Saturday 21st August, 12-4pm
We were fortunate to have a beautiful community event at Rockingham Allotment, which is of well established allotment, that showcases how a communal estate garden can be cultivated into something very special. Winston, one of the allotment holders, pointed out to us how the pond on-site would be a great point to focus a workshop around. He recommended we invite Froglife (add hyperlink – https://www.froglife.org/), a nationwide wildlife conservation charity, to host a session on London’s amphibians.
The session focused on how we can encourage amphibians in the city to thrive, to identify them and help support them in the threats they face through increasing urbanization. There is a much larger range of reptilians and amphibians found in our cities than you may consider – including many varieties of frogs, toads, newts, adders, lizards and snakes. We spent the first half of the session identifying different creatures whilst eating together. Many local children turned up on the rainy afternoon, thoroughly enjoying naming creatures, bringing nets into the pond, and finding baby frogs around the site.
We spoke about habitats where reptilians and amphibians are found, such as pounds, log piles, no-mow areas, compost heaps, rockeries and in the increasingly less seen hibernaculas! All these homes allow wildlife to shelter from danger, adverse weather and bask in the heat from the sun and ground, whilst being permeable for venitalited resting/living spaces. Often we do not think of the whole spectrum of creatures in our gardens and Froglife got us thinking deeper about how we can connect and provide for them! They also informed us of the challenges of creasutes today from loss of habitat, too barriers that can cause injuries such as cars, kerbs or drains. As well as many diseases that affect families of creatures that primarily occur during hotter summer months.
The allotment served as a perfect spot to highlight how to support the lives of creatures, with the many hiding spots of trees, hedges, sheds, compost heaps and long grasses. As well as hunting and breeding spots for amphibians such as ponds, log piles and the vegetable patch which are present and home to flourishing life on the site.
Froglife runs a variety of projects across the UK focusing on three main areas of work transforming lives, transforming landscapes and transforming research, so you can find their teams building ponds, working in schools, publishing reports and much more. Read more at www.froglife.org
A huge thank you to our funders National Lottery Community Foundation and Southwark Council Neighbourhood Funding