Photographs of the Lavender Pump house from the Enthusiastic Gardener blog

A lovely collection of photographs on the Enthusiastic Gardener blog showing Lavender Pump house and its surroundings at their summer best.  Great to see it all looking so great, but a shame that the woodwork is still being allowed to decay so badly. 
https://enthusiasticgardener.com/2017/05/29/lavender-pond-nature-reserve/

If you're interested in the history of the Lavender Lock, Dock and Pumphouse, the following post, which I wrote some time ago, may be of interest: http://russiadock.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/lavender-dock-lock-and-pumphouse.html.  I've also written about Lavender Wharf and Lavender Dock here: http://russiadock.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/lavender-dock-and-lavender-wharf-1684.html.




 

A super visit to Stave Hill Ecological Park

I went to have a look at the Albion Dock dry dock currently available to see via a viewing platform at the former Decathlon site (about which I have posted here), and at the last minute decided to cut back home via Albion Channel and Stave Hill Ecological Park.  It was threatening rain but apart from spitting at me occasionally, it obliging held off.  The snake's head fritilleries are particular favourites, and were the main reason that I was tramping around in an unplanned and muddy visit in suede three-inch heals, and there was plenty to see including a jay (lousy photo so I've buried it at the end), flowers of all sorts, and the new floating duck houses on Globe Pond.  I ran into Steve Cornish (better known to some Twitter users as @slooshbag5), wet to the knees from installing the duck houses in spite of having borrowed the Ecological Park's best waders!  None of the photos are particularly special, but I've posted them as a true appreciation of having all this on my doorstep.  You can click on any of them to see the bigger version.  Now where did I put that suede brush? 

A lovely walk in Russia Dock Woodland today

I went up to the Lavender Pumphouse today, through Russia Dock Woodland and back again, diverting briefly into Stave Hill Ecological Park to check out the violets.  It was the most wonderful day for a walk.  There's not much to add to that, so here are the photographs.  They were taken with my little handbag camera, and it's not really capable of long distance work, so the parakeet (almost invisible to the human eye but very noisy) is really blurred.  I had heard about them but never seen one before, so that was a lovely surprise. There was a lot of strimming and mowing going on, and everything was beautifully neat.  It was so nice to see everything looking so good that I thought I'd share the photos.  You can click on any one of them to see the bigger version>

A chilly but bright walk in the woodland and ecological park

Kingfisher in Russia Dock Woodland
Photograph by @worginfo, with thanks.

I went for a potter in Russia Dock Woodland and Stave Hill Ecological Park this afternoon, taking advantage of the bright dry day.  I saw a jay, a great spotted woodpecker (both of which flew off before I could snap them), several great tits and some busy robins and blackbirds. The usual mix of water birds were very much in evidence on Globe Pond.  There were one or two shrubs in bloom and although there very few flowers on the ground, there were some nice surprises, including some very brave violets.  And there were simply dozens of very bold squirrels!  Everything looked lovely in the low winter sunlight, the colours sharp and bright.  I went up Stave Hill and was glad to see that the graffiti has been removed from the Michael Rizzello sculpture, presumably by Southwark Council, which is great news.  My photos are below.

The beautiful photograph at the top of this post is the kingfisher taken this week by the ever excellent @worginfo (posted on her Twitter page), with many thanks for her permission to use it here.  Steve Cornish, Chair of the Friends of Russia Dock Woodland, tells me that it's a hen bird, due to its orange lower beak; the cock birds beak is black lower and upper.  Superb colours.  I wasn't lucky enough to see one today, but I shall keep looking.  It's a lovely photograph.