Wildlife UK Forum - Discuss the UK countryside and wildlife

Hi everyone

what a great site, at last I have someone to vent my passion for wildlife and attracting it into my patch of the world! I was always very interested in gardening and wildlife as a kid, catching sticklebacks in the pond and watching tadpoles grow into frogs! I fed foxes every night (despite being told off by my parents for wasting the dog food!), unfortunately I forgot about that as a teenager but have finally settle into a house and am blessed to have a large garden. When I moved here in winter 2005 my garden was just a boring lawn, but now it has two ponds, mixed flower beds, a few small trees, a wild flower meadow which I am trying to grow, lots of overgrown hedges, four compost heaps, a vegetable patch and a polytunnel, oh and three ultrasonic cat scarers. The lady who lived here before had a cat that according to the neighbout used to bring in birds and mice all the time so there was little wildlife at first but after a bit of transformation I have found woodpigeons, collared doves, starlings, blue tits, great tits, blackbirds, sparrows, dunnocks, robins, a magpie, greenfinches in my garden (most exciting was a goldfinch). I know these are all normal birds but for the city I think this is rather good. I also think my 5 rescued battery hens give them more confidence to come in the garden! I have also found hedgehogs when the guinea pig went missing, slow worms and lots of frogs and a few toads in my garden. The most exciting thing so far has been two blackbirds that nested in the hedge right next to my house, feeding them mealworms and getting very worried for them when they fledged. I saw one in a tree just a moment ago (at least assuming it was one). I have not seen the male who looked like he was on his last legs. but the mum comes back to the window box to get food. They were lovely!

My ideal job would be to be a garden designer who designed gardens that were good for nature, things that are so small can help so much! And nature fights your battles too. All the tits this year ate the blackfly off my broad beans and roses this year, I was very impressed!


I will take some pictures to show you all!

Hi Rowena, welcome to the forums!

I look forward to seeing some photos of your garden, it sounds like you have done a brilliant job for the wildlife there especially as it is in the city. The blackbirds sound wonderful, when did they fledge? Was their offspring healthy?

Hello rowena, are you doing the garden organically? How do the rescue hens fit in?

Like Xeract, I am looking forward to seeing some photos of your garden, and welcome to Wildlife UK!

Kingfisher

Hello rowena, pleased to meet you

Hello

The chickens do eat worms and spiders and I got very upset when I caught Brenda eating a baby frog but for the majority of the time they are in their run. They lay every day and are better in my garden then in pies! They each have a personality and like running at the woodpigeons that land in our garden, if only I could teach them to run at cats and scare them away!

I would say the garden is organic apart from some glysphuphanate (if thats how you spell it) that I used to kill some bind weed and some growmore fertliser. I compost everything I can using bokashi, including paper and card which really adds to the health of the soil.

The blackbirds had two babies, one which was off and away, bit of an adventurer! The other one stayed on the trellace for a day before we heard a bump or two at the window and he was practicing flying from our guinea pig hutch to the window box! Then he flew off nd crashed into the neighbours garage and then crashed into our house. I hope they both suvive!

Hi Rowena, Looking forward to seeing your pics especially ponds & chickens.

Hello Rowena!

I look forward to seeing the pictures too. Your chickens sound like real characters! It might not be such a good idea to train them to chase cats though

Your blackbird also sounds like an interesting one! I hope he does ok and learns to be a little less clumsy, I'm sure he will.

Here is one of my chickens. She has grown back a few feathers now.

Hi Rowena...your garden sounds great. A real urban nature reserve. What kind of creatures have you seen in your ponds?

One has been there for about a year, the other for nearly two. We get lots of frogs in both (both had frogspawn in their first year), water skaters, eater boatmen and damselfly. Have seen one emerald dragonfly and a blackbird getting mud for her nest. Have seen toads too around the area and I am sure the starlings use it as a bath as when I walk up there sometimes the starlings fly off and the pebble "beach" is all wet! We gat frogs in our polytunnel so I put a tiny pond in there for them but I am sure their are less frogs than last year. We were having a bbq last year and a frog was staring at us from about a metre and a half up the hedge. Has anyone else ever heard of frogs climbing hedges before? Hopefully one day newts will arrive! Although I do get worried because the chickens eat anything.

Never seen a frog in a hedge before, I have no idea how it would have got there! I think you would be ok with the newts, I don't think the chickens would have much chance of catching them.

I would hope not. Whenever I see a frog now I shoo the chickens away very fast - especially Brenda, who I am sorry to say found a slow worm today and ate its tail (I assume that the slow worm got away). Was very upset and she got locked in after that. Sometimes I think I am hypercritical about cats because of the chickens and their appetites. They are in their pen all week though and I would not think anything would want to go in there that might get eaten.

I would love to see some pictures of the chickens, they sound like great pets bit a bit cheeky at the same time! I would imagine that the slow worm got away, hopefully it did. While the chickens are in their pen I'm sure all the local wildlife will steer clear, apart from the foxes and cats maybe which you might have to look out for.

I have tried to post some photos of chickens before but I alwys take some more. I have however just taken some smaller ones (for ebay models) will try and post them now!

I think it has worked so will take some more later!

A natural born model, that hen! Which is which one, by the way? Something tells me that is Brenda...

Kingfisher