay eyes on this scarce visitor to the park before it continued its migration. After a quick look at the reservoir, we were delighted to hear a Cetti’s warbler singing loudly – if invisibly – at the conservation pond. This brought our list of species to 35 and was a fine end to one of the most sociable and bird-filled bird walks for many years.

It looked as if the August work party was going to be a wash-out, but the rain didn’t live up to predictions. We had a pleasantly cool morning’s work, under overcast skies, getting on with bramble control and re-coppicing goat willow and poplar in a central patch of the Anthill Meadow. The flowering season is drawing to a close now, with only the yellow of ragwort giving a golden glow to parts of the meadow. Hopefully, the yellow rattle seeds will have dropped, ready to germinate for next year, so now is the time to start cutting the grass to give them a head start next spring.

On a hot and sunny day, both performers and audience sought the shade of the trees to play and enjoy the music of the 20s and 30s. The audience – more than 70 people – was the largest we have had for music in the Grove. They were delighted by Tony Engles’ sax playing, the steady rhythm from Steve Benaim’s guitar and Martin Appleby’s string bass. But it was the vocals of Tony and Steve that brought out the humour and emotions of the old songs and the applause and whoops from the crowd at the end. 

About 10 of us gathered to look at trees that had grown where the Old Racecourse used to be. In the 50 years since the end of the horse racing, trees have developed with amazing speed: we identified ash, sycamore, field maple, hawthorn, and even a flourishing elm, all distinct, with their own characters. The ash, for example, can grow wonderfully tall, with foliage that lets through light to enable the smaller trees such as hawthorn to establish themselves. The hawthorn itself is developing its haws, those red berries that many birds eat  with enthusiasm. An hour was not enough to absorb all we saw! 

After several requests, a  link to Ghislaine's Sloe Vodka recipe mentioned on the walk after seeing the sloes.

An enthusiastic group of adults and this time very young children were impressed by the number of ladybirds on the Lime Tree where we were based. They were mostly Harlequin ladybirds (adults, larva and chrysalis) and 7-spot ladybirds.

Also found were an orange ladybird and several 16 spot ladybirds.

We found a few odd looking beasts including a young dock bug and a young eared leafhopper.

Pictured left is a flower crab spider.

A fullish list of what was seen.

Some more pictures of what was seen.

A morning walk to look at all things nature. We saw several galls including knopper, spangle and silk button galls (left). 

Taking in quite a few different trees as we walked away from Redston Field. We discussed birds as we approached the cricket scrub and had a look in that area which was new to most on the walk. It was interesting to see which plants were growing up after the dogwood had been largely removed.

July’s work party, on a rather dull day, saw us cutting back the bramble leaders on the south and east margins of the Anthill Meadow. We also opened up a path leading to the Butterfly Meadow. With 12 of us working, much clearing was done, and it was so satisfying to see that this area in the park, with a variety and quantity of wild flowers, can be maintained as a meadow by us.
Despite the very damp spring and summer, butterflies have been rewarding us with their presence. Gatekeepers and meadow browns were the most common butterflies, with a peacock, marbled white and green-veined white also visiting, along with some colourful six-spot burnet moths.

On a cloudy, warm and, crucially, dry day, most of the butterflies we saw were in the Anthill Meadow. Dee pointed out a good number of six-spotted burnet moths (photographed on ragwort by Robert Abbey), including mating pairs. We also saw meadow browns, gatekeepers, small skippers and a green-veined white. When the sun suddenly came out, a couple of marbled whites, at the end of their season, appeared and posed on the knapweed. Meanwhile, Markus had been scanning the oak canopies for purple hairstreaks, and he did indeed spot a fluttery, silvery fragment (the underwing), so the group got a chance to see one.