Young animals in Spring

Spring is the time when many animals are born. The first babies I saw were lambs, in North Wales on 12th April.

Early May I saw this coot with young, at Millers Pond near Shirley, Croydon -

Next were the fox cubs. I don't know when they are born, but I first saw them on 17 May. Prior to that mum probably keeps them safely in the den, until they are old enough to be presented to the world. In 2017 I first saw them on 15th May, in 2018 on 17th, so the dates have been consistent over 3 years.
In 2019 there were 2 mothers, one with 3 cubs, the other with 2.

One of the mothers -

The other mother, who I think is younger

It was impossible to get a photo of the cubs together as they don't stay still long enough!

At the end of May I went to Waddon Ponds, near Croydon, and saw this swan with cygnets. It was hard to count them, there are at least 8

Also at Waddon was this Mallard family, there seem to be 8 youngsters. It's good to see that dad is helping out

Meteorological spring ends on 31 May 2019, the day after I went to Waddon Ponds.

Walthamstow Pumphouse Museum

Continuing my visits to Victorian sewage pumping stations in the London area, I made a visit to the last one I know about, Walthamstow Pumphouse Museum. However it is just a museum.

It is located near Walthamstow, NE London. It is relatively close to Markfield Beam Engine, separated by modern day filter beds.

The museum is located at the Low Hall Pumping Station, a Grade II listed building that was originally a sewage pumping station built in 1885. The area was originally occupied by the Low Hall Farm and in the 1880s the council acquired the land in order to build a sewage pumping station. The pumphouse was built in 1885 and steam pumps were installed in a pit at the front of the building to raise the effluent coming from the Blackhorse Road area. Two boilers provided the steam for these.

The engines didn't run together. When one was stopped for maintenance, the other would be in use.  From 1928 the pumps fed effluent directly into the main sewerage system run by the London County Council. However, by the early 1970s it seems the production of steam by the boilers wasn't too safe and electric pumps were installed.

Some of the 1885 buildings were demolished. The original pumps were removed but the steam engines were left in situ, presumably being too difficult to dismantle and scrap.

Today the museum is more of a transport museum than a pumping station. However you can still see the horizontal steam engines. They are Grade II listed along with the steel beams that form part of the building’s roof. One of the engines is run on compressed air on the last Sunday of every month, when I paid a visit.

The rest of the museum is devoted more to the pioneering achievements in road, rail, air and sea transport in Waltham Forest and the surrounding area from the early 19th century.

A steam engine

Other displays are Routemaster buses, a decommissioned London Underground 1967 Stock Victoria line carriage, and various fire fighting vehicles.

See Wikipedia entry

See History of the Pumphouse & Low Hall Manor

Keston windmill

I thought there were 4 windmills in the London area, but I recently heard about another, at Keston. Keston used to be in Kent, but is now in the London Borough of Bromley and within the London bus routes.

I went to visit but was disappointed to find the windmill was immediately behind a high hedge and trees. So I could see very little. It is privately owned, presumably by the nearby house, Mill House.
I was then disappointed to find that I had missed the 2019 open day by just one week! It was open on 11th and 12th of May, and I went there on 20th! And they don't seem to open every year.

Wikipedia says the windmill was built in 1716 and is now Grade I listed. It is a black post mill.

Some historic photos of Keston Mill. And the "official" page on the mill.

London Zoo, aka Zoological Society of London

Two zoo visits in a month! In April I went to Chester Zoo. In May, I went to London Zoo, now known as the Zoological Society of London. I had a meeting with Sergio Henriques, chair of the Spider and Scorpion Specialist Group at IUCN. He is also Red List Authority Coordinator. He contacted me as he is interested in getting Malaysian Liphistius spiders onto the Red List. Liphistius kanthan is already on the Red List. See my blog about Liphistius.

After the meeting I was able to go around the zoo. I don't think I have been here since I was a child. From Baker Street tube station I walked through Regents Park to the zoo.

A carpet of daisies

In the zoo I spent a few hours walking round. Ring tailed lemur enjoying beetroot -

Okapi -

Meerkat on sentry duty, checking the sky for predators -

Asian small clawed otter -

Komodo dragon -

Turquoise dwarf gecko

Gidgee spiny-tailed skink -

King cobra -

Serval -

Humboldt penguin

Zoological Society of London website.

Sun halo

It was a sunny afternoon in London and I looked up when I saw a plane flying overhead, as it was in the opposite direction from normal. As I was looking up I saw part of a "rainbow" of colours, and when I looked more closely I realised it was a halo around the sun.

I didn't have my camera with me, only my phone, so took a photo with that. I didn't realise until after that there was also a vapour trail across the photo.

The explanation :

A large ring or circle of light around the sun or moon is called a 22-degree halo. It is called this because the ring has a radius of approximately 22 degrees around the sun.

Halos are associated with high, thin cirrus clouds. These clouds contain millions of tiny ice crystals. The halos you see are caused by both refraction, or splitting of light, and also by reflection, or glints of light from these ice crystals. The crystals have to be oriented and positioned just so with respect to your eye, in order for the halo to appear.

See more on earthsky , also Wikipedia.

See my blog on sundogs.

Abbey Mills Victorian sewage pumping station

Having visited Markfield Beam Engine, Victorian sewage works, earlier this month, I decided to visit another. This time the Abbey Mills pumping station in NE London. However this one can only be viewed from the outside.

Abbey Mills sewage works are located near West Ham tube station and south of Stratford. This is southeast of Markfield.

I walked from West Ham station, using the Green Way. The Greenway is a long footpath and bike freeway in London, mostly constructed on the embankment containing the Northern Outfall Sewer. This sewer runs to the Beckton sewage works, which is further east and close to the Thames.

This is Abbey Creek and it flows into the River Lea (aka Lee) that comes past Markfield and then on into the Thames

The new Abbey Mills pumping station on the left and the old Victorian one on the right -

The gas holders west of West Ham station -

Just beyond are the sewage works, a complex of old and new pumping stations. I'd come to see the Victorian pumping station. As mentioned above, it is closed to the public, but group tours can be booked. See more here on Hidden London. The building is Grade II listed.

The name Abbey Mills comes from the water mills that belonged to Stratford Langthorne Abbey, a Cistercian monastery founded in 1134. This lasted until the dissolution of the monasteries in the 1530s.

The pumping station was designed by Joseph Bazalgette.  It was built in 1865-8, and is nicknamed the "cathedral of sewage". It pumped sewage from the drains of north London and sent it down to the filter-beds at Beckton. It housed 8 beam engines.

The flows from the two low level sewers coming from west London are raised by some 40 feet (12 m) into the Northern Outfall Sewer at Abbey Mills Pumping Station

Some houses with interesting chimneys on the other side of the Greenway -

I'm not sure what this pipe carries

See more on Wikipedia about Abbey Mills Pumping Station.