Coridon

You could argue that the Great North Wood is no longer great, was never in the north, and is barely a wood anymore. But that would be to do it a disservice. The Great North Wood is a large area (over 50km2) of south London stretching from Selhurst in the south to Deptford near the Thames in the north. It got its name from the woodland that lay to the north of the large ecclesiastical town of Croydon. Modern-day Dulwich Woods (source: Wikipedia) Throughout the Middle Ages it had a history of strong ownership by local people and was managed for timber (including shipbuilding), charcoal, tannin (for the Bermondsey leather making industries) and firewood. The Industrial Revolution and the Enclosure Acts from the late 18th Century led to the Great North Wood losing its economic validity, and much of it was partitioned and sold off for housing development. This landscape straddles five current London boroughs - Bromley, Croydon, Lewisham, Southwark and Lambeth. Now, t

Spring butterflies in south London London is viewed by many as a wildlife desert, but this is far from the truth. In fact, there is wildlife right under our noses, if we only care to look. During March and April 2017, I made visits to green spaces in Lambeth, Southwark and Wandsworth - all densely populated inner London boroughs. Some of these sites - like Stave Hill Ecological Park in Rotherhithe, Nunhead Cemetery near Peckham and Battersea Park are Local Nature Reserves. Others, like Burgess Park in Southwark, are "ordinary" urban parks. I was able to identify 11 species of butterfly in March - Comma, Brimstone, Green-veined White, Small White, Large White, Orange Tip, Speckled Wood, Holly Blue, Red Admiral, Peacock and Small Tortoiseshell.  In fact the commonest butterfly across these sites in March was the Comma Polygonia c-album , which is having a good year.  And the Holly Blue Celastrina argiolus could be seen almost anywhere where there was ivy gr

The controversy over the effect of pesticides on bees and other insects has been rumbling along for years. This is especially the case for neonicotinoids - or “neonics” - which are sold under trade names including  acetamiprid, clothianidin, imidacloprid, thiacloprid and thiamethoxam. Imidacloprid is the most widely used insecticide in the world; you will even find it in anti-flea treatments for domestic cats. These are powerful neurotoxins, synthetic variants on nicotine, that are applied to wheat and oilseed rape seeds before sowing. Neonics work systemically. As the plant grows, it absorbs the seed coating through its roots and the chemical spreads throughout the plant, protecting it from pests. But this also means that the toxins get into the pollen and nectar of flowering crops. This concern led to the EU banning the use of neonics on flowering crops from December 2013. However, in a pre-Brexit move, Liz Truss, then Secretary of State for the Environment, overturned this ban