As ever, August has been a busy month. The ZSL London HogWatch survey concluded with the collection of 30 wildlife cameras from across Barnes Common. You can help identify the animals captured by classifying the images here.

The Beverley Brook continues to return very high E. coli readings. Meanwhile, local volunteers are doing a brilliant job of monitoring ammonia and phosphate along a 1.25 km stretch of the Brook around Palewell, focusing on known polluting outfalls. The results are shared with the Environment Agency and Thames Water to help support action to address these sources of pollution. You can explore the data here.

We have also been out conservation mowing our meadows. The cut and remove process helps reduce the build-up of nutrients preventing them from becoming dominated by coarse grasses and helping wildflowers to thrive. Areas of each meadow have been retained for overwintering insects and small mammals. In the absence of grazing animals, this varied mowing pattern creates a mosaic of different sward heights, mimicking some of the effects of natural grazing.

Finally volunteers and staff have been completing mapping of the Common’s acid grassland habitats and their characteristic plant species, but more on that next month!