Watching the wildlife

For an ordinary suburban garden, we have always had a quite a few interesting visitors in addition to the predictable cats.

Years ago it was the occasional nocturnal hedgehog or frequent little frogs, who made their way under the fence from next door's pond and liked to hang out beneath our climbing frame.

For several years now we have regularly had a playing squirrel or two, which we believe live in one of the many trees at the bottom of the gardens, perhaps even in our own mutantly giant pear tree. One of them even knocked itself out on our patio once, probably by falling off the fence or house wall, but recovered and ran off before I could even get hold of the RSPCA.

Sometimes we have interesting birds...a colourful jay perhaps, or as today, a pair of woodpeckers tapping on one of the apple trees.

But last night was a first.I looked out of the kitchen window just before 9pm and saw three urban foxes at the end of the garden. It appeared to be a parent with two semi-grown cubs and eventually they all disappeared into the distant patch of garden which has recently become somewhat neglected and overgrown, being beyond easy reach of the strimmer. Maybe they had been disturbed by Hubby cutting the rest of the long grass earlier in the afternoon.

The garden is not picture perfect. It is low maintenance and intended to be an area where children can play comfortably with water or football, where wildlife can find shelter and where fruit grows on trees and bushes. Our next door neighbour takes great pride in his garden, he frequently hints that we should have the huge pear tree cut down. But the houses are about 80 years old and the trees possibly older, they are an integral part of the character of the area. A garden, like a house, needs to be adapted sympathetically. We are not living in the 1920's now, but it is good to retain some original features.