Last week, on my walk towards work, I caught surprising sight of a pair of stock doves, noddily lolling on a verge outside Sydenham Hill station, and within few minutes this delight was followed by the distant bough-knocking of a great spotted woodpecker, the caws of a flurry of jackdaws, and male blackbirds chasing each other through the roadside gardens.¹  Horse chestnuts had started unfurling their leaves from their mighty sticky buds, and cherry trees were in a full pinking blush, the most spectacular lining two roads in Herne Hill; south London’s very own hanami parade.² 

Over the weekend, the thoughts of impending confinement clashed with the taunt and seduction of bright sky days. Luckily, keeping away from the crowds, in a woodland in south Croydon I caught site of wood anemones in their many thousands; sometimes known as windflowers these delicate 6-petalled ‘stars’ appear to emerge in breezy weather in March, but more notably they swivel to catch the sun’s light and warmth.  Their presence is an indicator of ancient woodland, as they are very slow to colonise new areas, and a testimony to the resilience of nature. 

Also amongst the dappled light from the sky-cracking canopy of oak and sweet chestnut were night-shy gilded clusters of lesser celandine, low-nodding florets of dog-violet, the first peeps of bluebell, and the smokey florescence of dog’s mercury almost unseen for being so green. In weeks these will come to kaleidoscope across the woodland floor, along with wood sorrel, lesser stitchwort, yellow archangel, goldilocks, red campion and hedge woundwort; in my view one of the most thrilling of sights – an ancient woodland in spring, before the leaves burst to cast most of it in shade. 

By this time, mid-May, the resident birds such as sparrowhawk, wren, robin, song thrush, great spotted and green woodpecker, jackdaw, treecreeper, and long-tailed, great, coal and blue tit will have nested, and warblers – chiffchaff, garden warbler blackcap, lesser whitethroat – from southern climes will have found brambly thickets in which to rear their nestlings. And yes, ring-necked parakeets now call this woodland home too, so the dawn chorus is almost a cacophony. I have been coming to this place for over 40 years and it still gives me a thrum in my heart.
 

But I will miss this. For on Monday, as a high-risk patient, I was asked to quarantine myself for 12 weeks. Just prior to that I had taken a quick walk through Mayow Park, in which stand ancient gnarled oaks and much younger hornbeams, my favourite tree species. These were just bursting into leaf; an acidic lime-green flush, against the solid lead-grey bark. Amongst them a flurry of goldfinches barreled through, chirruping on the way, no doubt, to a well-stocked feeder in a neighbouring garden. Wild life out there is brimming with energy, but for now it’s through a window and the sightings of others through social media that I will have to enjoy it as best I can.

I have been involved with London Wildlife Trust for over 30 years, and we’ve coped with the Great and Burns Night storms of 1987 and ’90 (felling over 15 million trees in south-east England), and the BSE and Foot-&-Mouth epidemics of the early 2000s. But this, Covid-19, is unprecedented in its impact to us as people and an organisation.  We will be working as hard as we can to help people maintain their connection with London’s wild environment during these challenging times.  Nature will be okay for a while, but once we are through this pandemic, the work will need to step up again to ensure the magical wildlife of our city flourishes for the future. And that in a year’s time we can all step outside to marvel at the springtime wildflower show. Until then take care and stay safe.

Mathew Frith, Director of Conservation, London Wildlife Trust 
@frithinwood

1. Stock dove numbers are slowly increasing in London, although generally found in the rural fringes, and jackdaws returned to my neighbourhood, Sydenham, in c 2016 (they had last bred in the nearby Dulwich Woods in the 1950s).

2. Hanami is the Japanese custom of enjoying the sight of flower blossom, most typically of cherry (sakura) and plum (ume) trees, of which there are many varieties grown and bred in Britain