The West Midlands’ Wildlife

• Jan. 5 by Phil Gordon (0)

When asked to paint a picture of the west midlands, most people’s palletes would be filled with various shades of grey, colouring in a landscape dominated by cranes, disused factories and one particular monolithic shopping centre. Looking beyond this dismal scene, a recent survey has shown that special efforts being made by West Midland-ians are attracting a wealth of diverse wildlife into our own back gardens.

The latest survey undertaken by The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) has shown that homes in the West Midlands attract a wide range of British wildlife, ranging from frogs to herrings to foxes.

These animals are making homes around the West Midlands their new habitat due to the installment of ponds and feeding areas in our back gardens. Of the 1,443 people quizzed in the recent poll: 40% said their gardens were regularly visited by toads, a third were visited by foxes along with a fifth by hedgehogs.

Louise Pederson of RSPB’s Birmingham office spoke to the Birmingham Post on how our metropolitan county is attracting wildlife more commonly associated with the countryside due to resident’s special efforts in the garden.

”Many people are seeing foxes, hedgehogs and badgers on a regular basis. As more and more people realise the importance of feeding and gardening for wildlife they are delighted by the variety of species visiting their garden”.

Along with looking at the more uncommon visitors that have been gracing our gardens, the survey also revealed that our gardens are home to an average of ten different species of bird, the most regular being the blackbird and the woodpidgeon.

Below is a list of activites taken from the RSPD website, giving you tips on how to attract this diverse range of wildlife into your very own garden this season:

The top ten activities:
-Provide seed mixes, particularly sunflower hearts and millet-seeds for house sparrows and starlings
-Provide plants/shrubs of different sizes, shapes and ages
-Grow a range of plants
-Provide flowering plants as a source of nectar for butterflies and moths
-Grow plants attractive to insects in tubs and planters
-Retain dead flower stems and heads over winter
-Maintain any beds with a good layer of ground cover, shrubs and herbaceous plants for song thrushes and blackbirds
-Provide a nestbox or build your own for small birds
-Provide dense, thorny bushes for cover for song thrushes and blackbirds
-Prune trees, shrubs and climbers during January or early February