Big Garden Birdwatch
It's that time of year again - the Royal Society for Protection
Bird's (RSPB’s) Big Garden Birdwatch is taking place on the 28 and
29 January 2012. People all over the country are encouraged
to spend an hour in their garden or a local green space to
record all the birds that they see. This year we are
encouraging you to visit a City Garden or Open space near you
and help us monitor the birds visiting these places.
You don’t have to be an expert bird watcher to take part, all
you need is a pen, some scrap paper
(or download a printed out handy bird ID
sheet PDF, 256kb)) and an hour to spend watching the birds
in your local green space on either Saturday 28, or Sunday 29
January 2012. Simply make a note of the highest number of
each bird species seen on the ground (not flying over) at any
one time, and then submit your results on the RSPB’s
website.
Alternatively if you would like to volunteer and take part in
the City’s organised survey with members of the City Gardens Team
helping you identify the birds, which takes place on Saturday 28
January at 9am, please contact Leanne at the City Gardens team on
020 7374 4127. For more information about the RSPB’s Big
Garden Birdwatch visit www.rspb.org.uk/birdwatch
Festival Gardens update
You may have seen some major works happening at Festival Gardens
recently. These works are being carried out to improve
accessibility to the green space by introducing sloped lawn access
as well as new planting to this improve this space for all that
visit it.
As part of the works the large Catalpa ‘Indian Bean’ tree next
to the gardens is to be removed. The mature tree has sustained
damage over the years from weather wear and tear resulting in
the loss of a number of large branches. These losses have exposed
the main tree trunk to decay, weakening the trees central support
and the largest remaining tree branch is causing increasing
pressure on the tree's weakening trunk.
The City Gardens department have had the tree inspected by
expert tree specialists who have said that the tree will pose a
health and safety risk in the near future. In light of the advice
received from the tree specialists and having explored different
options to prune back the tree, the City Gardens department will
sadly be removing the tree this autumn.
However, as part of the City’s scheme of tree renewals there are
plans to replant the area with an avenue of smaller spring
flowering trees, which will enhance this well-used walkway for
pedestrians.
For queries or more information, please
contact the City Gardens team.
Green Garden Lunchtimes Mon 27 June - Fri 1 July 2011
With summer just around the corner, make sure you keep your
lunchtimes free in the week Monday 27 June - Friday 1 July to enjoy
the beautiful green space at Bunhill Fields with a drop-in talk or
workshop every day between 12.30 -1.30pm
Following the success of last year's Green Garden Lunchtimes
event these drop-in talks and workshops will again be
along the 'green' themes of wildlife, healthy lifestyles
and sustainability, all set amongst the stunning and
unique City Garden of Bunhill Fields.
Monday 27 June - Free drop-in Tai Chi class provided by Mei
Quan Academy
Tuesday 28 June - Free bike maintenance and repair checks by
Look Mum No Hands!
Wednesday 29 June - Meet 12.30pm at the gardeners hut for a
history tour of Bunhill Fields by the City Guides (£5)
Thursday 30 June - Free drop-in yoga class from The Yoga
Place
Friday 1 July - Free talk from the Natural History Museum about
urban wildlife and biodiversity, plus free drop-in advice and
treatments from various qualified experienced practitioners in
reiki, yoga, massage, chiropody and osteopathy from the
Wren Clinic.
All workshops are between 12.30pm and 1.30pm each weekday
lunchtime. Bunhill Fields is easily accessible from
Old Street and Moorgate tubes. No need to book, all are
welcome to turn up on the day. For more information please
contact
parks.gardens@cityoflondon.gov.uk
RSPB Big Garden Bird Watch - January 2011
On Saturday 22 and Sunday 23 January the RSPB's annual 'Big
Garden Bird Watch' went ahead again in various gardens throughout
the Square MIle. The count is a once a year snapshot of the
maximum number of birds of each species that can be counted in one
hour. This is the fourth year that volunteers have
counted City birds in this way.
The morning was a great success with over 30 attendees including
both the Mayor's 1st City of London Scout Group, local residents
and volunteers, who helped to survey the various bird wildlife
across the City Gardens. The volunteers met at Bunhill Fields
Burial Ground to do the first bird watch, then moved on to St.
Paul’s Cathedral Gardens, Postman’s Park , Finsbury Circus and
Cleary Garden amongst others.
The overall results were good, with the total number of birds
counted remaining the same as last year at 100 individuals.
However, the number of different species spotted did decline from
18 to 15 and there was a noticeable absence of small birds such as
wrens, house sparrows and robins. This may be due to the recent
severe winter.
Blue tits replaced the Blackbird at the number one spot -
this is following the introduction of more nest boxes throughout
the City Gardens, with the Blue Tits already exhibiting breeding
behaviour and checking out potential nesting sites. It was
also great to see some of the City's elusive Starlings. This
is the first time Starlings have been spotted in the history of the
Big Garden Bird Watch in the City Gardens. A good place to
spot these, as well as Greenfinches, is Cleary Garden just off
Great Victoria Street.
The results were collated and submitted to the RSPB following
the event to help monitor bird species and numbers across the
UK. For more information or the full results please
contact
parks.gardens@cityoflondon.gov.uk
Green Garden Lunchtimes
Photography, Tai-Chi, gardening, history, wildilfe and cycling
workshops all came to Bunhill Fields in the City of London for the
first ever 'Green Garden Lunchtimes' in September 2010.
Every lunchtime had a different 'green' theme aimed at
encouraging people to enjoy green space in the City of London
whilst also promoting local businesses, enhancing knowledge of
London's wildlife, promoting sustainable transport and healthy
living, and increasing local awareness of the history of the City
Gardens.
