New buggy for the Friends
Main picture: The Friends new buggy driven by Stephen Russell, leader of the Friends Beverley Brook Litter picking team. Funded by the Friends and with funds raised at the Visitor Centre, the new buggy has been used by our Discoverers team, our Conservation volunteers and our Beverley Brook litter picking team.
Friends volunteers clearing litter in the Beverley Brook
Our Beverley Brook litter picking team put our new buggy and trailer to good use clearing rubbish at Robin Hood deer gates. They collected over 100 bottles and over 30 balls (mostly tennis balls). In total 12 bags of rubbish were collected.
Autumn is the time to see the wonderful array of fungi growing in the park
A selection of colourful waxcaps collected for identification by Janet Bostock, who is authorised by The Royal Parks to collect for scientific purposes; records are sent to The Royal Parks.
This year has been unusual with alternating dry and wet spells so fungi have been appearing at unusual times. The fruiting bodies – the mushrooms you see – appear when conditions are right for the spores to germinate, usually a cool, wet period. November has produced a show of colourful wax caps. They like short, acid grassland. Look for them especially on the cut verges (short grass) beside the roads and on the Flying field which is cut for hay.
Waxcaps are an important indicator species for unimproved acid grassland which is a scarce habitat. Deeming it to be poor quality land, in the past it was often built on or fertilized to make it more productive. Only 40 years ago the area south of Sheen Wood was fertilized with activated sludge (sewage residue) but as it is now regularly cut for hay it has become an area where waxcaps and other fungi can be seen.
Fungi are an important part of the ecosystem; recycling dead material providing nutrients for the next generation of plants; feeding plants through root connections; providing a place for insects to lay eggs and feed their young.
Take a camera to enjoy finding and recording fungi but please don’t pick them.
The Royal Parks are working on notices to explain why den building is not encouraged. Fungi, lichens, insects and mosses die when the branches are lifted up as the wood dries out. Dry wood is dead wood. Dry logs are also a fire hazard.
Silk wonders
Photo: Nigel Jackman
Autumn and winter bring dew and frost that often conspicuously highlight the magical creations of spiders’ webs. Cob comes from the archaic word coppe meaning spider. Spiders webs have existed for more than a million years although not all spiders spin webs or catch their prey in this way. Spiders produce silk from their spinneret glands located at the tip of their abdomen. They use different gland types to produce different silk thread for a specific purpose such as a trailed safety line, a sticky silk for trapping prey or a fine silk for wrapping it. The accompanying image was taken with a macro setting to capture a close-up of the jewelry-like quality of a dew-soaked web on a sussex fence by the Beverley Brook. Try photographing it yourself.
Heathrow flight paths update – support for “do minimum” grows
Concerns continue to increase over Heathrow’s proposals for new flights paths over Richmond Park as part of the national Airspace Modernisation. In response, there is growing interest in and support for a “Do minimum” option – broadly leaving the flight paths as they are. This option was supported unanimously by the London Assembly a year ago, which also called for no flight paths over the Park.
In November, Sarah Olney (MP for Richmond Park) with Munira Wilson (MP for Twickenham) led an adjournment debate in Parliament, calling on the Transport Minister to make sure that Do Minimum was one of the final system options put to public consultation.
Sarah Olney MP said “I urge the Minister to ensure that residents can choose a “Do Minimum” option. New guidance systems can be integrated, and small amendments to current systems made, but ultimately there should be an option to maintain the paths in a roughly similar location”
Munira Wilson MP said “on airspace modernisation we could still achieve some of the benefits by adopting a “Do Minimum” approach, gaining benefits from modernisation while not coming up with lots of new flight paths and really intensifying noise over certain areas that might not be overflown at the moment.”
Also in November, Richmond Council’s Standing Committee on Heathrow met, chaired by the Deputy Leader Julia Neden-Watts. There was support for Do Minimum. The speakers included Ron Crompton of the Friends who explained the impact on Richmond Park.