Collapse of Grey Heron's Tree:

Those of you who follow this blog will remember me writing endlessly about the first Grey Herons who nested in the Borough of Redbridge for one hundred years- on an island in Valentines Park. To jog your memories, here are the three chicks, on the branch of their lakeside, ivy covered, decaying Sycamore tree:



Well, having spent countless hours watching the birds on this tree, you can imagine how shocked I was to see it collapsed in the water, when I returned to Ilford:



You could just see the rotten base:


Ironically, a park representative had told me- at the time the birds were in the nest- that he had being thinking of felling that particular tree before they built their nest.

It is sad the nest has gone- and with it the hope that the Herons would return to that tree, but on the other hand how wonderful that it didn't fall down when the Heron family were inhabiting it....