All Blog Posts (206)

Bristol Parks Forum is the umbrella organisation for community park groups and organisations in the city with an interest in their local parks and green spaces.



You can find their website here  In the Meetings section you will find the Minutes of previous…

  We have received the following message from Gemma Dando, BCC there is particularly disappointing news about the Head of Parks role. Three members of the BPF committee had taken part in the recent recruitment process.…

During 2016 BCC conducted some trials of glyphosate-free maintenance of parks and open spaces.

St Andrews Park volunteered to trial no glyphosate treatment of the Spiral florals near the Leopold Road side of the park.

An interim report on the trial has been produced by BCC.

This is also a  …

Attached is the current Version 7 agreed at the AGM 15.4.14

This version has 2 addenda:

1. (25.2.14) outlining the Role of the Secretary

2. (11.10.16) Protocol for contact with Bristol City Council (BCC) officers.

If you have any comments you can raise them by…

The park pond gate has been repaired.Thanks to Sarah Tyler, our efficient liaison link at BCC. 

Have a look over the fence and you can see that some tadpoles are still with us; others have already left for pastures…

The popular Sunday morning bird walks will be starting again in January 2017. Watch this space for more details!

Play Area Update August 2016

The Play area convenors are Sarah and David Cemlyn.

August 2016.…

Thought Friends of St Andrews Park and its users might like to see this article from the Bristol e-paper B24/7:

http://www.bristol247.com/channel/opinion/your-say/environment/an-open-letter-to-david-rodriguez-campo

Very relevant to our park - and most others, I would think.

A beautiful sunny morning and some suitably spring-like bird activity observed! The full list as follows:

Mistle Thrush - a nest was located (see Simon's photo) and at least one youngster was seen. Parent birds nearby. Excellent stuff!

Coal Tit - 1 in song

Blue Tit - a few heard and seen

Great Tit - several heard

Robin - 1 or 2

Blackbird - several…

We have applied for the 2015 RHS Award; the judges will visit on 20th and 21st July.

Our submission is…

Hi all

I'll be leading a dawn chorus walk on Narroways Local Nature Reserve on Saturday 9 April. Full details here

Des

Everyone is welcome to attend our meetings. Times and venues are advertised as an Event.

Minutes of previous meetings are posted in Forum.

Dates of meetings in 2016/17:-

       These meeting dates alternate between Tuesdays and Wednesdays.  All meetings will be held at St. Andrews Bowling Club, Derby Road unless otherwise agreed and will commence at 7.30 pm

       Please note that the…

An impressive 18 people (including 5 enthusiastic youngsters) turned up for this month's Birdwalk, led by Lois  (Des being away on ornithological adventures elsewhere). The weather was overcast and quite cold but we recorded 21 different bird species including a pair of Mistle Thrush and a flock of 20 Redwing. The full list was as follows:

Blackbird: a few seen

Blue Tit: seen and heard

Carrion Crow: 2 or 3

Chaffinch: a female seen

Coal Tit: 1…

Despite the wild wind and drizzle a few hardy souls turned up for this walk. There was a surprising amount of bird song despite the conditions and at least it was mild. The list in full:

Redwing - a count of 15 birds by one participant was very impressive

Starling - a mini-murmuration of 40 birds

Blackbird - a few

Dunnock - 1 or 2 heard

Blue Tit - seen by one of us

Great Tit - 1 by the bowling green

Long-tailed Tit - seen on 2…

Well I thought today would be a wash-out, with overcast conditions and drizzle putting everyone, including me, off the idea of birding in the park. How wrong could I be? It turned out to be a classic walk! The list is as follows:

Great Spotted Woodpecker - 1 seen well near the children's play area. A rare visitor to the park.

Redwing - a flock of up to 20 seen in the trees and feeding on the ground - a good…

The mild and overcast conditions meant that our Christmas walk wasn't very Christmassy, but there were plenty of birds. The full list is as follows:

Robin - a few seen and heard

Blackbird - 4 or 5 seen

Wren - 1 or 2 in song and 2 seen in a front garden across the road

Redwing - 2 or 3 seen

Starling - a group of up to 10 seen in the 'starling tree'.

Feral…

You can read the Autumn - Winter FoFAP newsletter here.…

Well, we turned up but the birds didn't! We finished with one of the lowest bird counts ever, but luckily we had both fungi and invertebrate experts among our number so there was something else to look at. The complete list, for what it's worth:

Woodpigeon - very hard to find until the end of the walk when a few were seen

Feral Pigeon - several seen

Magpie - one or two

Crow - a…

It was reported to FoSAP early in November that two teenagers were mugged recently in St. Andrews Park in separate incidents. One of them was beaten up quite badly and mugged and the other was held at knifepoint.  It is believed this was after dark and possibly drug related.

 FoSAP has been in contact with PC Andy Stamp of the Redland beat police who was very concerned about recent alleged assaults.  It seems that so far as the police are concerned, whilst the police have received…