Birding Oasis

A site of significant international conservation importance – and London’s biggest open space – is a wonderful habitat for some great birding

- Ed Hutchings

On the north-eastern outskirts of Britain’s largest city lies a verdant oasis of some age. Epping Forest is an area of ancient woodland straddling the border between Greater London and Essex.

A former royal forest, it is managed by the City of London Corporation and covers 6,118 acres, containing areas of woodland, grassland, heathland, rivers, bogs and ponds. Two-thirds of it is a Site of Special Scientific Interest and a Special Area of Conservation.

Stretching between Forest Gate in the south and Epping in the north, the forest is approximately a dozen miles long in the north-south direction, but no more than 2.5 miles from east to west at its widest point and in most places considerably narrower.

The forest lies on a ridge between the valleys of the rivers Lea and Roding; its elevation and thin, gravelly soil (the result of glaciation) historically made it unsuitable for agriculture.

The age of the forest and the range of habitats it contains make it a valuable area for wildlife. Its former status as a working or pasture forest has had a great effect on its ecology. This is particularly evident with the pollarded trees which as they have not been cut since the passing of the Epping Forest Act of 1878, have now grown massive crowns of thick, trunk-like branches with correspondingly large boles.

This gives the trees an unusual appearance not known in other forests. Often the weight of the branches cannot be supported by the parent tree and the large amount of deadwood in the forest supports numerous rare species of fungi and invertebrates. Although the Epping Forest Act almost certainly saved the forest from destruction, it must to some extent have had a deleterious effect on the area’s biodiversity. The pollarded trees allowed light through to the woodland floor, increasing the numbers of low-growing plants. Since the Act, the vast crowns of the pollards cut out most of the light to the underbrush.