Song Thrush Species Action Plan

These pages aim to provide information about the status of song thrush inRichmond, including song thrush sightings borough-wide and details of the best sites to see them. There are many areas where we lack information. If you have song thrushes in your local garden or park then please let us know.

It is intended to display details of local wildlife walks which might be of interest and if your group would like information about your events posting please let me know.

The complete SAP document (as well as the other action plans for bats, water vole and stag beetles) is available at: http://www.swlen.org.uk/our-work/biodiversity/. You can also find out more here about how we could achieve a better deal for the song thrush population in the borough.

Song thrush monitoring

We have undertaken a monitoring exercise of song thrushes in the London Borough of Richmond and have found many locations where they are breeding. See below for fuller information about some of these locations.

• Ham Lands 2004, 26 Territories
• Ham Lands 2005, 26 Territories
• Ham Lands May 2006, 24 territories
• Crane Valley 2005, 13 Territories
• Richmond Park 2005, 6 Territories
• Richmond Park Feb 2006, 1 singing male in the Isabella Plantation
• Barnes Common 2005, 6 Territories
• East Sheen and Richmond Cemetery 2005 4 Territories
• Ham Common Feb 2006, 1 singing male near Ham Gate
• London Wetland Centre 2005, Breeding Confirmed, Continental Birds in winter
• Platts Eyot 2005, Breeding Confirmed
• Normansfield Old Hospital 2005, Breeding Confirmed
• Lonsdale Road Res. 2005, Breeding Confirmed
• Hampton Church 2005, Breeding Confirmed
• Kilmorey Mausoleum 2005, Breeding Confirmed
• Kew Records to be supplied
• Bushy Park 9-10 territories including the Royal Paddocks Allotments, Hampton Court Park

Important sites for song thrush in Richmond

Platts Eyot - The island known as Platts Eyot is in the western part of the borough abutting Elmbridge. Much of the island is occupied by light industry including boat repair workshops. The island was important for boatbuilding but now is quiet and wooded and inhabitated by song thrushes. The area is of regional importance for bats. Could all this be about to change? See local links page.

Crane Park Nature Reserve - This is an important site for song thrushes as is the whole of the Crane River Corridor. One of our working group recorded 13 song thrush territories along there last year.

Songthrush anvils at small burial grounds - We found song thrush anvils at Grove Chapel Cemetery and Kilmorey Mausoleum (photo). Song thrushes use the headstones at Grove Chapel Cemetery as anvils to break open snail shells. Volunteers at Kilmorey Mausoleum leave pieces of York stone around the site for breeding song thrushes to break open snail shells.

Songthrush anvils elsewhere - There are iron railings along the boundary between Hampton Court Park and Barge Walk. The railings are set on concrete plinths every few metres. Each plinth is an anvil and is covered in snail shells (see photo). Along the riverside at Teddington an old asbestos sheet has been used by a song thrushes as it was found covered in almost 50 broken snail shells.

Download of the above important sites