The London Wetlands Centre - Virtual Tour

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  • čas přidán 25. 08. 2024
  • Welcome to London Wetland Centre here in Barnes, in the lovely Borough of Richmond. Let's come have a look around. We are a 105 acre nature reserve just a few minutes away from Hammersmith, so we bring the countryside very much to the heart of London. Here at the centre, you can enjoy walks amongst our ponds and amongst the reed beds throughout the year.
    During the summertime, where we are now, you've got meadows that are fully in flower, we've got dragonflies and damselflies zipping around on the wing, and then as we slowly move in to autumn that's when you're going to start to get your wintering ducks flying in and they'll be rousting here for the winter months and we get nationally significant numbers of gagwole and shuvullah ?(not a clue what he said) each and every year. And, if you're lucky, as we get into the winter months you might see the very shy, very allusive bitten which is a wetland bird which is very much associated with places like the north of broads?? and the Somerset Levels and yet each winter they make the London Wetland Centre their home.
    Moving into spring, that is when we get more birds coming through from places like Sub-Saharan Africa, so reed warblers will be coming over to nest in our reed beds and we'll have sand martins zipping around on the wing as well, nesting in our sand martin bank. This year has been one of the best years for our sand martins, so we've had nearly every single nest chamber of our 98 nest chambers occupied by breeding birds. They'll be gearing up for their journey back to Southern Africa now, so in August they'll be heading south along with a lot of the swifts and the reed warblers will be making their way back as well.
    The other things to look out for, especially during the summer months, in addition to the dragonflies and damselflies if you look around woodland bridges, basically where i'm standing now, that is where you might be lucky enough to see animals like common lizards, basking in the sunshine, taking up the heat from the bridge and if you're really lucky, looking across some of our reed bed channels or across the ponds, you might even see a grass snake swimming its way from one side to another.
    So, we're here in one of my favourite spots in the reserve - these are the main reed beds in the wild side and it's hard to believe you're in London really. If on a very very clear day from some bits of the site you can see landmarks like the Shard and The BT Tower and today, there's the floodlights from across the way from Fulham Football Ground so that gives you a better idea of where exactly we are in London.
    For visitors who want to enjoy some of the wildlife around the site, we have six hives that look across our lakes, our reed beds and our marshes, and from the 3 story peacock tower you'll also get a panoramic view of London and that really does help to show where we sit in the capital. There's something for everyone in The London Wetland Centre, this has been described by Chris Packham as an 'oasis in the heart of London' and it really is. As well as having the nature reserve, there's also our living collection where people can see our 2 Asian small claw otters as well as ducks and geese from around the world, some of the ducks and geese that we have in our collection are of real conservation concern.
    So we have the World's rarest geese and as well as telling those conservation stories, we also have some of the weird and wonderful wild fowl from around the world - birds like the southern screamers that really are something to be seen. In the summer months, that's when we will be running some of our events like our bat walks - they run every other week in the evenings and visitors get the opportunity to experience the centre after dark, so they'll be armed with bat detectors and a knowledgeable guide and they'll be able to point out what bats we have here on site and whilst that is geared more towards families, grown-ups aren't left out because we have our 'bats, bugs, and beers' - so this is an opportunity, not only to go out looking for bats, but also to have a beer and look at some of the other nighttime wildlife you'll find around here whether that's looking for tracks that have been left in the footprint tunnel or looking for moths, there'll be a little bit of nighttime wildlife for everyone to experience.

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