What types of wildlife do you get visiting you in your garden? Foxes? Hedgehogs? Voles? Frogs? Toads?

I suspect there is a lot more there than many people realise.

We get loads of different types of birds, lots of squirrels, the occasional fox, frogs, mice, voles, bats. Neighbours have seen badgers, although I haven't. Can't think of anything else I've actually seen, but I'm sure there are more.

Even with a tiny little 'courtyard' garden (a lovely term for a terrace postage-stamp, lol) if I listed everything, you'd fall asleep after a few hours. There's just so much.
Found a lovely ladybird today, black with red spots for a change.
We have a thriving minibeast civilisation, but strangely no birds, which is a bit odd...can't even entice them in with assortments of bird food, plant coverage, and a lack of cats. Don't know why.
Bats come over from the quarry, and there are loads of foxes up there too.
Mainly, though, it's regiment upon regiment of slugs and snails.

If you're interested in wildlife, and like to keep tabs on it, you can make that interest useful by filling in one of the Mammal Society's Survey forms. You do it over a period of weeks, then send it in. It's really simple, and they can get an idea of what kinds of wildlife are thriving/ suffering in urban habitats.
Don't have time to find the link right now, but you can google it.

Or, of course, contact the Sheffield WIldlife Trust for a leaflet on Wildlife gardening:D

Cosy

Lots of birds from the comon blue tit through to the greater spotted woodpecker. Also have a visiting kestrel.

Frogs and great crested newt also visit us.

Have wonderful time watching the bats circle around at dusk.

Have a hedgehog which comes snorting around in the evenings.

Plenty of insects and minibeasts too with my particular favourite the dragon fly.

Several species of bird, squirrels, foxes, sometimes hedgehogs, loads of insects, frogs, toads, etc.

Quite a lot of students sitting on my front wall. Do they count?

We get loads of snails around this time of year, and the occasional frog - and we had a resident mouse recently.

With there being a lot of underground wells on the road I live on there's a lot of frogs/toads in the garden. We have a resident fox come through at night, hedgehogs are common on the road aswell, plus quite a few species of birds.

I saw so many species of birds at Meadowhall this afternoon, I couldn't concentrate on the shopping.

Our small pond attracts breeding frogs, toads and newts. Bags of insects as well. Birds aplenty when the cats are kipping. Several foxes at same time(ish) every night. Hedgehog we call 'Efor' (E for 'Edgehog), mice, snails the size of Bernard Manning, bats and once a kestrel eating a pigeon in the front garden. Have also had a heron once.

Garden's planted with wild flowers, hedgerow and lawn. Last Saturday night saw a fox with three young cubs playing in the road. Hope they come into our garden. Got loads of video of foxes (and the kestrel).

And this is in S5!!!!!

:thumbsup:

I've recently put a 3' by 5' approx 10"/12" deep pond in my garden with the aim of attracting reptiles. Do I need to oxygenate the water? No fish will be in the pond. Has anyone any relevant experience or done the same thing? When can I expect to see anything? (Frogs.Toads,Newts,Lizards)

Get lots of tits and other variation of birds, other than that we just have a few insects such as snails, ladybirds etc.

The BBC are running their Spring Watch Survey (http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/animals/wildbritain/springwatch/record/) again this year.

Last year I had ladybirds in my garden very early on, but I haven't seen any this year yet ~ probably too wet for them.

I have seen three badgers, a young common newt, but he must have parents, frogs and toads, foxes, squirrels, mice, a bat, various birds, dunnock, sparrows, jays, wood pidgeon, collared dove, magpies, blackbirds, wrens, blue tits, great tits, robin, greenfinch, sparrow hawk and heron.

We get frogs and toads (due to ours and a couple of neighbours ponds) dragonflies (ditto) a good selection of wild birds, including a tawny owl who calls from the tree at the bottom of the garden and the odd hedghog family.

I've recently put a 3' by 5' approx 10"/12" deep pond in my garden with the aim of attracting reptiles. Do I need to oxygenate the water? No fish will be in the pond. Has anyone any relevant experience or done the same thing? When can I expect to see anything? (Frogs.Toads,Newts,Lizards)

Don't put in fish they will eat your frog spawn etc. I have some yellow water lillies, which keeps my pond free of alage, they grow quite quickly over a couple of years and some plants around the edge help with shade for wildlife ..but not trees. I a newt in my pond for the first time last year. If the ponds right .. the wildlife will follow.

