One of the most joyful aspects of living at Wood Farm is the amount of wildlife that visits the garden, orchard and meadow.
MAMMALS: Muntjac deer are around most days and fallow deer are seen quite regularly in the meadow (sadly forcing us to protect our newly-planted trees). We see foxes, squirrels and even a badger occasionally, plus brown hares frequently play in the meadow and there are hedgehogs in the grounds too, and (love them or hate them – I love them!) moles.
BIRDLIFE: Birdlife is excellent here. Buzzards fly overhead most days, and we’ve even seen a red kite here. Barn owls love our meadow for hunting. Skylarks can be heard in the fields during summer, and house martins, swifts and swallows fill summer skies too. Green and spotted woodpeckers are always around, and in autumn we often get a huge flock of field fares come to strip our fruit trees. And then there are the blackbirds, chaffinches, chiffchaffs, wood pigeons, crows, magpies, jackdaws, blue tits, great tits, robins, wrens, dunnocks, goldfinches, starlings, pheasants, pied wagtails, sparrows, jays . . . The Spring dawn chorus here is amazing.
In the two ponds by the house, we have one (sometimes two) resident pairs of moorhens, and ducks come and go, often choosing to fledge their ducklings here. We also get an occasional egret and grey heron. We’ve even seen a kingfisher by our pond.
AMPHIBIANS: In March (usually near a full moon), we have an influx of frogs and toads to the ponds as these are breeding grounds for the area. Sadly, there are far fewer in the past few years but we hope they might recover again one day. The frogs tend to come from the fields across the road when it’s dark, so we try to save as many as possible from the traffic.
INSECTS: Thanks to the ponds, we enjoy seeing damselflies and dragonflies each summer.
