Wanstead Flats month by month: 2009
A survey of the seasons
These pictures show the changing of the seasons on Wanstead Flats,
a fragment of heathland surviving in the middle of east London.
Technically, it is the southernmost arm of Epping Forest - there are plenty of trees in the high forest a few miles north but,
as you will see, few on the Flats themselves.
Click each thumbnail to enlarge.
Previous years: 2006 / 2007 / 2008
11 January 2009: it's been a cold month, and Alexandra Pond is frozen over.
Today, temperatures are just starting to rise, and the first cracks are showing.
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21 February 2009: a group of footballers trudge back to the Capel Road changing rooms.
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2 March 2008: Billy Smart's circus is back in town, just over from the model yacht pond.
Apologies for mislaying the 2009 pic! It was going to show the bandstand pond with water in it - increasingly common,
perhaps because of displacement from the Olympics site?
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25 April 2009: Industrial-strength lawn-mower. Well, there's a lot of grass,
though of course it's only the football pitches and adjacent areas - like the area east of Forest Drive, here - that get cut.
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17 May 2009: a good display of gorse this year, and you can see some of the attractive reddish grasses that are common here,
just in front. There is gorse all across the flats; here, we're to the east of Centre Road.
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13 June 2009: I'd planned to forget about the burial of the water main, which had dominated 2008. It's not finished, alas.
Three big holes have been left while Thames Water continue to play. This one is by the Golden Fleece.
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25 July 2009: I walked out by Centre Road this sunny July morning and disturbed butterflies with every pace.
Here, a gatekeeper butterfly settles on one of its favourite plants, the ragwort.
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8 August 2009: I've always been intrigued by this dead tree, at the corner of the flats between Centre Road
and Aldersbrook Road. Why has it ceased to be when its neighbours flourish?
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26 September 2009: Caravans on the flats west of Centre Road when no fair is planned?
A film crew has arrived but I did not find what they were working on ...
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1 October 2009: ... until the following week, when they had moved to the Aldersbrook side.
"It's the new Mike Leigh film", said an actress. "Has it got a title yet?" said I. "No," she said, "it hasn't even got a story."
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6 November 2009: It's always worth rocket-spotting the day after Guy Fawkes night.
This one came down near Lake House Road.
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19 December 2009: A bit of snow in the first cold snap of the year, looking towards Alexandra pond.
That's snow two years in a row. This batch didn't last long though.
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