News – Greening Wingrove & Arthur's Hill

News Archive

Normal Service Will Resume Shortly

We are currently updating our website. We ask readers to bear with us while we make long-awaited improvements to both the structure and content of our website to reflect our current activity. We apologise for any disruption. Normal service will be resumed shortly.

We look forward to welcoming you back to our new-look website in a few days.

If you live in the Arthur’s Hill or Wingrove areas and would like to contribute local news to this website, please contact us. We welcome news, viewpoints and information about events or services you are organising.

Respect Our Parks

Newcastle parks have seen record visitor numbers during the coronavirus lockdown, but increased numbers have also led to a “small minority” causing vandalism and littering, says the head of the city’s park service.

“People have been largely respectful of the restrictions in place and social distancing requirements. Feedback we’ve received to date confirms that our users have been very happy with how our parks have been managed during this difficult time,” says James Cross, CEO of Urban Green, which manages city parks and allotments.

“A small minority of people have caused some isolated issues such as littering and vandalism,” he said. “It’s been awful … We’ve really suffered across all of our parks … lots of litter … It’s really upsetting to see.”

Locally, Elswick Park has been hit, with both Elswick Pool and Edible Elswick reporting vandalism. At Nun’s Moor Park, visitors have reported a surge in litter, with many critical of a recent reduction in litter bins there. Havannah Nature Reserve at Hazelrigg experienced a number of fires, with trees being used as fuel.

“We’ve worked closely with police to identify problems and moved quickly to rectify any damage, to ensure our spaces remain safe for users at all times,” said Mr Cross.

He urged to people report emergency incidents to 999, use 101for non-emergency incidents and to report other issues directly to him at incidents@urbangreennewcastle.org

“While it’s been a challenging few months, with unprecedented demand across all our green spaces, Urban Green Newcastle is proud to have been able to support the residents of Newcastle throughout this time, helping to connect them to nature, and to help improve the health and wellbeing of all families and our communities.

“Many of our regular activities, such as bin collections and grass cutting are all now back up and running, with some increased litter collections. Like many organisations, much of our planned activity had to be put on hold, but over the next few weeks and months we will be reopening facilities and caring for our parks and allotments as government restrictions allow.

“For example, we are reintroducing our maintenance programmes and carrying out critical capital works for our trees and play areas to ensure that our spaces remain safe for all park users.

“We have enabled limited volunteering to start back up again on our sites. The reduced numbers of volunteers reflects Government’s current guidance, which only allows groups of up to six people from different households to meet in outdoor spaces. Within the next few weeks we will also be widening our volunteer programme particularly to help with increased litter picking.”

Keep an eye on the Friends of Nuns Moor Park Facebook page over the next few weeks for information of how to get involved in caring for the park as the lockdown is eased. The group is run by local residents and has played a major part in keeping the park in good condition in recent years.

Household Pairing Scheme

PLEASE NOTE – This guidance is now out of date.

New Government scheme aims to combat loneliness among single parents and those living alone.

Those living alone and many single parents can now meet others in their own homes as part of a new pairing scheme, under ‘lockdown’ relaxations announced in updated Government guidance.

Under the new advice, effective from 13 June, two types of people benefit.

people who live alone
single parents living alone with “dependent” children, all of whom must be under 18

They are now able to meet with those living in another similar ‘household’, visit each other’s homes and stay overnight, without social distancing.

Single parents can form support bubbles with another similar household simply for the purpose of organising unpaid childcare.

The move will potentially benefit hundreds of people in Arthur’s Hill and Wingrove wards, which have high proportion of single adult households.

The new guidance allows close physical contact with one other household (of any size) only. Both households must fit into the categories above. Anyone outside this exclusive ‘support bubble’ of two households must continue 2m distancing. Single people with live-in carers are able to count everyone in that one household as a qualifying household and can form a bubble with a ‘single adult household’.

“We recognise how difficult this time has been, particularly on lonely and isolated people, and this change is designed to provide extra support to some of those most impacted by the current social restriction” says the guidance. “It is a targeted intervention”.

“Support bubbles are a cautious step to help people who may be lonely and therefore at greatest risk of isolation.”

People forming a support bubble will still be able to meet up to six others not living in their households, but must do so outdoors and must maintain 2m social distancing.

Once a bubble has been formed, there should be no change to who is in the bubble. If someone in the bubble shows Covid-19 symptoms, everyone in the bubble must stay at home for 14 days.

Those not in a support bubble are still not allowed to meet in other people’s homes. “That remains against the law”, says the guidance.

Those working in ‘frontline’ healthcare in the NHS or care sector, the ‘clinically vulnerable’ or anyone working in situations with a potentially higher exposure to those with coronavirus “should take particular care when deciding whether to form a support bubble and who with” and try to minimise contact with others.

