We're lucky enough to have a 2 acre wooded garden which we've spent the last 13yrs turning it into a wildlife haven with log piles, brash, scrub areas, a developing meadow area, bird boxes, insect hotels, feeders, long and short grass, native hedgerows, a wild pond and untouched areas and have hedgehogs, foxes, shrew, moles, bank voles, toads, newts, frogs, visiting muntjac and roe deer and even once had a red deer! The wooded part is sadly the last remnant of a small wood that used to be here at least since the 1830's but has been cut down with only our little copse remaining. It has around 211 trees with a wide variety of trees mostly indigenous but some introduced specimens too all of which in turn attract a wide variety of species including over 400 different species of moth so far and at least 45 species of bird. Since 2020 I have been attempting to do a bioblitz on my garden and still have only scratched the surface. We have several mature English Oaks, Sycamore, Horse Chestnut, European Aspen, Hornbeam, Ash, Hazel, Hawthorn, Buckthorn, Silver Birch, Sweet Chestnut, Apple, Pear, Beech, Bird Cherry, Wild Cherry, Cherry Plum, Scot's Pine, Black Pine, Larch, Wild Service Tree (an ancient woodland indicator), Black Walnut, Elm, Field Maple, Norway Spruce, White Beam, White Poplar, Downy Birch, Tree of Heaven, Lawson & Leyland Cypress, Catalpa, Weeping Willow, White Willow, Cracked Willow, Ossier, Himalyan Birch, Dogwood, Blackthorn, Magnolia, Goat Willow, Grey Willow, Alder, Plum, Common Lime and Small-Leaved Lime. We have a mix of habitats - garden, woodland, wetland (with our large boggy pond, ditches and a brook) and we abut farmland so that is reflected in the mix of wildlife. We have wetland species like Grey Wagtail and all year round resident moorhens (since 2011) who breed up to 3 broods a year of between 4-9 chicks each time, visiting mallard and mandarin ducks in the summer and occasional visiting grey heron and the flash of blue along the brook from a kingfisher. We have woodland species such as green & great spotted woodpeckers who live and nest here, black caps, goldcrests, jays, chiff chaff, pheasants, long-tailed tits, nuthatches, song & mistle thrushes and visiting tawny owls and redwings. Garden species such as blue, coal and great tits, blackbirds, collared doves, woodpigeons, jackdaws, carrion crows, goldfinches, greenfinches, bullfinches, chaffinches, dunnocks, house sparrows, robins, wrens, pied wagtails, magpies and visiting ravens. We also have a pair of breeding common buzzards in the field behind our property who predate in our garden very regularly. Here are some of the photos I have taken in the last few years.
Stunning! You could put a couple of hides up, and charge entry lol
What an amazing garden/woodland area you have and goes to prove if you have the right habitat all sorts of birds, mammals, insects, etc, will thrive with the right conditions. We had a much smaller area just short of an acre around our last home and we had quite a few of the same species you have shown including a resident wagtail (outside of breeding season) a fleeting sight of a Kingfisher who checked out our pond and the flowers and hanging basket brought in a hummingbird hawkmoth like yours and a purple hairstreak butterfly. No muntjac or roe deer though !! We also created two stumpery areas with large sections of oak cut from a dead oak tree and a bank vole made its home there. 52+ different species of bird including a rare visit to waterfall tier of pond from crossbills when we spotted two juveniles. Grey wagtails, wrens, Great Spotted Woodpeckers and Jays brought their young to the woodland garden along with all the regular birds including the bullfinches with their young. Willow Warbler, Chiffchaff and a common Buzzard also landed in the garden ! I can imagine what a thrill you get daily from observing such a wonderful natural area and seeing what appears as there must never be a dull moment in that fantastic area you have worked so hard on to attract wildlife and a place you can observe the characteristics of species and learn so much more about them. With such dedication to improving your vast woodland area you deserve to reap the benefits of all these beautiful sightings. As PB says, it is like a nature reserve all of its own so keep enjoying and make sure you have plenty of tea breaks whilst continuing to work on it !! Thanks for this lovely uplifiting post as it's good to know there are people out there that have nature at the forefront contributing and putting in every effort to improving habitat and helping all manner of wildlife, flora and fauna, What a huge variety of trees, let us know when you get a Hawfinch stopping by !!
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Regards, Hazel
It only takes me 10 minutes to get to my local reserve, but to effectively live on one... . You have an amazing selection of wildlife.
Thank you! I love the idea of that, although I wouldn't charge. :D We live quite near to Slimbridge Wetlands and Wildfowl Trust so I think we benefit from species en-route to there sometimes. When I was a teacher I ran one of the very first forest schools and did think about setting one up here for local school kids, but so much of our wildlife is abundant precisely because it is not disturbed, so we get lots of breeding animals and birds and see behaviour like courting and mating moorhens and pheasants that I don't think we'd see if too many people came. The saddest part is seeing how much woodland around here has been cut down, our neighbours bought some wooded land next to ours and cut down every single tree, thankfully the green woodpeckers moved into our garden, but if we ever did have to move, I'd make sure we put a protective covenant on the whole copse so it can never be destroyed and built on. We have to protect what few green spaces are left. :)
Wow! Over 52 species of bird is brilliant! I think we have treecreepers too and possibly tree sparrows but I've yet to get a photo of them and I'm not good enough to identify my warblers yet. :D Getting crossbills too, that's awesome, I've never seen one. You sound like you did a fantastic job of creating a haven for wildlife, well done you! I think that's they key, no matter how big or small someone's garden is, if they can make it an oasis for nature it will help mitigate the poor state of our countryside and give local wildlife a much needed green space. Thank you so much for telling us about your awesome garden space too. Love the stumpery idea too, we have lots of ferns in the part and log piles, but I love the idea of developing a stumpery area. And I'm very jealous of the purple hairstreak! We had a green hairstreak once but never a purple one, it's on my wishlist! :D xx
Thank you so much! I know we're lucky, to be honest we only bought the house which was a dump because of the garden and I'm glad we did. Always more we can do, one thing we don't seem to get a lot of is reptiles. I've seen common lizards here but no snakes and not even a slow worm, so need to try and develop areas to attract those. Cheers. :)
Your labour of love has paid off, well done, and great pics.
Thank you!