My World Of Wildlife

It was a very cold, winter day at RSPB Pulborough Brooks yesterday. Whilst walking out onto the reserve there was a group of birders with scopes at a viewpoint that looks over the reserve. They told me they had seen a Dartford Warbler perched on one of the posts in front of them around half an hour ago. However the last they had seen of it had flew into the gorse. I waited for 10 minutes but it never showed. :( When I reached the hide the lake and grassland in front of me was alive with Wigeon and Teal. Electric calls of tumbling Lapwing and honking Canada and Greylag Geese was what I could hear. Quite a few Fieldfare were around as well, they were bathing in outer ponds, or puddles in fact, that surrounded the lake. Starlings were flitting to and from the lake, feeding with the ducks and then flying off in extremely small 'murmurations'. Wigeon There were also 2 Pied Wagtails bobbing around the edges of the water. Pied Wagtail Whilst visiting Netleys hide...

Today I sent a letter to my local MP and Nicky Morgan MP, the Secretary of State for Education, about how I, and many other young people like me, would like to see the environment and wildlife included in our education in Primary and Secondary schools in the UK. I thought I would post this to hopefully inspire others to write a letter to MPs, as the more people we can get to write letters, the better chance we have in getting nature included in our education.  Dear Secretary of State for Education - Nicky Morgan MP I am writing to you to express my concern about the lack of environmental issues covered in Primary and Secondary schools across the UK. My name is Mya Bambrick and I am a 13 year old from Crawley, West Sussex. I am a wildlife enthusiast and conservationist who has loved and cared about nature ever since I can remember. In schools there is not enough education relating to nature and that is a fact. In my school I have not been taught anything that covers the e...

On Sunday I visited my local patch, Warnham Local Nature Reserve. As I haven't been for a couple of weeks it was nice to see winter approaching slowly. When I arrived the grass was covered in frost and small parts of the lake were frozen. There were 12 Tufted Ducks, 10 Teal and a Grey Heron on the lake. Also 5 Cormorants were perched on a tree on the other side of the lake. I think they were drying their wings. There were quite a few Robins around and I managed to get a couple of photos: Along with the Robins there were the usual Chaffinches, Coal Tit, Blue Tit, Great Tit and Nuthatch with a surprise visit from a Great Spotted Woodpecker, which I haven't seen for quite a while.  Whilst in the Heron hide, which looks over the lake, a female Roe Deer appeared out of the undergrowth. You can it is a Roe Deer by its brown fur and black nose.  To finish off my visit a the beautiful blue and orange colours of a Kingfisher dashed past me and landed on a tre...

I went ringing up at Leith Hill for an hour a half today (due to cold and wet conditions we had to stop) I ringed my first Fieldfare as well as Lesser Redpoll. We also caught and ringed many Coal Tits and a few continental Chaffinches. Fieldfare

This is the second post of the series I am currently doing about questions relating to the recent topics of the wildlife world. Badger What is the badger cull? The Badger Cull (destruction or killing of Badgers) which has been enforced by the Government, is carried out due to the problem of TB, a disease of cattle that can be spread by Badgers. This has been a very relevant problem over the last few years, with campaigners and well known wildlife organisations against the cull and making their views heard. The Cull is where licensed shooters go out, mainly at night or dusk as Badgers are nocturnal and bait and shoot the Badgers or search over an area with a spotlight and rifle. To be humane the Badger as to be killed with one shot to insure a Badger is not left injured, this sometimes does not happen. Why is the cull carried out? The cull is carried out to stop the spread of the infectious disease Bovine Tuberculosis (TB) that affects Cows, presenting a big problem fo...

Over the next few weeks I aim to blog about questions like why are hedgehogs declining? These questions will be about recent topics. The Hedgehog, a small, spiny mammal that is in a lot of trouble. It lives in gardens and parks around Britain and mainly eats a varied diet of invertebrates from Worms to Millipedes. However they have suffered a severe decline over the last decade due to a number of factors. I have listed a few here: Like many wildlife, loss of habitat has played a big role in their decline. Many of our green spaces have been lost due to houses etc being built. Garden have become less accessible for the hedgehogs. With large fences in the way, they cannot travel between gardens to eat the right diet and find a safe place to hibernate.  Roads. They kill many of our wildlife such as Deer, Badgers and Foxes. 15,000 Hedgehogs are killed each year, however they also act as barriers which can affect their local population. In the 1950s it was estimated that there ...

Today, the fantastic Josie Hewitt has kindly written a guest blog for me. She is a 17 year old C permit bird ringer, birder and wildlife photographer. Please visit her website at: josiehewittphotography.co.uk  (her photography is amazing :) ) A day in the life of a young bird ringer by Josie Hewitt It's 5.30am and I'm suddenly awoken by my alarm beeping loudly from somewhere across my room so I drag myself out of bed and fumble around trying to switch it off before it wakes up the rest of my family. I packed all my ringing kit the night before so all I need to do now is get dressed and pack my sandwiches. Once ready, I put all my stuff in the car and head to the ringing site which is just 10 minutes away. I arrive at about 6.00am and it's still pretty dark but the first few birds have started the dawn chorus. The air is perfectly still, it's fairly warm (for 6.00am anyway!) and there is a fair amount of cloud cover - perfect conditions for bird ringing. ...

I visited Nymans woods near Handcross, West Sussex today and it was foggy and autumnal! As we walked into the entrance into the woods there was a huge group of Blue Tits, Great Tits and although I didn't see any I think there were some finches as I could hear them. It was very muddy and there was quite a lot of fungi around. Autumn is really visible now with a variety of colours on the leaves ranging from deep red to bright yellow. They looked very cool reflected onto the lake: There was not much bird life although I saw a few Robins, Goldcrest, Mallards and a Grey Heron.