Improving wildlife habitats with Friends of Ham Lands (10 March 18)

Friends of Ham Lands (FoHL) have sessions on the second Saturday of each month where we venture into Ham Lands to clear important sections of it to improve the wildlife habitats.  A focus of this is to keep the grasslands clear of scrub and connected to each other so that butterflies can move between them.

In March we tackled a section quite close to the junction of Riverside Drive and the footpath leading to Teddington Lock.

The map we were working to showed a path from the grasslands to that footpath but it was not very visible on the ground and I could see no sign of it at all from the Teddington footpath end. We had to go into the grasslands, find the path at that end and try and battle our way through.

The picture at the top shows what we started with. The path almost disappears under the twin challenge of brambles on the left and saplings on the right.

We tackled both and as I had some sturdy loppers I chose to tackle the saplings and small trees. The ground was very mossy on the left and I wanted to get more sunlight in there for the grass and, ultimately the butterflies.

The picture on the right shows some of the team in action. Some others were behind me and some of braver ones were beyond that group deep in brambles.

It was a very successful and rewarding session. I took this picture from about where the path disappeared in the top picture looking back to the open grasslands.

We even managed to cut our way through to the Teddington Lock footpath.

Improving wildlife habitats with Friends of Ham Lands

I have been a member of Friends of Ham Lands (FoHL) for several years and most of that time we have been talking about what we want to do with this important nature reserve and it was good to get involved with some direct action.

Ham Lands supports a rich variety of wildlife and at the moment we are concentrating on butterflies and are clearing some of the grassy patches of encroaching scrub.

It was a grey day with the promise of rain but that did not stop a group of us heading out along the main path that follows the river in Ham Lands South.

I should have taken a "before" picture but was so keen to get chopping that I forgot. Above is the "after" picture which shows a clear patch of grass.

We cleared that in about an hour and then we headed down the path in the middle of the picture making sure that it too was free from encroaching scrub and we also cleared a couple of smaller grassy areas.

We had not gone to do a litter pick but we could not ignore the litter in the areas that we wore working in and we filled a good sized bag with cans and bottles some of which had clearly been there a long time.

We worked for a couple of hours before the tiredness and impending rain encouraged us to call it a day. It was a good workout rewarded with a visible improvement to the area.

We will be back doing more work on Saturday 10 March.

Friends of Ham Lands

Ham Lands is the name given to the wild stretch of land between the River Thames and the houses as it sweeps round the long way from Kingston to Richmond. It's a lovely wild area where the presence of man is well hidden and I delight in walking there and taking photos of it for my other blog.

Recent events locally led to the birth of the Friends of Ham Lands (FoHL) which, while I had to muss their inaugural meeting, I've been quick to get involved in via their web site, forum and facebook page. And this week I had the chance to go to a meeting too.

The group having been established at the first meeting the committee was already in place and was sitting formally at the front of the room with the rest of us facing them lecture room style. This was no real surprise but it was hardly the best arrangement to encourage participation and involvement.

There was an agenda and we may even have followed it at times, e.g. I recall a Treasurer's report to account for the £100 or so spent to date, but we spent most of the evening discussing the committee's pet topics, which seemed to focus on getting rid of undesirables from the area. This was not a Ham Lands that I recognised as in my many years of walking through the wilder and more secluded places I have never had any trouble of any sort.

There was also a lot of enthusiasm for signs to tell you where you are, i.e. to label the different sections of Ham Lands, in case you needed to phone the police to report these undesirables. This struck me as a very last century solution as the easiest way to find out where you are these days is to ask your phone.

That said, I do like the idea of useful maps that show you were to find the different flora and fauna that take advantage of the wilderness.

On balance, the meeting was just about OK and I felt that some gentle nudging could get them to take a structured and informed approach to making changes. This is what I get paid to do at work after all.

But the real highlight of the evening was going to the Ham Brewery Tap afterwards. I had heard rumours from several sources of it's recent rise to respectability after its years of notoriety and they proved to be true. It is now a cosy locals pub that sells a decent pint of Young's Ordinary and I am one local who'll be going back there soon.