The successful Green Garden Lunchtimes events were held in the
grassed area of the beautiful Bunhill Fields Burial Ground off City
Road every lunchtime from 12.30-1.30 in the week of 20 - 24
September. The events went ahead outdoors in both sun and
rain, and formed a successful week of interesting and educational
events for both workers on their lunchbreak, local residents and
other visitors.
Thanks go to the partner organisations delivering the
event; London Independent Photography, 'Look Mum No
Hands!' bike workshop, City Guides, Mei Quan School of Taiji, and
the London Wildlife Trust.
For further details the
Green Garden Lunchtimes poster available for
download here (176kb)
Beyond the Hive Competition 2010 creates a buzz
The City Gardens recently teamed up with partners British Land
to create an exciting architectural competition called ’Beyond the
Hive’, which celebrates 2010 being the International Year of
Biodiversity.
The competition has been a great success, bringing together the
skills of the property sector, ecologists and landscape architects
to design and build luxury accommodation for key insect and
invertebrate species in the City. The design brief asked for
proposals for ecologically sustainable and creative insect habitats
in the form of ‘Insect Hotels’.
The entries were fantastic, and have resulted in five finalist
‘Insect Hotels’ being built in June and which can still be seen in
public gardens around the City. The five finalists and their
locations are as follows:
- Bunhill Fields – ‘InnVertibrate’ by ORTLOS
Space Engineering and Metalanguage Design.
- West Smithfield – ‘The Bumblebee City Nesters’
by Fisher Tomlin (Professional Garden Designers &
Landscapers).
- Postman’s Park – ‘Brookfield Bug Buddies’ by
Brookfield Europe in collaboration with consultants Arup, DP9,
Hilson Moran Partnership and Sir John Cass’s Foundation
school.
- St Dunstan’s in the East - ‘The Insect Hotel’
by Arup Associates.
- Cleary Garden – ‘Beevarian Antsel and Gretal
Chalet’ by the organisation ‘German Women in Property’.
From those shortlisted two winners were selected, one from the
online public vote, and the other from a panel of expert
judges.
The judges included Paul Finch (Chairman of CABE, Programme
Director of the World Architecture Festival, and editor of emeritus
of Architectural Review and Architects’ Journal), Sarah Henshall
(Brownfield Officer, Buglife), Adrian Penfold (Head of Planning
& Environment, British Land), Graham Stirk (Senior Director,
Roger Stirk Harbour & Partners), and Peter Wynne Rees (The City
Planning Officer, City of London).
The finalists were assessed by the judges on architectural design,
environmental responsibility and community involvement. The winner
of the judges’ vote was ‘The Insect Hotel’, located at St Dunstan’s
in the East, by Arup Associates.
The façade of ‘The Insect Hotel’ consists of a series of
compartments based on a Voronoi pattern. This pattern is found in
the natural world, as in the rib structure of a dragonfly’s wing,
and bears a close resemblance to honeycomb. The ‘compartments’
created by the pattern contain a variety of recycled waste
materials and deadfall loosely inserted into the voids. The
structure thereby caters for the needs of stag beetles, solitary
bees, spiders, lacewings and ladybirds, with the sides of the hotel
also accessible for butterflies and moths. The top of this insect
hotel is suitable for absorbing rainwater via planting.
The winner of the public vote online was the ‘Beevarian Antsel and
Gretal Chalet’, at Cleary Garden, by the organisation German Women
in Property. . This insect hotel is based on a traditional Bavarian
mountain chalet, and features reclaimed bricks to attract solitary
bees, rotten logs for invertebrates, louvered boxes filled with
bark for hibernating butterflies, a log drilled with holes for
ladybirds and eaves filled with bamboo for lacewings.
An awards ceremony was held on 1July 2010 at Bunhill Fields to
award ‘Golden Beetle’ trophies to the two winners.
For details of where to see all five of these unique insect
hotel finalists and a walk linking them all, you can download the
‘Insect Hotel Crawl’ brochure via the link below:
Download the Insect Hotel Crawl
here (312kb)
For further information and details please visit
www.britishland.com/beyondthehive
New Playgrounds for the City
Work is currently underway by the City’s Play Partnership to
build two new playgrounds in the City, one at Tower Hill Gardens
and another at King George’s Field, also known as Portsoken Street
Garden.
The new City playgrounds seek to deliver objectives set out in
the recent Play and Open Space Strategies. Consultation
exercises carried out for these strategies identified that local
residents wanted more areas for their children to play in within
the City. Funding was provided by Government Department for
Children, Schools and Families' 'Playbuilder’ project.
An emphasis has been placed on introducing natural play to both
areas by including plants, mounding of the lawn areas and using
natural materials. The play equipment being installed includes a
bouncing flower, rotating disc, hut and slide (at Tower Hill
Garden) along with jumping discs, balancing blocks and wind pipes
(at Portsoken Street). Both gardens will be open from the
28 April 2010.
Guided tours
An alternative way to discover the joys of the gardens'
histories and appreciate the wide range of planting, some of which
is very unusual, is to join a walk with the
City of London Guides, who are trained in the history and
horticulture of the gardens.
Walking tours around the City Gardens take place on
Saturdays and Sundays, from April until the end of
October 2011. Meet at the Information Centre, St Paul's
Churchyard at 1.30 pm, there is no need to book. The cost for
the walk is £6 per person with concessions at the Guide's
discretion. The walks generally last around two hours
Tours are also available around Bunhill Fields Burial Ground.
Although outside the City boundary it is owned and managed by the
City of London. Walks will be taking
place from April to October 2011 on
Wednesdays at 12.30pm, beginning at the gardeners hut. The cost of
the walk is £6 per person.
If you have a large group, would prefer to arrange a walk at a
different time of year or day please
contact the City
Gardens Office to make arrangements.