30 -MINUTE BIRDER
Amanda Tuke visited London’s newest park, and discovered the importance of leaving a legacy…
I’ve always thought that, once you’ve started a bird list of any sort, you’ve crossed a line between being a person who watches birds and a fully-fledged birdwatcher. So far, so good. But what about all that valuable data in your notebook or spreadsheet? Wouldn’t it be nice to think it was of some use to science? I was first inspired to submit my own bird lists after meeting Margaret Boyd and Dr Africa Gomez in Hull back in March (Bird Watching, May 2023). With their encouragement, I proudly submitted my first record on BTO’s BirdTrack phone app, and started using the map function regularly to see what had been spotted in areas I was visiting. I liked the idea that my bird records weren’t just in my notebook, but could actually help bird conservation. After returning to London, I have to confess I forgot my resolution to upload records regularly, slipping back into just writing them in a notebook.
One May morning I was jogging in my south London woodland patch, past some allotments, when a flutey two-note call sliced through the Blackcap and Song Thrush song. A Cuckoo! Not the first I’d heard passing through in the 19 years I’ve lived here, but still special. A dog walker strode past me “Hi…”, I began excitedly, but realised he had headphones on. The next walker was listening, though. “Haven’t heard one for years,” he told me, beaming. Back home, I messaged my pal Dave Clark, who does a monthly bird count for the wood. “Please can you put it on eBird, if you haven’t already?” he said. eBird? I thought. Wonder why he uses that rather than BirdTrack? Anyway, I dutifully installed eBird and added the record, mulling over the implications of my choice. Where would my records have the greatest long term impact? A modest birding legacy, as it were.
We heard a lot about legacies of a bigger kind when London won the bid for the 2012 Olympics. Most were linked to sport and regeneration in and around the main site in east London, and primarily for the benefit of people. Fewer column inches have been devoted to the legacy for nature. On a warm July morning, I meet Tom Bellamy, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park’s ecologist, to investigate. We are the only people in the park wearing binoculars, so red carnations aren’t necessary.
Over the cacophony of construction noise, Tom explains that he’s employed by the RSPB, seconded to the green-space contractor Idverde, which is in turn contracted by the London Legacy Development Corporation, the body which manages most of the park. The organisational structure may be complicated, but Tom’s mission is simple: to deliver
