Hello and welcome to Natural World Facts. I'm on location here at Richmond Park in London,
looking for wildlife.
At the heart of London, at the very centre of the busy crowds and heavy traffic that
worms its way through the city from dawn till dusk, there is an unexpected refuge to be found.
An oasis of life, hidden away beneath the towering skyscrapers. Here, an abundance
of wildlife can be found, each day playing out a majestic display of conflict, beauty, and power.
These animals just behind me here passing through this woodland are red deer, the most
common deer species found in this park. And they are everywhere. There are two main species
that can be found in Richmond Park, there's the red deer, the larger species, and the
fallow deer which are much smaller.
As the UK’s largest land mammal, red deer are truly majestic creatures. The males, known
as stags, develop a large set of antlers that grow with age and are shed and regrown each
year, while the females or hinds lack antlers and tend to be smaller.
Red deer certainly leave their mark on the landscape. Nearly all of the trees in the
park have a distinctive ‘browse line’ at 1.5 metres above the ground, caused by
deer eating all the leaves and twigs that grow below that height. Their constant grazing
on grasses, shoots and shrubs prevents saplings from growing, maintaining the largest area
of Lowland Acid Grassland in London, hosting much of the park’s diversity.
Thanks to the deer grazing over centuries, Richmond Park has become a specialised habitat. Aside
from the scattered areas of forested land, much of the wood in the park lies decaying
on the ground.
The only trees that do grow here are those that have been standing on this ground for
centuries, standing tall as ancient sentinels to watch over the landscape.
The park is home to some truly ancient trees, and they provide a habitat for an abundance
of wildlife. However, they are just as important dead as they are alive.
One of the main reasons that Richmond Park is home to so much wildlife, is the fact that
there is so much of this. Dead, decaying wood. This is vital for establishing the basis of
any ecosystem. The life of the undergrowth, the bugs, the insects, the worms, the ant
colonies, all of the creatures at the bottom of the food chain that allow areas like this
to become so diverse.
Mosses and lichen cover much of the dead wood found in the park, serving as a vital habitat
for soil organisms that make up the detrital food web.
There are over 400 types of fungi found in Richmond Park, which have a vital role to
play in the ecosystem here. Their two ecological roles are decomposition of other organisms,
and providing a food source for other living things.
As saprophytes, they can live on dead matter, such as rotting wood. They break this down
and obtain energy from organic compounds.
Many plants depend on fungi decomposing and recycling decaying matter in order to supply
nutrients to their roots; meaning the food web would be incomplete without them.
The mushrooms you see in the park are only the 'fruiting bodies' of what are mostly underground
fungi.
Living among the moss on one particular decaying log, a colony of ants makes its home. These
are Myrmica ruginodis, an aggressive species that are able to deliver a mildly irritant
sting. Here, a colony of nearly 300 individuals is tending to their developing larvae kept
hidden under the bark.
Ants also have a crucial role here. As they move and tunnel into the wood and earth, they
turn and aerate the soil. This allows water and oxygen to reach plant roots, helping them
to grow.
Not too far away, a colony of black wood ants inhabits a similar piece of old wood. Beetles
live here too, like this violet ground beetle hunting for soft-bodied prey to eat, such
as the many woodlice that can be found eating away at the wood.
Aside from decomposing organic waste and keeping the environment clean, ants are also important
in seed dispersal, as they take seeds down into their tunnels to eat them, although the
seeds often sprout and grow new plants.
Similar to the drama that plays out each day upon the African savannah, the life here exists
in perpetual conflict. There are the hunters, and the hunted.
The most numerous prey animals dwell in the park’s countless wood piles. These are woodlice.
Detrivores, the 'garbage collectors' of the soil, serving an important but often overlooked
purpose. Without them, plants would have less access to nutrients in spring, which would
slow down their growth.
The animal here snacking on the unfortunate isopods, is the UK’s most widespread toad
species. The common toad. They populate the park in their thousands, roaming far and wide
to hunt for insects, and embarking on a quest each spring to return to the exact place where
they themselves were spawned.
Down here in a dried up riverbed,
It is the perfect place where toads can be found hunting.
Because the soil is still damp and full of worms and even leeches.
It's under logs like this where you can find a wealth of wildlife.
There's everything under here, there's woodlice, spiders,
huge slugs, and even a little common toad.
Common frogs live here too, among many newt species that populate a number of the park’s
30 bodies of standing water.
Being home to such an incredibly diverse array of life, Richmond Park is a true sanctuary
for wildlife at the heart of an otherwise sleepless and bustling city.
If ever you visit the park, take care of the nature that inhabits it, respect the wild
deer and keep your distance, particularly in autumn when the rut between males begins,
and don’t disturb the decaying wood as it is a sanctuary for rare species like the larvae
of protected stag beetles. But above all else, enjoy the beauty of this place, for it is
like nowhere else in London.