Annual Bat Walk at Chiswick House & Gardens (for WildChiswick Members only)
We are delighted to work with Chiswick House & Gardens along with London Bat Group to hold our joint annual bat walk along the lake within the grounds of the house.
This will take place on 24th September, 6.45pm until 8.30pm. We have always enjoyed spectacular views of bats during these walks. There are limited spaces, so first come, first served. We will hold a waiting list. There is a fee of £10 per person with the proceeds going towards our work at WildChiswick and London Bat Group.
Email – hello@wildchiswick.com to book a space. We will require payment before hand (bank details will be supplied) with refunds being given if the walk is cancelled due to bad weather.
Wildlife Allotment
Thanks to Hounslow Council and Chiswick Horticultural and Allotment Society, we now have a new large area added to the wildlife allotment. We have already hosted children from Chiswick School and Belmont School who have helped with the weeding and planting of herbs. There will be a butterfly bank and a bee bank, along with a lovely herb garden planted to attract pollinators. We are busy planting scented climbers to attract night insects for bats. It has been a difficult year with the weather and four of us have been very busy trying to keep everything alive! We could do with more volunteers, please read the section coming up below.
Grant & Sponsorship to help us along – a big thank you.
We were extremely greatful to receive a grant from Chiswick Horticultural and Allotment Society and National Philanthropic Trust (UK). This has enabled to to buy more drill bits and signage for hedgehog highways. Plants for the new section of the allotment have also been purchased and we are hoping to buy some hedging for this new area come the Autumn.
We received a sponsoship from Whitman & Co Estate Agents earlier this year. This enabled us to hold educational and fun projects for children. We took part in the Chiswick House & Gardens Nature afternoon, Boston Manor Park Nature Afternoon, held a hedgehog afternoon event at Gunnersbury Triangle Tennis Club and visited St Nicholas Church Sunday School where we spoke about hedgehogs and made clay hedgehogs and masks. At Grove Park School we went of a bug hunt and made butterfly masks, whilst at Belmont Primary Jo read Snout’s First Trip Out, made hedgehog masks with the younger children and held a hedgehog assembly.
National Hedgehog Monitoring Survey
We did it again! Thanks to ZSL London Hogwatch, volunteers, local homeowners, the Tennis Club and Chiswick Allotment and Horticultural Society, we have taken part in the national hedgehog monitoring survey run by People’s Trust of Endangered Species and the British Hedgehog Preservation Society. The continued monitoring of hedgehogs across the UK will give us a good representation of where hedgehogs can, and can’t be found. From this, specialists can establish what habitats to protect and where. Additional habitats and green corridors can then be created to link up hedgehog populations. It is well worth taking part in this research and we thank everyone who participated. Now we await the results! This can take a while, so bear with us and ZSL for the next couple of months.
Speaking of Hedgehogs …
We were delighted – and admittedly, somewhat surprised – to find there are hedgehogs around the Dukes Meadow area of Chiswick. Why were we surprised? We have never seen a hedgehog on camera in this area before nor had any reports of sightings. We did know of one on the Chertsey Road Allotments and thought “Mr Chertsey” was the only hedgehog to be sighted in this area.
This means two things:
It is really important that we keep green spaces such as the allotments and other wild areas of scrub and bramble in place so there are wildlife corridors for these hedgehogs to travel and meet each other as well as enable them to utilise a range of suitable habitats. Remember, hedgehogs travel over a mile every night. It is important that we do not leave “habitat islands” where hedgehogs cannot mix with other groups, creating population inbreeding.
We need to encourage people to keep gardens across Dukes Meadow area as green as possible and provide hedgehog highways. We must keep campaigning to make people aware of what hedgehogs need to survive and encourage action to help our hedgehog populations.
Chiswick Nature Survey
Without our Nature Survey, we would not have heard about the hedgehogs around Dukes Meadow area. We would not know about places where kestrels are breeding or have information of new spots where stag beetles frequent.
This survey is run in collaboration with Greenspace information for Greater London and all recordings go into their database, which is used by ecologists and Hounslow Council when making decisions about planning applications and nature recovery planning.
It is really important for us to record as many wildlife sightings as possible! It we don’t know where species are, we cannot protect habitats. Please start recording on: www.wildchiswick.com/naturesurvey. There is a competition running until the end of the month with a prize for the person with the most sightings recorded. This will be given at the CHAS Autumn Show on 14th September. Please do keep recording beyond the end of August, this survey will be open for many months to come!
Volunteers
We need volunteers otherwise we cannot continue the work we do. We are very grateful for those who do help out, whether it is with events, on the wildlife allotment, monitoring swifts or drilling hedgehog holes.
Please let us know if you can volunteer. A form can be filled out on https://wildchiswick.com/volunteering/.
We are specifically looking for someone who is willing to volunteer and help out with our hedgehog highways project. This will include helping organise leafleting and/or small local events. It will also include managing emails coming in from prospective householders and organising drill dates for our hedgehog highway drilling team. It is an admin. role and does not require alot of physical work. It will need someone who is good with email, spreadsheets and organisation. email jo@wildchiswick.com if this is something you would like to do with us.
Snout Books – the new Snout book is in print!
Some of you will know that Jo Gilbert, our Founder and Chair has written a children’s book called Snout’s First Trip Out. To complement that story, Jo has written Snout 2 – Snout’s First Friend. Both books are beautifully illustrated by Izy Bean and the stories are educational containing hints about how to make greenspaces and gardens friendly for hedgehogs and other wildlife. Snout’s First Friend is being printed and will be available for ordering in September. If you wish to order one of the first books, there are still a few available and can be ordered via www.friendsofsnout.com. Each book is £6.99 plus postage and packaging. WildChiswick receives £2.00 for each book sold.
Both books will be on sale at the Abundance London Apple Day, 6th September, 11am-3pm at the Chiswick Library. Fresh squeezed apple juice, seeds swap and many more activites including more hedgehog mask making with us!
Karen Liebreich, Abundance London will be launching her new book – Chiswick Fruit Timeline on this day. It is a well researched a beautifully illustrated book.
Donations
Please donate if you can. We need funding to keep us going. Many thanks to those of you that donate!