NGAG has been given permission to use a series of photos taken by Clemence Biardeau, that illustrate just what can be done to help wildlife, even in small spaces. These delightful photos were taken on a balcony by Newington Green, where a mature wisteria has been the chosen nesting place for blackbirds, for several years running.

The photos show the blackbirds' second brood in 2010 and it is possible that they might go on to produce a third brood. The balcony is a  relatively safe place for the pair to nest, as predators find it hard to get there, so if you don't have a garden but you do have a balcony, you too could encourage wildlife by providing suitable plants for them to nest in (but beware if you have a cat that can get onto the balcony).

These great photos show the various stages of the feeding process. The first photo (above) shows nestlings waiting hungrily and then the male blackbird appears with a beakful of food for them, which he then feeds to one of the nestlings. After the bird has fed, the adult then removes the faecal sac from the nest and some time later, one of the nestlings fledges and explores the outside world, albeit briefly.

Have you ever seen this happening? If not, then maybe you can. NGAG has been aiming to help the wildlife around Newington Green through its WING project and these photos are encouraging evidence that show us how wildlife can be supported and enjoyed by many more of us, even when we only have an urban balcony available to plant on.

If you have seen some interesting local wildlife, post it onto Islington's Wildlife Blog. Perhaps you would also like to do their Wildlife Survey? Visit the site and see what wildlife is around locally at the moment:

http://islingtonblogs.typepad.com/blog/wildlife/

Many thanks to Clemence Biardeau for kindly letting us use her photos.

June 2010

Newington Green Action Group once again ran our annual Jazz on the Green event, continuing the tradition of meeting and making music on the Green, which has continued in various forms for hundreds of years.

The weather was kind to us and it was sunny and warm, so the only umbrellas around were being used as sunshades. This may have contributed to our having a record number of people who came to picnic on the Green whilst they enjoyed listening and dancing to the live music provided by Brass Volcanoes the popular Jazz Group who joined us for the third year running.

The musicians opened the afternoon by processing around the Green, visiting the local cafes and acting like Pied Pipers, as they brought people onto the Green. Brass Volcanoes have even written a song for Jazz on the Green, which they first sang in 2008 when we had the Plastic Bag Free Newington Green campaign, with the life-sized whale made of willow withies on the Green. The crowd enjoyed joining in the song 'Don't throw away your plastic bags, or a whale might eat them'.....

During their last set, the musicians played and danced amongst the crowds on the Green and went right into the children's playground, giving them a very direct and fun experience of live music!

Stalls

There were queues at both That Place on the Green and at Trattoria Sapori's stall, both of which did sterling work providing  traditional English cream teas, Pimms and ice creams, plus Italian panini and pizzas for hungry members of the audience.

The RSPB ran a stall which where they gave out information about our native bird, wildlife and the RSPB House Sparrow Project, to link in with our WING project. The RSPB also had a number of toys and books available for children and adults. I understand they also gained some new members during the afternoon.

NGAG are keen to encourage cyclists, as another way of helping our environment and our thanks go to the brand new Police Cycle Task Force who volunteered to give out information and to security mark people's bicycles. The police told us that they managed to mark 55 bikes during the afternoon - they worked hard!

Raffle

NGAG would also like to give thanks the local traders who provided lots of great prizes for the raffle and Toni Sapori who helped organise it. You may read the list of prizes and the traders who kindly donated them, in the attachment. The tickets were drawn by Kate Groucutt, one of our local councillors and the money raised will be donated to the charity Action For Children.

NGAG gained some new members and is grateful to all those people who gave donations, which amounted to a fantastic £213, which will go towards the running of the afternoon. 

In 2009, Newington Green was entered for a London In Bloom Neighbourhood Award and we received a Merit. This year, we are extending the area involved and a wider area around Newington Green is being entered for an Urban Communities Award, which is also part of the RHS London in Bloom awards scheme.

Over the years, we have gradually been creating links and running events with other groups and for this year's In Bloom entry we are linking the Newington Green area with the exciting projects taking place at the Mayville Gardening Club and King Henry's Walk Community Garden, so that the judges can see a range of gardening initiatives around the area. The judges will also see some of the local streets, such as Lidfield and Winston Roads that have so beautifully planted up the new street trees' pits and have transformed the look and feeling of community in their roads.

