I’m back now in the depths of the midlands city where I study, and I’ve already been surprised by the amount of wildlife that’s around here, if you only bother to look. A bird feeder is installed in our tiny backyard, and although they’ve been slow to find it, I’ve been hearing the calls of half a dozen different common birds nearby. Here’s where completing my to do list and learning who’s making that noise would come in handy.

So far I’ve only noticed birds close by to my house, but I often see urban foxes about in our local area, and a couple of my course-mates regularly fed a hedgehog that used to come to their garden a year or two ago. Sadly they unknowingly fed it bread and milk and soon after found it dead, which goes to show how dangerous common misconceptions about wildlife can be.

It also shows though that even people who wouldn’t usually go out of their way to see wildlife, can get incredibly excited when it comes and finds them.

The postman has just made me very, very happy. No it wasn’t my vogue subscription-it was arrival of this book; The BBC Britain’s Best Wildlife, The top 40 Sights to See. The RSPB have sent it as my free joining gift and it’s chuffed me to bits-especially as I was only expecting a small handbook of British birds. It’s exactly what I’ve been looking for, so now I’ve got no excuse not to go out and actually find some of these sights for myself.

The 2nd highest entry on the list is starlings roosting, so I’ve made it my mission to try to see this for myself before the winter’s out. I’m desperate to find a nearby roost, but if that doesn’t work I’ll have to look further afield. (ha ha)

I had my heart set on going on the volunteering conservation work I mentioned last week. The date is tomorrow, but since the weekend I’ve developed a bad cold, and spending 8 hours in a freezing cold pond suddenly doesn’t seem such a good idea. It feels like wimping out though, especially as it was going to be my first attempt, so I’ll have to see how I feel tomorrow. In the meantime I’m going back to bed to ignore my looming essay deadline, snuggle up with my new delivery, and find out where I can see hares boxing.

I don’t know if anyone else noticed, but it’s been snowing recently. Some fresh snow started falling a couple of nights ago, so I took my dog out for a walk while it was still falling. Snow never fails to bring out the child in me, and we both spent a good twenty minutes running at full pace through the empty streets.

The next day I went out again to try to identity some animal tracks, inspired by Badger watching man’s blog (link in the blogroll). However, I’ve gotta admit I had a very tiny relapse into the non natural world when I got dazzled by my own tracks….

Can you blame me?

So, to get back on track I thought I’d list a few of my main Wildlife Resolutions for 2010:

1. See Badgers in their natural habitat.
2. Ditto Otters (Ok might be aiming a little high here..)
3. Watch a large flock of starlings roost.
4. Make a difference with some down and dirty Wildlife Conservation and Volunteering.
5. Learn to recognise common bird calls, and attract birds to my urban backyard.

That’s it for now, I’m sure I’ll have more as I go along.

I’m going to have to shoot now, I’ve been borrowing laptops off of friends since mine had a run in with a rather strong magnet. It didn’t turn out well, just in case any of you were planning on testing it.

Here’s a couple of photos I took of birds feeding in the snow. Very amateur but they make me smile as 2 months ago our bird feeder was home to an earwig colony!

Just seen this and had to share. Bloody brilliant. That’s it, if I’m ever on the committee of some nature reserve my first motion is going to be introducing trampolines.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8xJtH6UcQY&

all rights to Samron, the owner.

I’ve been flirting with the idea of volunteering in some kind of wildlife/conversation role for some time now. I quite fancy working with the Bat Conservation Trust to help with their monitoring but it seems from their website that it doesn’t start until August. Bird Ringing also seems pretty cool, but when I looked online I couldn’t find any trainers within an easy distance of me. Since I don’t drive I have a feeling getting involved with some of these things will be a challenge.

That said BTCV, or British Trust for Conversation Volunteers to its friends, seems to run minibuses from city centres out to conservation sites so I think they’ll be my first port of call. I’ve added a couple of the websites I’ve been searching through to my links. I’ve gotta say, most of them need some serious pimping but you can’t fault the level of info they have. If you’re still awake that is.

So that’s it, I’ve got a date with the BTCV next week for some pond conservation. I’ll let you know how dirty it gets. I’m pretty intrigued to see what the other nature geeks look like. I’m torn between wanting them all to be a lot older than me so I don’t recognise anyone, or my age so that we have something in common. Also, I’m guessing I’m gona have to invest in some new clothes as skinny jeans and leather biker boots probably won’t cut it…

In other news, I’ve worked my way through the last of my Christmas chocolate haul, my 15 month old niece is already crazy about shoes (good girl, the genes always out) and our Collie cross has a new found balloon obsession.

I’ve started with bird feeding. I’d stupidly assumed this would be the easiest task I could think of, but it turns out it isn’t as simple as throwing out a bit of old bread.  Who’d have thought they were such fussy lil buggers?

In December I bought a cheap bag of mixed seeds and a couple of fat balls and hung them out proud as punch. A few sparrows sniffed around it after a week or so, but when I went to refill it I found half of the seeds had gone mouldy and the rest had sprouted shoots. bull. The seeds are now back up in a smaller quantity, and the blue tits have been going ape for the fat balls so things seem to be looking up.

Course, this is all in the garden at my parents’ house, where I’ve come back to for the holidays. Next week I’ll be back in the thick of a midlands city, where I’m usually lucky to see a pigeon. Still I like a challenge. I’m already thinking about getting one of those bird feeders that you can attach with suckers to the outside of your window.

http://shopping.rspb.org.uk/p/BirdFeeders/Window_bird_feeder.htm

I may even join RSPB. It’s only £3 a month. Perhaps I can even ask them to disguise the mail to look like Glamour magazine, just to stop my housemates worrying. Ah the world is my Oyster catcher. The way I see it, I start with birds and work my way up to the larger things. You know, like sperm whales.