Stanmore Country Park Nature Trail
Post 18: This clearing is all that remains of John Hall’s Field. By 2000 the open area was reduced to the size of a garden lawn, but management by the voluntary warden John Hollingdale and other volunteers has increased it to its present size and linked it to 40 Acre Field to the south. The soil here is quick draining and acid, as in Upper Blue Pond Field, and there is a profusion of gorse together with other plants of unimproved grassland including common bent, yorkshire fog, early hair-grass, heath bedstraw, tormentil, hawkweed oxtongue and lesser stitchwort.

Beside the post is a hummock in the grass: this is an ant hill occupied by the yellow meadow-ant Lasius flavus, there are many more in the glade ahead. The ants are the main food for green woodpeckers, which are common in the Park. Abandoned ant hills can be seen in many of the now wooded areas of Stanmore Country Park and bear witness to the encroachment of previously open grassland by trees. The dry summits of the ant hills support a specialized population of plants such as sheep’s sorrel. In May through August look on top of the ant hills for the pale yellow dandelion-like flowers of the mouse-ear hawkweed Pilosella officinarum (see below). The undersides of the simple oval leaves are covered in a felt of white hairs, suggesting mouse ears.


Image: Mouse-ear hawkweed by Udo Schmidt, Creative Commons licence.

In March 2016 contractors cleared a lot of encroaching birch scrub.

To description for post 19

Click here to learn more about the Harrow Nature Conservation Forum including guided walks and conservation workdays.