Wildlife on your doorstep

You don't need to live in the country, or even go there, to find amazing wildlife, a lot of it is right there on your doorstep, even if you live in the middle of a city!

We live about a mile and a half from the city centre, we have lived here for about a year and a half and have seen some lovely wildlife in our own garden! Loads of birds come to visit because Matthew has worked hard to put up lots of things to attract them such as bird boxes, bird baths and feeders, some of the birds we get are: goldfinches, sparrows, dunnocks, chaffinches, collared doves, wood pigeons, blackbirds, blue tits, great tits, coal tits, robins and starlings.

But it's not just birds that visit our garden, we also made a pond out of a washing up bowl, it is very small but we attracted frogs and found 4 frogs living there when we cleaned it out a bit earlier in the year (it had got so full of dead leaves that it was only a couple of inches deep!)

We have also been extremely lucky to have attracted several butterflies, damselflies and even a dragonfly into our garden by planting wildflowers and plants to lure them in! We also get quite a few moths fluttering around in the evenings, I'd love to make my own moth trap and find out what we get!

The best part about our very small garden is that last year we attracted a hedgehog and this spring he came back!

It really goes to show how much life there can be in a small space, so don't write your garden off just because it is small, plant some flowers, make your own pond, feed the birds and it will be full of life in no time!

When I lived with my dad we had some less common species visiting the garden in the winter, redwings and fieldfares visited, enjoying the berries on the tree behind his house (ok, technically it was someone else's garden) and a blackcap had joined them. I took these photos from my old bedroom window whilst in my pyjamas!

A lot of you probably get foxes in your garden or see them regularly, unfortunately foxes seem to be one of the animals I rarely see, even though by most accounts the city is overrun with them.

 

Within a short walk from my house at two parks; Waterloo and Wensum. Wensum Park is probably better for wildlife because it has the river running through it, the sign there shows lots of wildlife you might spot, I think this is a bit of an optimistic view of wildlife in the park and it looks fairly old but I like to think some of it can be found there. Last time I went I heard some plops in the water which could have been water voles (or rats, as they had turned out to be previously!) and there have been reports of otters there. I will be paying a few more visits when I can and will report if I see anything else exciting!

 

As I have said in a previous blog, the pond at Waterloo Park is FULL of tadpoles and tiny frogs at the moment, as well as waterboatmen and strange little whirligig beetles! Other things I have seen at Waterloo Park are thrushes, goldfinches, squirrels and butterflies.

I work right in the middle of the city, in a building surrounded by other buildings but even we manage to get a whole host of wildlife there, which the children I look after love it and I love showing them! We get lots of birds such as sparrows, pigeons, collared doves, blackbirds and the occasional magpie or jay. We get loads of creepy crawlies such as ladybirds, earwigs, centipedes and woodlice. These may not sound that interesting or exciting to you, but I can assure you they are to a toddler and there is nothing better than seeing their little faces light up when they can get up close to wildlife. A couple of years ago we attempted to rescue a swift who had crash landed in our garden, the story didn't end well unfortunately but we gave it our best shot and was lovely to get so close to these birds that you usually only see as tiny blobs screeching high above you! We've even had the odd squirrel and sparrowhawk passing through!

 

If you think that's not enough wildlife for you, Norwich Cathedral is home to a pair of Peregrine Falcons who have nested in a box put up by the Hawk and Owl Trust, this is the third year they have bred and successfully fledged 4 chicks this June, unforunately one didn't survive but last I heard the other 3 were doing very well :) They can be seen at the moment and if you head down to the cathedral the Hawk and Owl Trust have a stand with scopes and information, I think they are probably there until the end of July-ish, the adult peregrines can be seen there all year round and I often see one sitting on the crockets of the cathedral spire on my bus journey to work (with the naked eye, you don't always need binoculars!)

 

The last thing I'm going to tell you about is the Riverside Walk that runs past the cathedral, although it's very rare, we have spotted some wonderful wildlife there, the best three were a water vole in the pond near Cow Tower, a Kingfisher flying past, which we later found sitting in the branches below the Red Lion pub at Bishop's Bridge and Long Tailed Tits feeding on a fatball that someone had hung in a tree. There have also been reports of otters along the river too, although we have never been lucky enough to see them.

Phew! I think that is about all I have to tell you about at the moment. I hope it has inspired those of you who live in a city, have small gardens or think there is no wildlife near you to go out and see what you can find, as even the most unlikely places can surprise you!

Thanks for reading :)