New Year Resolution

Last summer I made up up this blog page, but never added any posts, so my New Year resolution is to get it going. Please exscuse any 'newbie' errors that I may make. I have two local patches that I frequent. Lake Farm in Hayes, Middlesex, and Cranford Park in Cranford (obviously). Both sites are quite different in their make up.

Lake Farm is a large open space, around 60 acres in size. It is a prime nesting site for Skylarks, Whitethroats, Sparrowhawk and Kestrel. There are large areas of long grass kept that way to encourage the Skylarks to breed. The one and only statue at the north end of the park, is of a Skylark. Back in July 2012 Lake Farm played host to a stunning Red-backed Shrike for 13 days, and attracted twitchers from miles away.

Cranford Park is a more historical site. There is ancient woodland, a small medieval church and cemetrey, boggy areas to the back, the river Crane runs down one boundary and there is a large area of council-controlled green grass land. Here Great Spotted Woodpeckers and Green Woodpeckers flourish, along with other woodland birds. It was here last year that myself and the Park Warden found and rescued a kestrel chick that had fallen/been pushed from its nest. We also discovered a family of Little Owls in 2012. Lake Farm is currently under threat from developers, who want to build a new school on the northern tip of the site. Links are below for anyone wanting to sign a petition or follow the news on Twitter or Facebook. http://keepbotwellcommon.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/council-is-planning-to-build-new.html?spref=fb