Do we have any town dwellers here? If we do, what kind of wildlife do you get in and around the town?

We have heard about the increase in urban foxes who can find easy meals there, and I'm sure you get some squirrels, but is there any animals you have seen in towns that you didn't expect to?

I live on the edge of a small town surrounded by woodland, riding stables and farmland, and apart from the mentioned foxes and squirrels we have quite a lot of roe deer living in the boardering woods. They have a tendency to nip into people's gardens to help themselves to the young flowers. I have also seen a few weasels when out walking - fascinating to watch if you keep very still so that they don't know that you're there.

I live just outside of a town too, in the middle of an estate so the area is quite built up. The most commmon animals to see around here are hedgehogs and foxes although even these are rare.
I don't think I've ever even seen a squirrel in my tree.

I live on the outskirts of a village and we get the same sort of animals that Timberwolf does. I've never had the deer come into our garden personally as there is a bit too high human concentration here, but we often see them up in the woods just outside the village, along with adders and grass snakes.

Live in southport near some pine trees and odd red squirrel pops out. My dog would love to learn to climb trees after them. She always looks up trees to see whats there, and actually walked into one due to not looking where she was going. I lmso at her.
Reds are normally a bit further south of here at Formby.
Also seen the odd urban fox early in the morning.
Luv windy.

Mostly foxes for us, unless we have to count those darned EGS's. We are still at 6 babies!!
I do know we have deer in a few parts as someone I know has seen them but I am still searching. There was some not long ago on a school field near a small town centre 3pm in the afternoon. The teachers brought the children out to look at them. We think they are moving around the small cloughs which still span town making them quite quiet & isolated. They can traverse from the river valley up into these small secret havens.
I do remember once hearing a report of a full grown stag in Manchester city centre possibly got in from the river valley & then created havoc trying to get out.
Even though this is not particularly town but still unusual - perhaps wild canon could tell us more about if there are still wallabies in Derbyshire

This post was last modified: 04-08-2007 12:47 PM by tibbar.

Windynights, you're very lucky to get to see red squirrels near your house, pictures would be great as we don't get any down here.

Tibbar, that's an amazing sotry about the stag getting into the town centre, I wonder how it got there!?

I remember many years ago going to a park near Horsham which had wallabies in it, a friend we were with moaned that we had been there for hours and hadn't seen a single wallaby, and there was one standing right behind him!

D'oh. Sounds like a pure Homer Simpson moment.

It was definitely a Homer moment

The problem with having such a veriety of urban wildlife is of course that they are all in more danger from humans and our activities. I saw a hedgehog that had been run over on a quiet road yesterday, very sad.

I live in the countryside, about 10 miles from Glasgow but I have a better chance of observing foxes in the town centre than I do at home. Some of the town foxes are fairly tame and will accept food from your hand, as shown on the recent Bill Oddie wildlife programme, which had segment about Glasgow foxes on it.

It is amazing how many town foxes there seem to be nowdays. The latest springwatch series tracked an urban fox family and they really do live life in the edge as they could so easily be run down by cars, but obviously they find it easier to find food in the city than they do in the countryside.

We saw that & loved it I thought it was really funny when the fox was walking following the chap with the dogs & he didn't even realise!!!!
Windynights we are very interested in reds , are they expanding from Formby then?
I am sure that Tibbar offered to send Sunshine some EGS's on a previous thread
The other night at work Tibbar turned fire appliances out to an Road Traffic Collision on the M61 motorway involving 1 van & the accident was caused by avoidance of a Roe Deer which was crossing the motorway!!!!!!!!! I would post the local paper but some of the comments are 'cavemanish' & need not be read by others. If the local paper closes the comments down I will post the article.

This post was last modified: 16-08-2007 07:50 PM by skippy.

My house is in a semi rural area in Staffordshire and close to the house I have actually seen more around my other half house which is in a far more urban area on the outskirts of Birmingham although there are some woods and a golf course close to her house.

At her house I have seen nothing extraordinary but along with usual birds but including a now frequent Sparrow Hawk; fox, hedgehogs, mice in the wild area at the bottom of the garden, rabbits, grey squirrels and bats on the golfcourse.

So nothing unusual but still a nice variety of the usual suspects.

Bristol Suburbs:

There is a hedgehog munching on my lawn as I write this. Have seen foxes but not in my garden hopefully as I have chickens. Frogs, toads, sparrows, collared doves that always arrive in pairs, slow worms, bumblebees, butterflies, blackbirds nesting a metre away from my house, sparrows, blue tits, damselflies, dragonflies, wrens and screaching house martins.

If you plant native plants in your urban garden you can attract all sorts...

I can't remember ever seeing a slow worm in our garden, I haven't seen one at all for a very long time. We did have an adder in the pond once, I'll never forget the sound a poor frog made as it got attacked.