Nature watch: Richmond Park

The quality of Richmond Park’s woods and heathland makes it one of the few urban-placed National Nature Reserves. Local author and Richmond Rambler David McDowall shows us round…

To see a herd of fallow deer grazing beneath ancient oak trees is a profoundly English scene,” says David McDowall. “It really does typify England’s fantastic parkland heritage.” David is describing a scene played out every day in the 2,500-acre Richmond Park. It’s the largest of London’s Royal Parks: a gently undulating landscape of woodland and open grassland that was created when Charles I built a 14km/9-mile encircling brick wall to establish a deer chase. Today, large herds of red and fallow deer still range freely throughout the park.

“The deer create the landscape as well as inhabit it,” explains David, “since their feeding habits produce a so-called browse line that strips lower branches and undergrowth.” There are around 1,200 ancient trees, especially veteran oaks, with some of the older, pollarded specimens probably dating back to the late Middle Ages. Mature oaks support a huge range of birds and insects, but even the rotten wood is important for fungi and beetles, including rarities such as the stag and cardinal click beetles. (Another type lives solely on deer dung!) Recently, however, flocks of ring-neck parakeets have begun to colonise the park, threatening to displace the native wildlife.

“For quiet woodland, go to the Isabella Plantation,” says David. “Look out for nuthatches and woodpeckers, and at the woodland edges you may well see a sparrowhawk on the wing. Pen Ponds make a good place for dragonflies and damselflies too. Go to Sheen Cross for one of the best locations to spot deer.”

Wildflowers that thrive in the park’s expanse of acid grassland, caused by centuries of grazing, include harebell, heath bedstraw, tormentil and mouse-ear hawkweed. “Even on a busy summer’s day you can find quiet corners where wildlife abounds,” concludes David. “And in autumn you have the woodland colours and also the rutting of the stags. You hear their wonderful roaring and it sends a shiver down your spine!”

Main image: Kevin Law

Find out more
Rural Walks Around Richmond by Richmond Ramblers is available for £1.80 plus 60p p&p from 59 Gerard Road, London SW13 9QH (cheques payable to Margaret Sharp). See www.richmondramblers.co.uk. Richmond Park: The Walker’s Guide by David McDowall is available via Amazon.co.uk.