BAA Heathrow’s environment team are hosting four ‘Discover Heathrow’ educational walks and talks at two of BAA Heathrow’s conservation sites in April and June this year. The Heathrow area is home to a surprising variety of plant and animal life including Muntjac deer, bats and grass snakes. It is also one of the most diverse sites in London for spiders and beetles.

BAA owns ten conservation sites that protect the biodiversity of the airport. Six of the ten conservation sites are fully or partially open for community use, and four are closed because they contain deep water lagoons used as part of the runway drainage and flood protection system.

The two sites that the team will be touring are:

Oaks Road
This public access site near the Southern Perimeter Road in Spelthorne is mainly scrub and grassland. It provides a locally important habitat for birds and butterflies, and potentially for a wide variety of wildlife. Planned work here includes increasing wildflower diversity, and creating a ‘loggery’ to encourage stag beetles. Walks and talks here will take place at 11:00 on 8 April and 18 June.

Two Bridges Farm
The riverside path on the Two Bridges Farm site near Terminal 4 is a site of Metropolitan Importance for Nature Conservation, with a pond that boasts a large breeding population of common toads and dragonflies. Much of this open-access site is rough grassland that BAA ecologists are managing to increase the number of wildflower species. Walks and talks here will take place at 11:00 on 9 April and 19 June.

Each walk and talk should last around an hour and attendees should meet at the sites.

We would love to hear from members of the public interested in attending one of these events or wanting to get involved in surveys of species or managing these environments in a practical way at heathrowenvironment@baa.com

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