This year we took part in the Big Garden Birdwatch. These were the results for Albion Millennium Green, with magpies (below left) and great tits (centre) registered as our most commonly seen birds – on the day (Sunday 30th January) Magpie, Great Tit and Redwing (images courtesy of the RSPB website) Not recorded here is the fact that we also spotted a redwing (right). It landed at the edge of the pond, where it spent a short while drinking. It…
A close-up of a wild chicory flower (Cichorium intybus) on the left and a lovely clump of them through which we can see a wider vista of the Green. Below, from left to right Spear Thistle (Cirsium vulgare), Meadow Cranesbill (Geranium pratense) and Bittersweet Nightshade (Solanum dulcamara) which will shortly develop red berries. But do beware! This is attractive but poisonous plant. Right now, we have ripe blackberries and there are also abundant damsons and plums.
Walter Hayn is an artist and part-time art teacher living in Penge. He has numerous social and community ties with friends in Forest Hill and has on many an occasion spent time drawing the trees and scenery at Albion Millennium Green. On 19 June, we invited him to record his impressions of Teatro Vivo’s “Tales from the Common” performances. Here is a selection – click on the blog title in order to see them in greater detail! All images are…
Saturday 19 June 13.30-15.00. Join us for a FREE performance on the Green. What do you love enough to fight for? Discover the radical history of Sydenham, and imagine a better future, in Tales from the Common. TEATRO VIVO bring to life South London’s important radical characters and events from the 1600s to the present day. All welcome!
This year May Day on the Green will have to be marked informally due to C-19 restrictions. So online, at least, we thought we would go back in time to our May Day 2010 celebrations which introduced the Green to many people who had previously been unaware of its existence. At the event we had Morris dancing courtesy of the Dacres Ladies’ Group. The Green’s newly planted orchard of English Heritage apple trees was ‘launched’ by the President of the…
Frog party in the pond / robins and woodpecker flitting between trees / Labyrinth sorted for another day
“Last May (2020) I spent a couple of (socially distanced!) hours on the Green, drawing with some friends from a local arts forum, and found this magical corner, where I stayed. I was fascinated by the angles of the trees and branches and how they seemed to interact with each other. As I began drawing I realised that every little twig and blade of grass also seemed to have a ‘direction’; so I stopped trying to draw trees and leaves…
Saturday 12 December dawned fresh, cool and dry after a night of rain – ideal conditions for the work of digging and clearing we are currently carrying out on the Green preparatory to planting a hedge next winter along the Green’s boundary with the recently extended housing development of Longfield Crescent. In fact, according to an 1870 map tracked down by the Secretary of the Friends of AMG – which shows open fields where the housing estate is now –…