New guidance for those defined as ‘extremely clinically vulnerable’ is expected this week.

“Unfortunately, we cannot advise anyone who is shielding to form a support bubble at this stage. However, we know how hard it is for people who are shielding and have been keeping this advice under close review. We will be setting out further advice for this specific group … now that the peak of the pandemic is past.”

The full current guidance is available through this link.

Covid-19 – Our Response

In common with everyone else, we’ve had to think about coronavirus and its impact on our activities.

Firstly, we’ve had to suspend hiring of the Bike Garden Pavilion for the foreseeable future to comply with reducing social contact between people. As soon as the situation changes, we’ll let everyone know.

Secondly, the same restriction has to apply for our organised litter picks, which again are suspended until further notice.

This does not mean an end to litter picking or enjoyment of Nuns Moor Park and the Bike Garden. Instead, these are now down to individuals, working within the Government/Public Health England safety guidelines for open air activities.

We’ll develop other ways to pursue the aims of Greening Wingrove & Arthur’s Hill, some of which are mentioned above. But we’re also conscious that this is a time when neighbourliness is important in supporting each other, and that has always been one of our aims.

We therefore welcome the rapid emergence of the volunteer-based Arthur’s Hill and Wingrove Mutual Aid Groups, formed by local residents to offer help (shopping, dog walking, telephone contact, for example) where people become isolated due to having to stay at home.

These groups (and many others like them) are assembling their volunteer lists, making themselves known, linking with established voluntary organisations, and putting their safeguarding policies in place. We’re glad to have helped the Arthur’s Hill and Wingrove groups in a couple of practical ways.

Contact details for our local mutual aid groups are:

Wingrove Ward: https://www.facebook.com/groups/501299347232459/about/

Arthur’s Hill Ward: https://www.facebook.com/groups/523450511913708/about/

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/NewcastleCovid19/

Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/NCLMutualAid

There’s also an information flow from the City Council (www.newcastle.gov.uk which carries helpful links to Public Health and NHS announcements as well as a Council operated Helpline: CITYLINE on 0191 277 8000 or via www.newcastle.gov.uk/cityline

1000 David Attenboroughs – Week 11

This is run by the wildlife trusts and they have short guides on gardening, nature writing, nature activities with kids, wild bingo..nature photography, making elderflower cordial..

https://action.wildlifetrusts.org/page/57739/petition/1

Bat Surveying 2020 is now underway!

If you are out in the evenings please keep an eye out for bats!

..and record your sightings.

Bats can usually be seen from 20 minutes after sunset. There is a period of about half an hour when you can see them before it gets too dark.

Most of the bats in the Wild West End are one of the two pipistrelle species but there may be other species, particularly in Leazes Park.

The best time to see them is on warm evenings with little wind. They often follow hedge or tree lines or fly over grassy areas. You will see them darting about catching flying insects, which is what they feed on.

The sooner you see them after sunset, the closer their roosting (sleeping) place will be. Also, if you see them coming from a certain direction close to sunset, that may indicate their roost is in that direction, which is why we ask about the direction and time when you see the bats.

Finding bat roosts is an important part of the project so we can protect them.

Summer bat roosts are likely to be in buildings; bats will use buildings of all ages. Pipistrelle species bats are crevice roosting bats and so will be tucked up behind fascia boards, along wall tops, under lead flashing and under roof tiles/slates. Pipistrelles rarely use loft spaces.

Please record your sightings on the attached record sheet. The record sheet can also be found on the website https://greeningwingrove.org.uk/bat-surveying-2020/

or contact the project wildwestend@greeningwingrove.org.uk or phone/text 07410 944713 and I will drop some through your letterbox.

If you take a torch to help you write down your sightings and not trip over!..make sure to not shine it at the bats.

If you want to write down the temperature for when you were out, it can be found here (though not essential)

https://www.weatherhq.co.uk/weather-station/newcastle-3

Circle the weather conditions for each night you record bats on the record sheet.

Please return your record sheets to Ruth Hayward c/o The Time Exchange, 235 Stanton St, Newcastle upon Tyne NE4 5LJ once the office has reopened after lockdown. Please return all record sheets by mid October.

Safety tips

Take a friend – but stay 2 metres apart.

Take a mobile phone and make sure it is charged.

Only walk where you feel safe.

Bat Transects

The Project also has three transects/routes being walked once a month with bats being recorded using our new Anabat bat recorders. These transects are in Arthurs Hill, Spital Tongues and Fenham (covering the park behind Morrisons and the St. James and St. Basils’ Church Garden).

I did the transect in Arthurs Hill on Monday evening 1^st June and found lots of bats in the part of Nuns Moor around the Play Centre.

Happy Batting!