Do a web search for wildlife ponds ...

we are on a new housing estate. We put a bird table etc out and i am constantly amazed. We get the usual tits, finches etc but have also had a couple of woodpeckers and a nut hatch. Also get squirels which we shouldn't encourage but they are funny. I hear an owl regularly but i haven't see it yet. Also had a rabbit run across the road a couple of nights ago.


Theres loads if you actually take the time to look.

The local cats have killed most of the wildlife in our back garden, I've picked-up dead frogs, toads, birds, goldfish, koi (granted they wern't "wild" though) of the decking.

I had to put a collar on my cat, with a really loud bell, we had only had him a few weeks when he suddenly turned into a serial killer.

Don't put in fish they will eat your frog spawn etc. I have some yellow water lillies, which keeps my pond free of alage, they grow quite quickly over a couple of years and some plants around the edge help with shade for wildlife ..but not trees. I a newt in my pond for the first time last year. If the ponds right .. the wildlife will follow.

Do a web search for wildlife ponds ...

It will be a small breeding pond for reptiles only.
I back onto a fairly damp open space so hopefully the reptiles should find their way to the pond to breed. If they don't. Would someone pledge a few newt or lizard eggs when the time comes please?

If you back on to some fairly damp open space you'll find you probably won't have much of a problem attracting a variety of reptiles. We have the usual assortment of frogs and toads as well as newts and grass snakes - and we've done nothing at all to attract them. A pile of un-disturbed rocks and rotting wood will also help as it'll give them somewhere to hide - but guess you already know that. Also keep an area of grass that's uncut - lawnmowers are no friends of reptiles.

Our pond is like a wild sea at the moment! The first dollop of frog spawn has allready appeared. No doubt there will be loads more to come given the number of cavorting frogs in there. This pond has fish in as well, but we have another pond that is turned over to just the wildlife.
We have a visiting fox.......loads of different birds including a pair of Jay's at the end of last year. There was a pheasant strutting it's stuff around the garden a couple of weeks ago. Our neighbour says we have a sparrow hawk in the vicinity but I have never seen that one. I have seen the spotted woodpecker though. We did have a resident hedgehog but I haven't seen it for a while. We also have bats.......and squirrels and the odd bunny. Oh.....and a pair of owls that toot away to each other.
Isn't nature fantastic? I feel so lucky to have all this on our patch.

We get frogs, toads, newts, me, bats and various birds.
I dont have a clue what kind of birds though, Im to ornithology what Adolf Hitler was to racial harmony.

My garden backs onto the national park. Red belly black snake, eastern brown snake,tiger snake,death adder.Blue tongue lizzard, Funnel web spider, red back spider, golden orb spider,southern cross spider,huntsman spider. Kookaburra,pied kurrawong,magpie
eastern rosella.crimson rosella.sulfur crested cockatoo,yellow tail black cocatoo,satin bower bird,boobook owl, lyrebird,wedge tail eagle.Wallabys,possums plus the odd rabbit.You just have to watch where you walk. :D Forgot butcher bird.

My garden backs onto the national park. Red belly black snake, eastern brown snake,tiger snake,death adder.Blue tongue lizzard, Funnel web spider, red back spider, golden orb spider,southern cross spider,huntsman spider. Kookaburra,pied kurrawong,magpie
eastern rosella.crimson rosella.sulfur crested cockatoo,yellow tail black cocatoo,satin bower bird,boobook owl, lyrebird,wedge tail eagle.Wallabys,possums plus the odd rabbit.You just have to watch where you walk. :D Forgot butcher bird.

Your back garden is probably bigger than the Island that most of us here live on!!! I live on the bit called Totley Brook, Sheffield, United Kingdom.

Show off! :D

My garden's really tiny, but it manages to have different teeny micro climates - one part is really dry due to big Leylandii (not mine sadly or they would be cut down) other parts are very damp. I stuff it full of plants (its like a garden centre in summer and you have to squeeze round the urns and pots) but leave some bits a bit wild. That's because I have resident frogs and toads - there were loads of baby frogs one autumn, about ten of them, that all came leaping out of a lobelia trough when I watered it - in a mad croaking frog gang (so I left it to die off through the winter to give them shelter), and I haven't even got room for a pond!

