Where to Watch Wildlife?
My office looks out onto a back yard which is about eight metres by six and back onto a railway embankment, in what you might call an urban area (south-east London), but pay attention occasionally and I can watch my own wildlife documentary (making up my own David Attenborough (no one else come close for me!) narration as I go) live. Earlier this year I got to watch Garrulus gladarius jays burying acorns and picking nesting material. Jays are part of the crow family and reasonably common, but still one of the UK’s most colourful birds. Now, after rather a lot of rain, there are plenty of insects and also a glut of slugs and snails, which is proving a real attraction to the Turdus merula blackbirds which must be nesting nearby. I’ve heard about closely related thrushes using stones to crack snails but didn’t realise blackbirds also did this, although in this case it’s patio slabs that replace a natural stone. I’ve also seen them using the slabs to deal with slugs, repeatedly pecking the slug and then picking it up and then rubbing it on the rough concrete. Could it be a way of making the slugs easier for the nestlings to deal with? Unlike us nature always has a purpose, which we just have to figure out.