The Unexpected Beauty of Croydon

I used to work near the Beddington Farmlands site and it wasn't the most popular neighbour among my colleagues but I found it fascinating. I got some glimpses of wildlife through the fencing - families of foxes and birds including little egrets, shovelers and teal (ducks).  Fox at the Beddington Lane side of the Farmlands, May 2012 From the Hackbridge end, with my camera at full zoom I was able to spot wetland birds like shoveler ducks and lapwings. Lapwings and shovelers, March 2014 Although technically in the borough of Sutton, Beddington Farmlands has been an important site for Croydon for over 160 years. The sewage works here originated as a sewage processing site for the Croydon Board of Health and it still plays a big part in our sewage and waste disposal services. It's also close to Croydon - there are views of the town centre and Purley Way area from the new bird hides installed a couple of years ago. Ikea towers and new buildings in Croydon town centre, Nov 2020 The va...

As somebody who likes exploring different outdoor places, when we got locked down last year I realised I needed to do something to keep life interesting with the new restrictions. I decided it was time to search out places locally that I had overlooked in the past. One type of open space that I found was still quite quiet was churchyards. The quiet and the long-established trees make them good birdwatching sites.  Jay at St Peter's Church, South Croydon I have discovered that while there are a lot of churches in Croydon of varying ages, relatively few of them have graveyards. Some disused graveyards have been converted into public gardens, with the gravestones moved to the edges or used to create walls. St John's Memorial Garden, Croydon Minster In Croydon, the Minster graveyard was converted into a public memorial garden in 1956, in memory of those lost in World War II. There are still some gravestones along one side of the church, plus a war memorial. There's also some gr...

We are surrounded by wildlife, even in large urban areas. Some species have adapted particularly well to living among humans, but not all of them are loved for it. I am going to write a bit about some of these species, starting with rose-ringed or ring-necked parakeets. The photo above was taken at Park Hill in March 2020. Male rose-ringed parakeet, Nottingham, Oct 2019 Back in 2019, I spent a few days in Nottingham and visited the Arboretum, a park close to the city centre which has some aviaries containing exotic birds. I was amused to see and hear a bird in one of the aviaries that I'm used to encountering in the wild almost daily. Parakeets, South Croydon, May 2020 I remember as a child, visiting somewhere in South West London, flocks of parakeets in the trees being pointed out to me. They had been in a few specific areas for decades. There are various theories about how these bright green birds from India got to be living in the wild here.  Parakeets, South Croydon, May 2020 T...

If I was to compile a list of the most beautiful places in Croydon, Coombe Wood would undoubtedly be close to the top. It's an obvious choice to those who know it, but not everyone knows it's there - I lived nearby for a number of years before I first visited. Water flows gently down the rockery through a series of small pools, into the tranquil fish pond, where large carp and smaller fish swim among lily pads.  Formal flower beds display colourful flowers throughout the year, including a winter garden with heather.  In the woods, there are bright flowers on the rhododendrons and azaleas in spring and summer.  Bleeding-heart plant If you're a plant novice, I'd recommend installing an app such as Pl@ntnet on your phone which can help identify species using photos, as there are quite a lot of unusual and intriguing species to see. The bleeding-heart plant above is located near the end of the flowerbed to the left of the long lawn and is one of my favourites found there. Y...