Newington Green Action Group volunteers have worked hard during the year adding new plants to the Green and caring for them We've also had fun planting up the tree pits around Newington Green. We chose to plant the pits in purple and green, to link in with the colours of the suffragette movement that followed in the footsteps of Mary Wollstonecraft, the influential author and early feminist who lived and worked here for a while. We have also included sustainable plants and ones that will support insects with pollen and nectar. Our thanks go LB Islington for all the help and support they have given us with this project.

You Can Help Too!

We need help watering the tree pits and clearing them of rubbish. Although many of the traders are watering planted tree pits, these need a lot of water whilst plants are getting established and we could do with help to give them more water.

You could also help by creating window boxes or hanging baskets, by tidying up your front garden, cutting hedges and clearing any litter from them. Everything will help the area look more cared for - and will feel nicer for us all to live in.

If you would like to get involved and can help us, do please contact us here.

Judging takes place on 8th July.

So many of the flowers on Newington Green get trampled on or picked by children, like these left to die on the stonework - and it really does spoil the look of the Green!

Hundreds of pounds have been spent by LB Islington and the Newington Green Action Group on new plants for Newington Green, in order to make the Green more attractive for all its users. NGAG planted a potentially beautiful purple wisteria to grow up over the kiosk building - but soon after planting, someone had pulled it down and snapped it in half. The flower buds died and we had to dig it up and take to a safe place - but the plant may not survive. This sort of thing  is very dis-spiriting, when we have spent hours of time and effort planting and caring for them, then to see so many plants trashed without thought.

Children love flowers and nature, which is great, but they can enjoy them in ways that don't ruin the plants and kill them. It's not just children - adults tear off branches for dogs to chew and this kills the young trees that have been planted. If you have a dog, please use dead branches for them to play with, not ones that are growing.

Perhaps your children could grow some flowers at home on the windowsill, or have a small patch of their own in the garden which they can enjoy caring for? Then maybe they will also be able to see insects such as harmless little hoverflies or butterflies visiting the flowers. Add a bowl of water and birds may come down to drink. Birds will even nest on balconies, if you give them the right conditions.

It's great watching some wildlife right outside your home and, as Mary Wollstonecraft put it -'Look what a fine morning it is. Insects, birds and animals, are all enjoying existence' (Original Stories from Real Life).

Poisonous Plants

Another important reason for children not to pick the flowers, is that quite a lot of plants are poisonous, or can cause allergic reactions - even some of those that look innocently pretty!

So please care for your children as well as the plants. Teach them to enjoy and care for flowers and plants, but not to pick, stamp on them - or to pull them up just for fun.

We need your help!

Help us to look after Newington Green, so that it can be a beautiful space for us all to enjoy.

April 2010

We were really lucky with the weather, which had been forecast as heavy rain and although it was still a bit chilly, it did not rain! There were fun activities and games at the Easter Bunny Event on Newington Green, which were run by LBI Greenspace. Lots of children enjoyed some traditional past times, with story telling, an Easter Egg hunt, egg and spoon races and face painting.

NGAG ran a stall as part of our WING project, at which we gave away a number of items which help the environment in various different ways; birds' nesting boxes and feeders; bee nesting boxes; rowan tree whips; stickers and bird toys; cotton shopping bags and water savers.

We also gave a good number of rowan tree whips away to the Mildmay Gardening Club, The Islington Ecology Centre and the Hackney Tree Nursery. Our thanks go to BBC Breathing Places and Thames Water for their generous support which enabled us to do this.

People very generously gave us donations for the wildlife boxes etc that we were giving out and we ended up with over £95 in donations. We also gained three new NGAG Members. Thanks Folks!

Growing Communities, which runs the Stoke Newington Farmer's Market, came along with Maisie the Cow their fun milkfloat and provided information about the Market and their Organic Veg Box scheme.

The Mildmay Gardening Club also had a stall where they did a good trade selling some flower and vegetable plants that they had grown, making over £90 for the Club.

That Place on the Green opened at the kiosk and provided drinks, snacks, ices and contributed to the fun and games.

NGAG Volunteers followed up this event by planting some native primroses, foxgloves, a hawthorn tree and other wildlife-friendly plants on Newington Green. We had aimed to plant these at the Easter Bunny event itself but we were so busy that nothing got planted that day! 