I have tons of flamin' snails, which I don't like as they eat my blue petunias, but they don't eat the lime green petunias?? I heard a thrush singing his heart out this morning, and we have finches, sparrows, tits, magpies, wood pigeons, I've also seen squirrels. We had a pair of mice get into the house byt the cats 'dealt with' them. They don't go out so they got excited at having a 'kill' finally that didn;t involve spiders... Oh and I have loads of beautiful orb weaver spiders. I don't get enough ladybirds so I'm thinking of buying some larvae. But I do get lots of butterflies and lovely bees due to all my flowers - they love my foxgloves.

And I saw a Heron fly over a couple of weeks ago! I've also heard a fox crying and seen bats flitting over in the summer.

My garden backs onto the national park. Red belly black snake, eastern brown snake,tiger snake,death adder.Blue tongue lizzard, Funnel web spider, red back spider, golden orb spider,southern cross spider,huntsman spider. Kookaburra,pied kurrawong,magpie
eastern rosella.crimson rosella.sulfur crested cockatoo,yellow tail black cocatoo,satin bower bird,boobook owl, lyrebird,wedge tail eagle.Wallabys,possums plus the odd rabbit.You just have to watch where you walk. :D Forgot butcher bird.


Wow, the Blue Mountains are truly magnificent. I envy you living in such a beautiful place. We visited, briefly, the 3 Sisters and that area when we were last in Australia.

I have pigeons! :clap:

We see the geese fly over twice a day from Autumn to Spring.
Plus all the usual garden birds,but there are not many sparrows around here for some reason.
We sometime see herons,sparrow hawks,and an occasional kite swooping down on to the farmland.
We keep a pair of binoculars handy so as not to miss anything!
And spiders of all sizes!Tiny ones and huge ones,some dark some very light.
What truly amazes me about spiders is the strength of their webs.
Sometimes they weave their webs between our car wing mirror and the car.
Once we travelled about 30 miles with a web attached and it never budged.Yet you only have to touch it and it"s gone!

Ditto the 'courtyard' garden- timy, but doesn't stop us getting frequent visits from a hedgehog or two (we only know because the daft dobe goes nuts when there's one in the yard), plus a colony of frogs are in permanent residence. We watched a dragonfly emerge from its larvae/ whatever from our tiny pond, a couple of years ago. We get a lot of wild birds- usually dunnocks, blackbirds, wood pigeons (I'm lost at identifying the rest), a few neighbouring cats (who don't bother the birds, actually), slugs and lots of insects because we garden organically.

Its odd but, since I left Sheffield to live in the country, I havent seen a single hedgehog. When I lived on Wordsworth avenue, you couldnt move for them in the summer.

Some years ago (1963) a David Pitts asked me to confirm that he had observed a 'Nuthatch' in Eccelsall Woods, Sheffield. I confirmed it.
At the time the most northerly point the 'Nuthatch' had been observed was 'Newstead Abbey, Nottingham.
How far north as it spread to now? Has it arrived in Scotland yet?
Though we did not realise it, when I look back now, I believe, what we actually observed that day in 1963 was the beginning of Global warming which allowed the 'Nuthatches' food to live further north than previously.

I have pigeons! :clap:

I'd see a doctor about that ;) :D

I'd see a doctor about that ;) :D

And I'll be looking soon to see how much I can donate for your fund raiser.

I have about a million slugs :( and some snails, i have seen squirels in the trees at the bottom of the garden though, lots of wood pigeons, some blue tits, and lots of foxes locally but they can't get into my garden which is probably a good thing as i have rabbits.

I have about a million slugs :( and some snails, i have seen squirels in the trees at the bottom of the garden though, lots of wood pigeons, some blue tits, and lots of foxes locally but they can't get into my garden which is probably a good thing as i have rabbits.

Over the last Twenty years, I've frequently fed a Fox, or his grand children's, children that visits the bottom of my garden. If when he gets use to me putting his food out and comes within sight I always throw something, not to hit him but, to frighten him, this is to stop offering his friendship to someone who would prefer to kill him. It would be interesting to know how many other people feed one also.

