This mummy coot who lives by the small duck pond in the park is keeping a protective eye on her three babies who are doing well.
According to the RSPB site, you can identify the coots as they are all black and larger than their cousins the moorhens and have a distinctive white beak and ‘shield’ above the beak which earns it the title of ‘bald’. The feet have distinctive lobed flats of skin on the toes which act instead of webs when swimming and coots can be quite aggressive towards others. (You can also remember there’s an R in moorhen and adult moorhens have red beaks!) According to Susan Harris, one of the park’s keen bird enthusiasts who captured this lovely photo, the coots born on the main pond have a much lower chance of survival as they have often been picked off by the gulls. That being said, there were six babies on the main pond yesterday so fingers crossed for this year! Susan has appealed to people to take care when feeding the ducks and avoid throwing food directly at the babies as this makes them more of a target for predators.
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Please join our volunteers on Saturday 22 April 2017 at 11am for a Spring Tidy session at the park.
Tasks include clearing up some overgrown areas of the park, litter picking and planting. Equipment will be provided but if you have items of your own you would like to bring, please do so. For safety reasons, we advise that you wear stout shoes and dress appropriately for the weather - whatever it's doing that day! Meet Richard East, the Chairperson of Friends of Victoria Park at the pond area and 11am and we will form small teams for each of the tasks. Richard explains: "We aim to host four sessions like this a year and I am always astonished at how much a team of people can achieve in a short session of two or three hours. Maintenance budgets for all Glasgow's parks have been badly hit by cuts, and every bit we can do to keep Victoria Park in good order and encourage biodiversity is very important." The Victoria Park 'Placemaking' consultation organised by Glasgow City Council mentioned in an earlier post culminated with a large group meeting on 30 January 2017 at Scotstoun stadium.
At the end of this meeting, it was proposed the the Dumbarton Road Corridor Environment Trust would help co-ordinate working with the various parties to develop a more comprehensive improvement plan for the park. The Friends of Victoria Park Committee has supported this proposal. We will participate in this group if it goes ahead and will keep you posted on any developments. You can view the paperwork related to the Placemaking Exercise here. You are warmly invited to attend a talk organised by the Friends of Victoria Park on the park's history and work underway with Scotland's Urban Past to preserve this. The talk will be held on Thursday 23 March 2017 at 7.30pm in the hall at Jordanhill Parish Church on Woodend Drive, Jordanhill. The speakers include Gillian Mawdsley of the Friends and Nicky Imrie of Scotland's Urban Past. Local groups are being brought together to develop a shared vision for the development of Victoria Park at a community placemaking event at Scotstoun Leisure Centre on Monday 28 November.
Members of the Friends of Victoria Park Committee will be taking part along with local community councils and other organisations. The event is being delivered by EKOS consultants on behalf of the council. This is the latest attempt to secure a better future for the park including the blaes pitches after the council decided that previous consutation exercises were inconclusive. Come with your children and help us decorate a Christmas Tree in the Park with brightly painted pine cones and ribbons. We felt this little Christmas Tree next the the beautiful Victorian Oswald Clock was crying out for some Festive treatment. On Saturday 10 December from 10.30 am to 12 noon, we will be there to decorate the tree - so come and help us and feel free to bring your own home made decorations to add some extra colour. Even if you can’t make it on the day, you can walk past the three on your walks round the park over the festive season. The decorations will be removed on 7th January 2017. Please note this event is weather dependent and will be can cancelled if the weather on Saturday 10th is to severe. Friends of Victoria Park laid a wreath at the cenotaph in the Park on Sunday 13 November. Despite the wet weather, two dozen people turned out and were welcomed by our Chair Richard East. Gillian Mawdsley who read the salutation also recalled two soldiers from the local area who died at war - Frederick O'Beine of Broomhill who died in November 1917 at Bourlon Wood and Alan Walker Souter, a parishioner of Balshagray Victoria Church who died on 11 September 1944. Before two minutes silence, the Last Post was beautifully played by young trumpeter Euan Black (17) followed by The Rouse. We would like to establish a service at the beautiful Cenotaph in the park as an annual event. If your family lost a relative in war who grew up around the park, we would love to know more about them and give them a special mention in next year’s service. Contact us by email: [email protected] |
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