3 April 2010

We are pleased to report that the Green Lanes Post Office near Petherton Road, has finally been given permission to have a free-to-use ATM Cash Machine installed outside its premises. The Post Office's first request was turned down by Hackney Council but NGAG helped the Postmaster, Siva Kuman, run a campaign so that with community support, his second application has been accepted.

A representative from NGAG's committee plus some members of the local community, sent letters to the Planning Department in support of this campaign, as we believe the ATM at this Post Office would be a useful local resource. The Web Poll which NGAG ran showed that 91% of people that voted were in favour of having an ATM there, plus over 350 people signed the petition which NGAG encouraged the Postmaster to set up. The Postmaster also contacted local councillors and they too supported the application.

So, thanks to all the people that supported this campaign, the ATM should be installed sometime in the summer..

April 2010

Update

Finally, after many months of waiting, the free to use ATM has now been installed outside the local Green Lanes Post Office! Kumar, the Postmaster, is delighted!

November 2010

Over the cold wet winter of 2009-2010 the grass on Newington Green has taken a bit of a battering from people walking and even cycling over the grass, taking a short cut from Matthias Road, across the Green to Newington Green Road.

The grass has been completely worn away in places and looks very bare and moth-eaten!

Please Use the Path

It would be very helpful if people could use the proper path, in order to stop the damage getting worse. Please help and give the grass a chance to re-grow.

More children will soon be playing on the grass again, so cycling on the grass will also put them at risk.

It will only take a couple of seconds longer to use the pathway.

January 2010

Some NGAG volunteers visited Newington Green early in the morning on 30th January to do some 'citizen science' by making a survey of the birds on the Green for the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch and for our own records. There had been a sprinkling of snow and it was -2o when they first arrived but the sun was bright and it was a beautiful morning.

Most of the birds that are usually recorded on the Green gradually came in to feed using the grass, the tree canopy and the bird feeders that NGAG and Greenspace have provided. The BGBW records will be sent in to the RSPB. They will shortly be included on this Website and the data compared to that collected for the BGBW 2009 record which took place on the Green.

Blue Tits, Great Tits, Robin, Blackbird, Magpies, Carrion Crows, Starlings, Woodpigeon, Black-headed Gulls and of course Feral Pigeons, were all recorded on Newington Green itself, whilst other species were also observed in local gardens.

We have previously recorded 'a charm of goldfinches' and  a flock of around 20 redwings on Newington Green during 2009. A couple of local residents have also reported fieldfares feeding on rowan trees. There are at least 2 flocks of House Sparrows locally, but these were not on the Green for the BGBW record. However, we hope that local people will send us copies of their BGBW records so that we can build up some data about the birds around the Newington Green area.

On Newington Green itself a 'conventicle of magpies' is often seen - sometimes 11 at a time. Interestingly a 'conventicle' means a secret meeting or a building used for the religious worship of non-conformist groups, such as the Unitarians, which of course have been central to the community around Newington Green for over 300 years.

The one unexpected and amusing visitor recorded this year on Newington Green was a moorhen, which was quietly grazing on the grass!

The moorhen must have come down to feed, on the way to Clissold Park or the reservoirs and is a good example of the validity of our maintaining and providing green corridors, so that they can be used by any wildlife that moves through our built-up urban environment.

The Newington Green Area BGBW records for 2010 may be found here.

30 January 2010

In the presence of Islington’s Mayor, with snow swirling in the biting wind, the children of Newington Green Primary, and St Matthias Primary schools led in the singing of traditional Christmas carols on the Green.  We were given over 200 mince pies by Tesco, which were heated and distributed by That Place on the Corner. Only 12 were left at the end.

Newington Green, a heritage site,  looked pretty in the twinkling snowflakes and lights, everyone sang loudly with Graham the trumpeter from Brass Volcanoes, drums with Kate, and lead voice with Will, above the howling of the wind.

Brrrrrilliant

16 December 2009 

As it is National Poetry Day (October 8th 2009) it seems appropriate to celebrate John Hegley the poet, who was born in the Mildmay Memorial Hospital which stood on the south side of Newington Green, until it was demolished in the 1960's

Hegley is well known for his humorous poems and he performed at the Mildmay Club this summer. Some people may also have recognised him as he shared a picnic with some NGAG committee members at Jazz on the Green 2009.

One of his more recent poems has been published in Literary London, along with a delightful illustration of the Green and they both celebrate the history of the area and the Unitarian Chapel.

The poem is called 'Newington Green'.

The illustration may be found in the attachment below.