FOBP AGM Tues 5 November 7-8.30pm at 1st Place nursery, Chumleigh Gardens, refreshments from 6.30pm. Or online Zoom. Liam Nash the borough ecologist will be speaking. Faraday SNT invited (TBC). See Liam’s presentation.
At this meeting FOBP will update about what we have done this year. We also appoint a new committee. Anyone who uses Burgess Park can be on the committee. We meet monthly. We also organise our activity through sub-groups; woodlands/nature, planning, heritage and park buildings. FOBP are volunteers, we are not funded and fundraise for projects.
Join our woodlands maintenance session Sat 27 Jan 11.00 to 3.30 we will be clearing brambles and coppicing to enhance the woodland glade in the Albany Road woodlands. Please book here.
This volunteer woodlands maintenance is the first phase of the works to open-up the woodland glades by coppicing and bramble removal. Southwark Council will organise this volunteer work session.
The second phase will be run by Big City Butterfly Project, who will employ a contractor to; de-turf, remove roots and sow the area with a meadow mix within the glade which we will create.
This is part of the Friends of Burgess Park healthy woodlands project. We have also been awarded funding from the Southwark Council Cleaner Greener Safer fund for a new pathway. Find out more about Burgess Park woodlands.
Celebrate the Grade II listed building and it’s benefactor Passmore Edwards.
This year marks the 200th anniversary of Passmore Edwards’ birth on 24th March 1823, and Friends of Burgess Park is joining with others around the UK to celebrate the Passmore Edwards 200 Festival. We’ll be holding a programme of events based at the old library, baths and washhouse on Wells Way on Sunday 26th March. There’s an exhibition about the man and his legacy, children’s activities, a commemorative tree-planting, and a reading by local author Jacqueline Crooks from her new book, refreshments and more.
Bike Tour 2-4pm We’ve also organised a short Bike Tour around three of Passmore Edwards’ south London buildings, guided by a renowned local architect. You can book now for the bike tour 2pm to 4pm on Eventbrite – places are limited to 25, so book early!
Commemorative Tree Planting 4.00- 4.30pm- Across the country Rowan trees are being planted to celebrate the Passmore Edwards bicentenary, join us from 4pm for the tree planting and reading by local author Jacqueline Crooks from her new book Fire Rush, and refreshments.
Exhibition 1-5.30pm – Find out more about Passmore Edwards with an exhibition on loan from the Passmore Edwards legacy. Plus more about the old library bath and washhouse building its history and future role benefitting local people.
Join us on the following dates: Saturdays – Jan 28th / 11 Feb / 28th Feb and 11 March 11-2pm All welcome, dress for the weather and woodland work. Booking fee will be reimbursed on attendance. Book here Burgess Park Woodland Maintenance | Eventbrite Booking fee reimbursed on attendance.
Michael Faraday primary school art work for anti-litter banners Thank you Year 3 pupils (summer 2022) and for helping litterpic. See the banners in Albany Road near Giraffe House and Wells Way near the old library.
FOBP weekly litterpic Every Monday morning 8am to 9am
FOBP provide litterpics, gloves and bags.
Meet at Chumleigh Gardens – in the gardens behind the behind the cafe.
Thank you Southwark Mayor Cllr Barrie Hargrove for the 2022 Discretionary Award for Friends of Burgess Park’s “ongoing & successful commitment … thinking of the park’s welfare first and foremost”. Massive thanks to all our volunteers, past, present, & more importantly, future ones. Join us!
Highly Commended Our woodlands campaign to protect Southampton Way woodlands against development pressure is highly commended London Urban Forest Award at the London Tree and Woodland Awards 2022. Thanks to all local groups and park users who have supported us.
Writing this in January 2022 the focus of birding interest centres around the lake at Burgess Park. Geese, gulls and cormorants increase their numbers at this time of year as they battle to survive the natural elements and human impositions before the high energy sapping spring arrives. Spring, when the days are longer, spring, when optimism fills the air, spring, when not just the lake but the whole park resonates to the natural sounds and movements of birds. Spring is when the lifestage focus shifts from one of survival to breeding; finding territories, finding partners, building nests, laying eggs and having kids…………well chicks. With this in mind and the short winter days and long nights providing an opportune mental space for human reflection it `s appropriate to mull over and review the multitude of bird highlights that over the 2021 seasons Burgess provided.
Mediterranean
Gull Josep
del Hoyo Macaulay Library
Goldeneye Dorian
Anderson Macaulay Library
Eighty five species were seen across the year by twenty two
observers who provided hundreds of important records of these sightings. There
were twelve different long distant spring migrants recorded, either staying for
a few days, using the park as a feeding stepping stone or remaining until
summer to breed, nine different species of warbler, seven different species of
gulls, five different species of birds of prey, two different flycatchers and a
partridge in a pear tree………..ahem, not really, but a pheasant was indeed seen!
Common
Redstart
K. Al Dhaheri Macaulay Library
Spotted
Flycatcher S.
Sawant Macaulay Library
However these numbers are pretty, lifeless and unemotive without
context. For the true importance of Burgess Park as an avian hotspot and green
performer to be understood we should compare these figures and the interest
that they have engendered to other green spaces. Eighty five is a tick list
that would be expected in more `wilder` and `natural` areas or rural arcadian
idylls not in an urban park, indeed in these traditionally more cosmeticized
environments forty to fifty species would be a more likely expectation. Neither
are these numbers just birders ticks in a little black book or competitive
markers but more importantly denote what can be achieved in urban green spaces
at a time when 67% of the UK`s bird species are deemed of conservation concern.
These heartening results do not come by chance. Burgess Park
has locational advantages; it is not far from Thames and is characterised by
superb vistas which allows birds sightlines of the lake and green areas. But it
is the considered management and provision of various habitats which are the
key factors in attracting the abundance and diversity of birds, ……scrub, long grass, wild flower meadows, richly
planted gardens and ofcourse the important water feature. It is no surprise
that many of the rarer species encountered were found in the less sterile
environments, environments which we have been institutionalized to believe as
rough and unkempt. These pejorative terms mask the positives, we should be
thinking rich, diverse and life affirming. Scrub is good is the mantra.
For these birds, several of which are long distance migrants,
wintering south of the Sahara, to continue to be attracted, these habitats need
to be retained and maintained by diligent management and hard work. Management
that does not have dominion but understands that nature is at the apex of importance
of any green space.
If anyone would like to take part in citizen science by
recording bird sightings, the references below should help and if a full annual
bird list is required check out this link:
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