The Harrow Nature Conservation Forum is seeking an assistant warden for Stanmore Country Park. The position would be initially for four months, at the end of which both parties would decide whether to continue.

Stanmore Country Park is a large nature reserve immediately north of Stanmore town centre. Up to around 1950 the area comprised grazed open fields. Of these Six Acre, Spring, John Hall’s and Forty Acre fields remain as species-rich open grassland while the remainder of the reserve is now secondary woodland. The reserve is home to a number of interesting species including the white letter hairstreak butterfly, a Harrow biodiversity flagship species. Resident birds include sparrow hawk, tawny owl, green and great spotted woodpecker and nuthatch. In summer several species of warbler are found including blackcap, whitethroat and lesser whitethroat. Also breeding are blackbird, song and mistle thrush, and many tit species including long tailed tit. Grey herons, moorhens and kingfishers can sometimes be seen feeding around the ponds.

Members of the warden team take time getting to know the site and then take responsibility for its management and for interaction with the public. Collectively the warden team, together with the Biodiversity Officer and the Public Realm manager from Harrow Council and other external bodies, create the strategy for managing Stanmore Country Park. Management has two strands, maintenance of the present ecological structure (for example, by mowing the grassland space to prevent succession to scrub) and carefully planned improvements. In particular an active programme of tree clearance is aimed at connecting the present isolated open areas by grassy rides to allow populations of insects to spread and mix. In the near future it is intended to graze cattle on some of the grassland areas to further improve the grassland character.

Specific roles and responsibilities include:

• Spending time on the site, getting to know the paths, plants and animals.
• Low scale maintenance of the site such as picking up litter and cutting back branches that are impeding paths.
• Participation in the creation of management plans.
• Supervision of volunteer working parties. Volunteers from the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers (BTCV) perform jobs such as scrub clearance and fence building. They are accompanied by a supervisor who is responsible for safety, transport and refreshments, so the warden’s role is specifically to supervise the work done.
• Contact with the public. Wardens should talk to members of the public about the site and distribute leaflets. They should encourage good behaviour and, where possible and safe, discourage bad behavior such lighting fires. Where direct intervention would be unsafe, wardens should call from help from the Cannons Safer Neighborhoods Police Team or, for immediate help, call 999.
• Attendance at Harrow Nature Conservation Forum meetings, which are held three times a year, usually on Tuesday evenings at the Civic Centre, Station Road.
• Assistance with stalls at public shows and other profile raising events.

Opportunities will be provided for wardens to be trained in identification of specific plant or animal groups and in the use of horticultural equipment such as brush cutters and chain saws, leading to vocational qualifications including LANTRA and NPTC.

For more information, contact John Hollingdale on <hollhu@yahoo.co.uk> phone: 020 8863 2077 or Stephen Bolsover on admin@harrowncf.org.