Earlier this year, I was proud to join forces with the Wren Wildlife and Conservation Group to launch a campaign to protect the closest skylark nesting site to London.
Skylarks are ground-nesting birds and therefore they are exposed to disturbance from people and animals. As such, for the past few years, conservation fencing has been erected around a section of Wanstead Flats to try and keep, humans ,dogs and predators away from the birds during their nesting season.
This year, we thought it was important to celebrate the end of the nesting season and to work with local volunteers to remove the fencing and re-open the site now that the birds and the chicks have fully fledged.
Educating people about why we make the decisions we do is really important. Epping Forest is seen by many as ‘The People’s Forest’ and some have resisted any form of enclosure which stops them doing whatever they want to do. Thankfully, this is a small minority, but it can have serious consequences for our natural environment and the wildlife our team at Epping Forest are working hard to protect.
By partnering with organisations, such as the Wren Group and the Royal Society for the Protection of Bird, we can change mindsets. So this week we have hosted a wonderful community event on Wanstead Flats. The City of London Corporation’s Outdoor Learning team were working with young visitors to make their own skylark nests and teaching them how to fly kites, whilst the adults were offered walking tours of Wanstead Flats to learn about the vast array of wildlife this Site of Special Scientific Interest is home to.
It is our intention to re-install the fencing again in February until the end of August in this small section of Wanstead Flats and we will consider lessons learnt from this years exercise to further improve the output of this important conservation exercise.