In our small Queensland garden, we currently have geckos, several species of moth (mainly gecko food), cane toads, kookaburra and currajong visitors, honey-eaters hanging upside down on our flowering trees, and, as I posted elsewhere (pets & babies) a venomous taipan (deadly snake) in our shed. I'll go and disturb it tomorrow, if it doesn't vanish tonight as silently as it came last week.

In our small Queensland garden, we currently have geckos, several species of moth (mainly gecko food), cane toads, kookaburra and currajong visitors, honey-eaters hanging upside down on our flowering trees, and, as I posted elsewhere (pets & babies) a venomous taipan (deadly snake) in our shed. I'll go and disturb it tomorrow, if it doesn't vanish tonight as silently as it came last week.

Rather you than me, mate lol.

Rather you than me, mate lol.

Don't pick yourself in. Thars got a marathon to run.

Looks like the taipan has softly & silently vanished.

we live in a really built up area, but have a very large garden and a green field area close by. and for the last 3 yrs we have had a breeding vixen at the bottom of our garden, she can be seen quite regularly laid on top of our privet hedge, the fox cubs are a treat to watch as they don't appear at all daunted by our presence as long as we don't get too close. they don't even seem to mind our yorkie either.

as well as the usual array of wild birds we also have the occasional heron pop in and steal fish from my neighbours pond.

hedgehogs,toads,frogs are also regular visitors as are several stray cats

A short time ago I read that possibly more Foxes live in Towns & Cities than in the Countryside simply because they can obtain food and shelter more easily. Can anyone add further to this?

A short time ago I read that possibly more Foxes live in Towns & Cities than in the Countryside simply because they can obtain food and shelter more easily. Can anyone add further to this?
Sounds quite feasable to me. Where there's easy food and shelter is where you'd expect to find the more intelligent animals. :thumbsup:

I ve just read on a website about foxes that although they won"t kill a cat,if they find a dead cat they will take it for food.A fox is a lone hunter. Other foxes may come along to try and get a portion,and they will make a terrible racket.Sometimes,when people see this they mistakenly believe the foxes have killed the cat.
Usually a cat will soon see off a fox in the garden. I saw an example of this on TV the other night, when a clip from a night camera caught a cat chasing a fox out of the garden.

I ve just read on a website about foxes that although they won"t kill a cat,if they find a dead cat they will take it for food.A fox is a lone hunter. Other foxes may come along to try and get a portion,and they will make a terrible racket.Sometimes,when people see this they mistakenly believe the foxes have killed the cat.
Usually a cat will soon see off a fox in the garden. I saw an example of this on TV the other night, when a clip from a night camera caught a cat chasing a fox out of the garden.I have video of the foxes in our garden queueing up behind cats to wait their turn for food. I even have film of our cats and three foxes seemingly playing.

I think in a one on one between a healthy cat and a fox, the cat would come off best. It's the more heavily armed, and possibly the braver of the two.

I've recently put a 3' by 5' approx 10"/12" deep pond in my garden with the aim of attracting reptiles. Do I need to oxygenate the water? No fish will be in the pond. Has anyone any relevant experience or done the same thing? When can I expect to see anything? (Frogs.Toads,Newts,Lizards)

I've just found my first Frog(s).
One or Two are now playing Piggy Back's so the outlook appears promising.
(My mother has told me).
My mother was correct: 11.03.07. Frog Spawn found 05.30hrs & some more 12.03.07.
They have been 'At it Again'.
And again. I've got some more. 31.03.07

I have video of the foxes in our garden queueing up behind cats to wait their turn for food. I even have film of our cats and three foxes seemingly playing.

I think in a one on one between a healthy cat and a fox, the cat would come off best. It's the more heavily armed, and possibly the braver of the two.

From my own observations, I'm sure that a fox is no match against a cat.
Not only this but I'm sure that a fox will go out of the way to avoid trouble.
I think most wild animals in Great Britain do, even the wild cat in Scotland.
Possibly the only time a wild animal would attack a human is if its young were put in immediate danger. In situations like this if a animal is given a short period of time it will remove its young to a more secure place.