SONG THRUSH SPECIES ACTION PLAN (Richmond upon Thames)

These pages aim to provide information about the status of song thrush in Richmond, including song thrush sightings borough-wide and details of the best sites to see them. There are many areas where we lack information. If you have song thrushes in your local garden or park then please let us know.

It is intended to display details of local wildlife walks which might be of interest and if your group would like information about your events posting please let me know.

The minutes of the song thrush working group outline the progress on actions contained in the Species Action Plan (SAP) for this bird. The complete document (as well as the other action plans for bats, water vole and stag beetles) is available at: www.kew.org/richmondbio. You can also find out more here about how we could achieve a better deal for the song thrush population in the borough.

Song thrush monitoring

We have undertaken a monitoring exercise of song thrushes in the London Borough of Richmond and have found many locations where they are breeding. See below for fuller information about some of these locations.

Ham Lands 2004, 26 Territories
Ham Lands 2005, 26 Territories
Ham Lands May 2006, 24 territories
Crane Valley 2005, 13 Territories
Richmond Park 2005, 6 Territories
Richmond Park Feb 2006, 1 singing male in the Isabella Plantation
Barnes Common 2005, 6 Territories
East Sheen and Richmond Cemetery 2005 4 Territories
Ham Common Feb 2006, 1 singing male near Ham Gate
London Wetland Centre 2005, Breeding Confirmed, Continental Birds in winter
Platts Eyot 2005, Breeding Confirmed
Normansfield Old Hospital 2005, Breeding Confirmed
Lonsdale Road Res. 2005, Breeding Confirmed
Hampton Church 2005, Breeding Confirmed
Kilmorey Mausoleum 2005, Breeding Confirmed
Kew Records to be supplied
Bushy Park 9-10 territories including the Royal Paddocks Allotments, Hampton Court Park

Find more information about Song Thrushes here.

Important sites for song thrush in Richmond

Platts Eyot

The island known as Platts Eyot is in the western part of the borough abutting Elmbridge. Much of the island is occupied by light industry including boat repair workshops. The island was important for boatbuilding but now is quiet and wooded and inhabitated by song thrushes. The area is of regional importance for bats. Could all this be about to change? See local links page.

Crane Park Nature Reserve

This is an important site for song thrushes as is the whole of the Crane River Corridor. One of our working group recorded 13 song thrush territories along there last year.

Songthrush anvils at small burial grounds

We found song thrush anvils at Grove Chapel Cemetery and Kilmorey Mausoleum (photo). Song thrushes use the headstones at Grove Chapel Cemetery as anvils to break open snail shells. Volunteers at Kilmorey Mausoleum leave pieces of York stone around the site for breeding song thrushes to break open snail shells.

Songthrush anvils elsewhere

There are iron railings along the boundary between Hampton Court Park and Barge Walk. The railings are set on concrete plinths every few metres. Each plinth is an anvil and is covered in snail shells (see photo). Along the riverside at Teddington an old asbestos sheet has been used by a song thrushes as it was found covered in almost 50 broken snail shells.

PROGRAMME OF wALKS

East Sheen Cemetery walks 24.6.05 and 18.8.05.
9 and 11 people respectively convened for evening walks through East Sheen Cemetery. Our main objective was to survey for BAP species particularly the song thrush and afterwards wait for emerging bats.

On the first walk birds were still singing their territories and the first singing bird encountered was a song thrush next to the superintendents house with a further 4 territories heard. 3 juvenile green woodpeckers were seen perching on the same headstone with an adult calling from a nearby tree. Another family group of mistle thrushes took to nearby poplar trees when they saw an unexpected flock of people in their territory. Apart from aerial swifts the only migratory species noted was a black cap although it is late in the season for some migrants to be singing.

As it grew dark a tawny owl flew into a tree adjacent to Grove Road Chapel and quickly out again when it realised it was being observed. The highlight was two roding (male) woodcock associated with an offsite area possibly the common. In all twenty species, representing a wide cross section of the bird community, were observed in a short space of time.

Our first pipistrelle emerged 5 minutes before sunset indicating the proximity of the roost (although low light levels contributed to this early emergence). Noctules were seen feeding later but only in the old part of the cemetery (Richmond Cemetery) which held most of the bat interest. In addition 2 toads, rabbits and a fox were seen.

On our second walk the picture was different with fewer bird species. The only singing birds were the robins that were singing their autumn songs although we had hoots from the owl, yaffles from the green woodpeckers and rasping croaks from the jays. A juvenile song thrush balanced quietly in a tree allowing us to watch it for a few minutes in the fading light. Pipistrelles emerged much later from the Grove chapel nature reserve (12minutes after sunset) and no other bat species were observed.