Conservation in action
Although summer is very busy on Hampstead Heath, it can actually be a quieter period for conservation work on our green spaces, as during bird nesting season we avoid disturbing wildlife, and the City of London’s Conservation Team are kept busy with tasks like mowing and hay making. With the colder weather, our conservation programme ramps up again, and our volunteers are now back in full swing for the Autumn, carrying out a wide range of practical tasks and habitat management.
Meadow or heathland management, aka brambling!
As any of our volunteers will tell you, the classic Heath Hands task is keeping brambles at bay, so much so that one of our veteran volunteers (aged 90!) got a bramble tattoo recently!
Having a variety of habitats on the Heath is key for biodiversity and one of the plants that needs to be kept from becoming dominant is the humble bramble. These vigorous plants are beneficial to wildlife in their own right but, if left uncontrolled, will take over meadow and heathland sites, turning huge areas into scrubland.
Over the past few weeks, our volunteers have been busy cutting back creeping bramble all over the Heath, for instance protecting meadow habitats in the Parliament Hill area or heathland areas in the Vale of Health, as pictured below. (Vale pictures by C. Blakemore)
Tree protection
If you’ve been out on the Heath, you may have noticed that certain trees are surrounded by ‘dead hedges’, barriers made of branches and other natural materials. These are created to protect particularly vulnerable veteran trees from root compaction, and also to protect any passers by from falling branches. In addition, dead hedges are great habitats for wildlife, so building dead hedges has loads of conservation value.
Our volunteers did a great job recently with the Kenwood Gardens Team creating a new dead hedge around one of the Estate’s boundary oaks - oak trees planted in past centuries to indicate parish boundaries. (Photos below by C. Blakemore)
Habitat restoration
As well as protecting existing habitats, some of our work involves restoring damaged sites, either due to excessive footfall, or due to work or other events. The recent accessibility improvements at the Mixed and Men’s Ponds led to some damage to the surrounding areas and we have been working this year to restore the areas, making improvements for wildlife but also for visitors to the ponds. Our latest session at the mixed pond was particularly soggy - thanks to all our volunteers for getting stuck in despite the weather!
The team planted new pond marginal plants and climbers, as well as some prickly plants to discourage illegal access to the pond over the fence and through the newly planted areas.
Upcoming projects
Over the coming months, we’ll be continuing some of the tasks and projects above, and increasing our work on hedgerow conservation and restoration, mainly around the Parliament Hill area.
Another continuing focus this year wildflower meadows - and we’ll be creating scrapes (scraping away vegetation to sow seeds and let seeds establish), starting new meadows and working to maintain and improve the Heath’s existing wildflower meadows. This work is supported by the many who have donated to our recent wildflower appeal - thanks to all for the support!
