Friends of the Litten Reserve    

On the 13th May 2015 the Heathrow Airport Authority came to the reserve and painted the hut to undercoat level outside and inside the classroom.  40 people were ther with lots of snacks and even more energy.  The hut  was in a bad way having never been painted since it was errected in the early 1980's when it was already secondhand.  The work done has given us a chance to improve the building with make it last a few more years.

We thank everyone who came and for the generious donation they aslo gave us.

On the 29th October 2014 TVC group came to clear the large back pond.  We had 12 people in all with the TVC group, Jon the Ranger and myself.  It was raining, but everyone put on their waders and got on with it and you can see on the photo gallery by the end of the day, job done.

The pond will have the winter to settle down and be ready for the Spring.  The pond was lacking oxegen due the heavy leave of leaves in the bottom which ment the number of insects were minimal and in turn the anaimals higher in the food chain were missing.  Fingers crossed we have a thriving pond next year. 

On Saturday 6th September 2014 a group of young people from the National Citizens Service came to the Litten with a challenge to improve the reserve.  They worked hard during the day working with the Ranger Jon and Oscar from Belvue School to make a new Newt Hotel near the front dipping pond and improve the story circle.  

There are photos in the Gallery of the day and results of their work. The Newt hotel is the second insect log structure for the reserve and is quite stylish with a log tower which I spotted being checked out for our squirrels a few days later.  The story circle now has a second row of seats to increase the number of children it can accommodate.

Thanks to the group and to Jon and Oscar for hosting the day.

Since I last put in a note we've had two events which were sucessful.

Open Day - A great day with fine weather and 109 visitors.  We opened the Nature Trail and Beryl took visitors around explaining the flora.  The pond dipping found lots oif Newts and other insects like dragonfly larvae.  The new Mini beast area was a great sucess with the children.

Story & Games day - The weather was quite good with a shower through the afternoon.  Oscar did wonderful story reading which ca[tivate the children followed by Beryl who devised nature games which can be easily done at home.

Thanks to everyone who attended and supported the Bat Walk.  The bats finally showing up at the last minute, I think it was a great success. It was particularly good we found some at the Litten. Thank you to James, once again guiding us through the world of bats! Great to have some visitors from the Selbourne society, hopefully we can build on the link between the two sites. Attendance was good with 24 adults and children.

Hi The reserve is looking great at the moment with the work Jon has done through the winter the reserve is open and drying up after the winter rain. Throughout the year we are recording the flora and fauna on the reserve and will publish it early 2015.

We have set the events for 2014 and want everyone to come.  Please look at the "Get Involved" page and put the dates in your diary.

On Saturday 2nd November 2013 we had a Bird box making day. It was an excellent event with those children and adults present all working together to do a fantastic job constructing bird and bat boxes (pictures in the gallery). At the end we have a wonderful selection to install on site and this will be done this winter to give the boxes time to weather in for spring so the new owners can move in. Those left over will go to other sites around the borough.

We also had time to have a walk around the reserve to look at the slight damage caused by the bad storm we had at the end of October.

The first bees were introduced into the nature reserve at the end of May 2013.

The rangers prepared an excellent area away from the path which allowed sunlight through and was also well sheltered from the wind. The bees which are local are doing well, especially the two colonies in top bar hives. There are two more traditional hives,the nationals,which have fairly recent swarms but seem to have settled in nicely. I did not take any honey from any of the bees this year to help them get through the winter and will also be feeding them with fondant. Next year, providing the bees survive the winter, they should be well established and ready to pollinate the reserve and local gardens.

Brian Mitchison

The bat walk was a great success thanks to a good number of keen ‘bat hunters’ and the excellent presentation of James Morton. We began at the Litten classroom where James gave lots of info on bats, their hunting skills, how to use the detectors and what to look out forWe took to the reserve to see what we could find. Being late in the year for bats we only detected one on the reserve itself however we did hear an owl which we suspect was a tawny owl which is a great find.

We then headed to Ravenor park where we thought we may have more luck and in fact heard at least ten bats, one Common pipistrelle did a nice display for us coming back and forth through the detectors so everyone could hear the clicks as it swooped on insects.

Thanks to Malcolm for being the host and making teas etc. I think next time we need to schedule the event a bit earlier in the season. And it occurred to me that I should have brought some visual aids of bats…Oscar is there anything your students would like to create regarding bats and bat pictures? We can look at putting up some bat boxes, (we have kits at the ranger base)

Thanks again to everyone involved.

Jon Staples

Park Ranger – Greenford Green and Northolt Mandeville wards