Tooting Bec Common is my nearest sizeable open space. I've lived within walking distance of it since 1991 yet only actually discovered its glory in 2008. Paired with the much smaller Tooting Graveney Common in the far south and you have the technically correct "Tooting Commons".
There are people who go on the Commons daily or near daily, to walk their dogs or as part of their journey to work or school, or as their regular constitutional. It must be great to do that, to see the minute changes through the season. On the other hand, I like to see many different places, and in south London we have no shortage of great wild nature places to visit. Although densely populated, London is mainly green space or open water, with fairly little of that being private land. We might not have rolling hills visible from our windows but we have no shortage of diverse parkland in which to roam.
Anyway, even in winter I like to go down to the Common from time to time, sometimes as a scenic walk finishing with cake in Streatham. Because it's so familiar I rarely take photos, especially if I'm on the bike. But perhaps there is something about Spring that pushes the urge to photograph. These are all from mid-April.
It's nice down by the lake, but unfortunately a large colony of rats seem to have taken over. Mildly fascinating the first time
On a subsequent visit I had to move from the lake: too unsettling to have rats scurrying about and pigeons seeming to fly directly at me. Perhaps even more disconcerting was the parents encouraging their toddlers to throw bread into the lake. "Feeding the ducks" they think they're doing. It's bad for the water fowl and it just encourages the rats, and might also encourage e. coli. If I were a mother of a small child I would be repelled by the rats, nature's way of telling a mother to protect her young. Still, I saw a robin.
The Commons cover 92 hectares (221 acres) of wildlife areas, woods, sports pitches, playgrounds, a lido, an Athletics track. According to Wikipedia (subsequently removed) "Ribblesdale Rovers FC have been playing here since their founding in 2013 and have attracted crowds of up to 20 people on a weekly basis".
Oddly, I never think to photograph the woods. I guess because they're just trees. Down the southern end are more trees, and open space
Back up at our end, I tend to think of the Common as just a strip of land next to the road, where the flat-dwellers of East Balham go to read, sunbathe and picnic. But even that is quite wooded
Lurking behind the trees is the viaduct that carries the branchline of the London-Brighton railway to Streatham Hill and beyond.
