What’s going on, unseen?
Like many people, I feed the birds that visit my garden. Recently, I started trying to help the small ground-feeders in particular, and put in place a fairly heavy contraption (something akin to an inverted metal hanging basket). Bird food goes underneath, small birds can get in it to feed, the wood pigeons (which I think of as the avian equivalent of rats) can’t.
And it seemed to work. Birds generally take a while to get used to something new but after a few days, sure enough, I’d see the odd sparrow or dunnock nipping in to grab a bite to eat. But then, overnight, the contraption started getting knocked out of place. Yonks ago I was given a outdoor ‘wildlife camera’. Set that up in the right place and lo, it’s a hedgehog that’s getting the munchies.
A friend told me that hedgehogs particularly like dry cat food pieces so I bought a packet – and more success. But then the camera started showing other visitors – a cat which isn’t surprising given the cat food, and also a fox.
Now, I’ve not seen a hedgehog in my garden for years and they are known to be in serious country-wide decline, so getting one visiting is a real win in my book. And while I know foxes aren’t under threat in the same way, I’ve not seen (or heard) anywhere near as many for a fair old time either, so I’m happy with this visitor too. (Yes, I know foxes can kill and eat young hedgehogs but the ‘hog that’s visiting doesn’t look like a juvenile.)
The lesson I take from all this is that it’s perhaps not wise to assume there’s not much wildlife in your garden, even if there might be fewer visitors than was once the case. I live in an urban area and I think this probably holds true for all of Caversham (and elsewhere too). And with a bit of luck, if we can provide a better habitat for them, numbers might start to recover.
