June at Heath Hands

Colin Houston - Chief Executive, Heath Hands

It’s been quite a few weeks across our green spaces - from baking heat to incessant downpours and the return of fleeces, it’s all been very changeable. I took the below photo last week after a torrential thunderstorm briefly gave way to blue sky and a stunning rainbow over Kenwood House. As it’s the end of Volunteers Week - I wanted to start by acknowledging all the magnificent contribution volunteers make to caring for and conserving our green spaces.

Our staff and volunteer teams have been dealing with all this change admirably, especially as this time of year is by far the busiest with a heady mix of increasing plant growth, increasing litter, increasing visits from schools and community groups and (usually) increasing watering!

The view from Heath Hands HQ in between storms and sunshine

Early summer is a busy time, and we’ve lots of different activities and events coming up - everything from litter picks to insect safaris and the bandstand concerts. You can check it all out on our what’s on page - or catch up with the latest each Saturday at the Info Hut at the Farmers Market at Parliament Hill.

I mentioned the litter, and a massive thank you as Volunteers Week comes to a close to everyone who has been giving up their time to help tackle this terrible issue - we’ve weekly events for you to help. As special mention goes to the students of South Hampstead High School, one of our amazing Heath Friendly Schools, who not only faced horrible weather during their conservation projects, but filled a wheelie bin with rubbish in a little over an hour - see below (me showing the scale of the issue we face with littering).

South Hampstead High School conservation briefing

A full wheelie bin of rubbish - in one hour!

This time of year also sees our various Wildlife Monitoring projects get really busy, with our volunteers out on a number of different surveys each week. The fabulous snap of a grass snake below was taken by volunteer Duncan Chapman, and you may have seen this species feature in last week’s Springwatch episode that broadcast from the Heath. Our butterfly, odonata, hedgehog, nature’s calendar and stag beetle surveys produce a wealth of information and there are short reports on each here.

We have a range of groups out, including our weekly youth and adult conservation volunteers. We also welcome a number of corporate groups, such as the one pictured below from Nice. Big thanks also go to all the participants this last month from the Royal College of Podiatary, the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero, Six Degrees, Chubb, Hart Dixon and Unifrog. More information on corporate volunteering and partnership opportunities can be found here.

A grass snake spotted during a survey.

Thanks to all our volunteers during Volunteers Week.

We’re always looking at new ways to help people get involved on Hampstead Heath, and support the charity. Last year we launched drop in volunteering (after work and on weekends) - there’s lots of information about how to Get involved on our website, including if you’d like to support our volunteers and conservation and community programmes by becoming a Friend of Heath Hands.

Looking forward we’ll be having our AGM in a few weeks (outdoors so fingers crossed for dry weather) and lots of community group visits and walking groups. We’ll also be planning the launch of new projects at Queen’s Park, a brand new green space for Heath Hands to support and care for.

I hope the rest of June is just as interesting as the last few weeks have been, albeit hopefully a little less changeable!