London Wetland Centre

Had a free visit to the London Wetland Centre at Barnes this week, a thank you trip for Rainham Volunteers. This is an amazing place - ancient concrete reservoirs converted into state of the art wildlife refuge mostly through the vision of Sir Peter Scott. In some ways it reminds me of Rainham. Both seem to me to be quite miraculous. How is it that a building hungry city like London has managed to preserve these two huge sites for nature when all around is being gobbled up by bricks and concrete? There are avocets and sand martins nesting at Barnes under the Heathrow flight path, little egrets and bitterns at Rainham within sight of the M25....
Barnes was looking at it's summer best - the wildflower meadows, woodlands and ponds have all matured since I was last there. The site is a bit like the Enterprise holodeck - full of winding paths that make it look bigger even than it is, and I was surprised how easy it was to get away from the crowds.
Best time of the trip - setting my telescope up in the hide and showing the avocets and grebes to a couple of families and children. Oh and the sand martin cliff with about 50 martins coming and going.
Most of the time I get very dishearted about the mess humans are making of the world (esp after watching '5 natural disasters waiting to happen' on tv this week) Places like Barnes and Rainham just remind me to have hope.

London Wetland Centre