Sussex Scrapbook
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Wildlife walks throughout the year
Saturday 14th January 2006
Richmond park
We took the 10am train from Crawley to Richmond Park
in London to explore it and see if we could spot any Red Deer.
The park is huge and is full of very old oak trees and the policy is to leave the
trees
to rot when they die. As a consequence there are many gnarled and hollow ones.
This gives the place a real character that you should try to check out for
yourself.
As well as the Red and Fallow deer, we saw a Bullfinch, Long-tailed, Blue and Great
Tits, Green Woodpeckers, Goldfinches, Jays, a Song Thrush as well as many
Ring-necked Parakeets. The latter are birds that are descended from escaped pets and they
seem to have made the park their own. Although they are undoubtedly very pretty,
they make a hell of a noise.
On the lakes (Pen Ponds) we saw Cormorants, Herons, Tufted Ducks, Great-crested
Grebes, Red crested Pochard, Gadwalls and some Egyptian Geese.
The red deer were great, there must have been about 100 in all and they allowed
us to get really close. There was an even larger number of fallow deer.
If you want to get to Richmond from Crawley by train, then take the London train
as far as Clapham Common and then change to the train heading for Reading. This
will take you through Barnes (where there is a wildfowl place that is well worth
visiting also) and onto Richmond. It will take about an hour for the whole trip.
Here's a map of the
park. Not too easy to make out I'm afraid. From top to bottom it is about
3 miles, so a walk round the whole park is a full blown hike.
Parts of the park are
covered in rhododendrons and are fenced off to keep the deer out.
Most of it is open
heathland with ponds and grasses that provide cover for nesting birds.
From
march to June all dogs must be on leads to stop them from disturbing the birds.
There are also many
woody areas inhabited by parakeets and woodpeckers.
There are fantastic old
trees all over the park and they're homes for all kinds of birds, bats and many
species of insects.
There have
been over 1000 species of beetle found in the park.
Plenty of places to stay
in the park.
The best place in the
country for getting close to Red Deer. This would not be possible in Scotland.
There are also many
fallow deer in the park, and because of my use of the flash, they all came out
looking like aliens!