Don't say I didn't warn ya!

There it was – gone. Just like the view from Aldersbrook Road, opposite the shops at the Parade, the view from the south side of the Shoulder of Mutton Pond will – I predict – go the same way.

The Shoulder of Mutton PondOn a visit on 21st April 2015 to what I think is one of the nicest locations in Wanstead Park – the south side of the Shoulder of Mutton pond looking across towards Wanstead – I realised just how much willow had grown up along the shore-line. Much more – and it won't take long – and in-leaf, the view will soon be all-but gone.

Scalped through to the soil below - this should be a wildflower meadowContinuing on the theme of disappointments in management, walking along the north side of Heronry Pond – towards the Park-proper with the golf-course to the left – one of the finest bits of grassland in the park has just about gone, too. It used to be quite fine grass – never very high – and with a nice selection of flowering plants that gave colour, and food and breeding habitat to loads of insects including Burnet Moths. Whilst the track was being re-surfaced in 2010 the grass was inevitably used instead by bikes, prams, walkers, dogs and joggers. It still had a chance to recover after the “new” track was re-opened; all it needed was a disincentive log to be strategically placed either end of the area, but although I asked the Forest to do this it didn't happen. They know best, and now they even know it is best to scalp the area into a lawn. I could swear at this point: what the hell do you need a scalped lawn there for? (See here)

Just a few metres further on – on either side of the fence that separates the Park from the Park-lands – all the insect-favoured bramble scrub has been removed. All of it. Just like most has been removed from the other insect-favoured scrub near the top of the Glade, from just behind the Grotto, from what will be the bicycle/pedestrian Roding Valley Way at Whiskers Island, and of course- not scrub but herbs – annually by the east end of Perch Pond. And why was all the scrub and trees removed by Epping Forest Conservation Volunteers from the crater just south of the keeper's lodges. Surely that was only doing harm by acting as a nesting place for birds and a resting place for insects?

An unnecessary path-closure in Chalet WoodOne more. Chalet Wood is looking good right now with its becoming-famous bluebells. I do think the path-edging that I have been suggesting for years has been successful and most people who I speak top agree. There are aspects of the way it has been done that I am not fully happy with – too much scrub has been cut down on the east edge, for example. And since Gill and Alan James and myself – primarily – laid out its pattern in 2014 (see here) others have been in there and changed things a bit. Desire-line paths have been blocked, particularly that which runs between a sward of Wood Anemones. Though this may have been done with the intention of enhancing those delicate flowers, I fear it will have the opposite effect, as the desire to use the path – and indeed to look at the flowers either side of it – may just encourage people to walk over them. There are signs this is already happening.

So – back to the Shoulder of Mutton and its willows. I mention that now like I mentioned the potential problems with Floating Pennywort in Perch Pond and New-Zealand Pygmyweed in Alexandra Lake years ago. Both those issues were ignored, now the problems are extreme. Something could be done about willow encroachment now, perhaps, but if not – well, don't say I didn't warn ya.

Paul Ferris, 22nd April 2015