We were pleased to welcome Simon Saville, a Friend and Chairman of the SW London branch of Butterfly Conservation, to give our first butterfly talk. We were also grateful for the knowledge of the Common’s butterfly recorder - Ian Cunningham - and the skills of Sarah Halonen - our biodiversity lead – who jointly created a beautiful spring butterfly leaflet. At the talk we were very excited to hear May Webber, of #BigCityButterflies, announce that Wandsworth Common has been selected as a flagship site for this project. We’ll have more to say by the time of our Moth Breakfast and Big Butterfly Count in July.

We did two litterpicks for the #GB Springclean, one partnering with year 4 at Honeywell school. Pupils, teachers & parents all felt it was a great afternoon out. We’re keen to outreach to schools and are trying to help Naturescope attract school science classes to explore the Common and its biodiversity.

Charles Walton repeated his very popular history walk around the Common. Indeed, we had to turn away almost as many people again, so we’re keen to persuade Charles to repeat it. The warmer weather meanwhile brought out the bats for Iain Boulton’s bat walk. Then a few of us were privileged to walk the Common with Wandsworth’s biodiversity officer - Valerie Selby - with the aim of training us to do our own biodiversity walks. Watch this space

The month ended with the start of the season’s bowls sessions. Rachel, one of our committee, has been helping the Bolingbroke Bowling Club upgrade its communications in its centenary year. In a bid to increase its membership, we hosted a Friends bowls match with the BBC providing tuition to 12 novices. A great afternoon was had by all. We hope to make these a regular event.