A short walk in London

Waterlow Park

A steep hillside park in Highgate with three spring-fed ponds stepped down the slope and some very old trees.

Open the portal

Standing in the place, open the portal and a guide walks it with you, about 25 minutes, spoken aloud. The facts it rests on are here.

3 spots in walking order, about 25 minutes. All of them have something to ask this week.

Start at the top gate and walk downhill. The ponds do the navigating for you.

Spot 1

The Upper Pond

The highest of the three ponds, just inside the gate at the top of the park.

Catch the tufted duck before winter brings more of them

Find a small black and white duck and watch it until it goes under.

What did it do while you watched?

It went right under
It swims down to the bottom. A diving duck feeds where a dabbling one cannot reach.
It tipped up, tail in the air
That is a dabbling duck, and it can only reach as far down as its neck is long.
It stayed on the surface
Give it another minute. A diving duck rests between dives and can sit quite still.
I could not find a black and white duck
A tufted duck spends much of its time under, so a pond can look bare between dives.

Two kinds of duck share these ponds. One reaches down from the surface, the other swims to the bottom and back.

This is a clue rather than a certain identification. Females and young birds are browner, so read the dive and not the colour.

A tufted duck can stay down for half a minute and comes up several body lengths from where it went in. It takes its food from the bottom, which is why it needs water deep enough to be worth the dive. A dabbling duck on the same pond never goes below its own neck.

Source: Greenspace Information for Greater London, Waterlow Park site citation

Spot 2

The Pond Margin

The planted edge between the upper and middle ponds, where tall grassy clumps lean out over the water.

Find the grass that hangs its seed over the water

Look at the tall clumps on the bank for long thin spikes drooping from the stems.

What are the spikes doing?

Hanging straight down
The spike is heavy with seed, and the stem bends because it was never built to hold that weight.
Still held up
Early, or a young clump. The spike lifts first and only droops once the seed fills it.
Brown and breaking apart
Finished. The seed is going into the water below, which is exactly where this plant wants it.
I could not find any hanging spikes
Sedge is often strimmed on a managed bank, so a tidied edge can carry no spikes.

Pendulous sedge drops its seed straight down into the water at its feet. The bend in the stem is how it aims.

This is a clue rather than a certain identification. Several waterside plants droop, so check for the wide flat leaf as well.

Pendulous sedge is a shade plant that spread through London parks over the last century and now lines many damp banks. Its seed is heavy and it has no wing and no hook, so the plant relies on gravity and on water. The bent stem is the whole strategy.

Source: Greenspace Information for Greater London, Waterlow Park site citation

Spot 3

The Lauderdale Terrace Hedge

The sunny wall and hedge on the terrace below Lauderdale House, best in the middle of the day.

Find the ivy that stopped climbing and started flowering

Look at the ivy on the sunny wall and compare a leaf low down with one beside the flowers.

What shape are the leaves where the flowers are?

Pointed, with lobes
Lobed leaves belong to the climbing stems. Those stems are still going somewhere, and they do not flower.
Plain, no lobes
Ivy changes its leaf shape when it stops climbing, and a plain leaf is the sign it has settled.
Both shapes on the one plant
You found the change itself. Lobed leaves below, plain ones above, on the same plant.
I could not find any flowers on the ivy
Ivy flowers only on stems that have stopped climbing, so a clipped plant may never reach that form.

Ivy grows two kinds of leaf. It flowers only once it has stopped climbing, and it changes shape in order to do it.

This is a clue rather than a certain identification. A shaded plant can hold lobed leaves for years and never flower at all.

Ivy holds two forms in one plant. The climbing form makes lobed leaves and clings with short roots that grip rather than feed, and it never flowers. The adult form makes plain oval leaves, stands out from the wall, and carries all the flowers and berries.

Common in London in these weeks, though not recorded at this exact spot.

Rewyld asks you one of these where you already are. Open Rewyld

Where this comes from

Each question was written to a naturalist review, and the ones that could not be stood behind at this site were cut rather than softened. Every question asks you to look, never to pick or to touch.