Ruth

_{Feature pic of lioness and cubs “Cottars3” by Sam.Romilly, licensed under CC BY 2.0 CC}

1000 David Attenboroughs – Weeks 9 & 10

Plant Surveying and Biodiversity

Find a patch of grass.

With some sticks mark out roughly a metre square.

Look closely at what you can see in the square. Many of the things, especially if it is short grass, will be very hard to identify, so name what you can e.g. daisy and make up a name for the others. I used the name dandelion type leaf and grass (grasses are very hard to identify).

Then work out very approximately what percentage the plant covers, or if you want to start training as a plant surveyor 😊 then use the DAFOR scale. Writing down whether a plant is Dominant/Abundant/Frequent/Occasional/Rare

When I did this I had forgotten the words to use, see field notes photo!

If your square has 100% of one plant then the species diversity is low (each different type of plant is a species). If it had a 100 different types of plants each taking up 1% of the space it would have very, very high species diversity. Another name for this is biodiversity.

Biodiversity on our earth is declining rapidly due to human activities and we need to reverse this process. We can make a small contribution to this by making our parks, green spaces and gardens more biodiverse.

One way we can do this is to allow grass to grow long during spring and summer. I stopped a verge being cut by the Council in Spital Tongues a month ago, and now it is full of flowers. (The yellow flower in the photo is Crosswort.) Could you leave a bit of your lawn or school playing field to grow?

Useful links

https://www.amnh.org/learn-teach/curriculum-collections/biodiversity-counts/plant-ecology/how-to-calculate-a-biodiversity-index

https://www.globalissues.org/article/170/why-is-biodiversity-important-who-cares

http://www.botanicalkeys.co.uk/northumbria/dafor.asp

_{Feature pic of lioness and cubs “Cottars3” by Sam.Romilly, licensed under CC BY 2.0 CC}

1000 David Attenboroughs – Week 8

Butterfly Lifecycle and Be Nice to Nettles!

Find a patch of nettles that are in the sun.

Look at them carefully. Are there holes in the leaves made by a very hungry caterpillar? Are there any nettle leaves that have been made into a tent? See photos. Inside the tent are Red Admiral caterpillars. They make a tent to hide from the birds, then eat their way out of it!

You may find lots of little caterpillars all together protected by a silk web. These will be either Peacock or Tortoiseshell. Many thanks to Phil Rigby for the photo.

Don’t touch them as nettles sting.

Peacock, Tortoiseshell and Red Admiral caterpillars all need nettles (in the sun) so make sure you are Nice to Nettles and leave some in your garden, yard and green spaces.

https://www.ukbutterflies.co.uk/species.php?species=atalanta

https://bugwomanlondon.com/2017/02/08/wednesday-weed-stinging-nettle-part-two/

https://scottishwildlifetrust.org.uk/2019/05/be-nice-to-nettles/

_{Feature pic of lioness and cubs “Cottars3” by Sam.Romilly, licensed under CC BY 2.0 CC}

1000 David Attenboroughs – Week 7

Hi all,

This weeks’ task is …

Looking from a different perspective!

We spend all our time looking down at what is growing. So, find some plants that are one or two feet tall and look up at them from below. If doing this with children get them to pretend to be a spider or a snail!

What can you see?

Looking at the plants next to my step, I saw the veins of the leaves against the light and the hairs on the plant stems. I saw the seeds of the honesty developing in the seed pods.

I saw butterfly eggs underneath an honesty leaf, cuckoo spit (which is produced by a bug called a froghopper, see photo) four spiders and a multitude of aphids under the rose leaves. Then, while writing this, a sparrow came and ate the aphids!

Cuckoo Spit, produced by a bug called a froghopper

1000 David Attenboroughs – Week 6

Task 1
Insects and flowers interactions and drawing!

So we are now in the season of flowers! Watch and see which flowers are visited by insects.

Look closely at the flowers and draw them. There are lots of flower shapes, from foxglove to primroses, to daisies (what we think of one flower is actually lots of little flowers all squashed together) to cow parsley (which are little five petalled flowers in groups, a bit like tiny umbrellas!) Look closely and draw some of the different types.

Insects can get nectar and pollen much more easily from single flowers (eg the white cherry) than from double flowers (eg the pink cherry).

Does your garden have lots of double flowers and not enough single flowers? This link has more info.
https://laidbackgardener.blog/…/double-flowers-bad-news-fo…/

Task 2
Smell the perfume of the Hawthorn

The Hawthorn, sometimes called Maythorn or just ‘May’ is in flower in nuns moor park. I think the scent is strongest when the flowers are young. If you look closely you will see the male parts of the flower, the anthers, are pink. Again, I think they are only pink when the flowers have just opened.

^{Picture of Sir David Attenborough © International Monetary Fund 2019 – Used under Creative Commons Licence (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)}