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14 Buckden Roundabout
September 2017
Wildlife on Your Doorstep
Mark Ward is Editor-in-Chief for the RSPB. He moved to Buckden in 2011 with his wife
Laura and was so impressed with its wildlife that it became the inspiration for his lat-
est book, Wildlife on Your Doorstep. In this exclusive article for The Roundabout he
shares extracts from the book and the story behind it.
It was a bitter January day when we moved into our new home. As I gazed out across
the wildlife-free zone that was our new garden from the kitchen window; over piles of
rubble and paving stones and a dying leylandii hedge, I was blissfully unaware this ram-
shackle spot would soon become a haven for newts, toads, animals, birds and a host of
insects.
It didn’t take long for me to have my first amazing wildlife encounters, as this entry
from my diary from our first week in the house shows.
From the diary - 5th January
As I brushed my teeth this morning, trilling calls drifted in through the half-open bathroom window. I hurriedly pressed the stop
button in case I was just getting overexcited by a malfunctioning toothbrush, but no: it was the sibilant trill of Waxwings! Drip-
ping toothpaste all down the stairs (leading to a later admonishment from Laura), I raced outside, pyjama clad, to find a flock of
40 of these plump beauties sitting in Silver Birches on the green. While watching them from the garden later on as they perched
on next door’s TV aerial, and proudly pointing them out to the in-laws, the sublime went to the ridiculous as a brace of Wood-
cock suddenly hurtled through right over our heads, presumably disturbed by the farmer at work in the next field. The distraction
of having one of my favourite birds available from various windows in the house is an unbelievable treat, but has done me no
favours when it came to getting the boxes unpacked for moving in!
The attraction of nearby nature reserves, Grafham Water, Brampton Wood and Paxton Pits were well known to me, having
grown up in Cambridgeshire, but over the next few years the variety and abundance of wildlife I found in the Buckden area
amazed me.
Studying an OS map got me looking closely at the area we
now called home. Footpaths and bridleways provided easy
access to all sorts of places I couldn’t wait to explore. Looking
more closely at the village, I found a churchyard, a pond
tucked away behind the playing field and a secluded flood
meadow. This put the idea in my mind of setting a patch – an
area I could watch regularly and get to know everything that
lived there, so I drew on a circle with a radius of 5 miles with
our house in the middle and made that my main area of wild-
life watching.
Most exciting of all was the chain of gravel pits running along-
side the river from Buckden Marina. I had no idea at that time
that this was a major migration flyway and what a range of
raptors, terns, waders, wildfowl and gulls I’d be seeing mi-
grating along it from the comfort of my own garden.
The best place to start with getting to know your local wildlife is your garden. This is where many of my best encounters of all
have occurred. If you can provide a varied spread, your garden should become the go to place for birds throughout the year.
Here’s what I feed mine:
• Seed – A quality mix, with little or no wheat, on the bird table and in hanging and pole seed feeders.
• Fat balls – High in energy. Just put whole in a special cage feeder where they’ll not be stolen by squirrels and can last a
good while. Avoid nets – birds get their feet caught.
• Fat cakes – Square shaped suet products in snug square cage feeders.
• Suet pellets – On the bird table and a hanging cage feeder full of them too.
• Fallen fruit – Apples go out in hard weather as natural fruits and berries dwindle.
• Scraps – Nothing wrong with kitchen scraps, so crumbs and old grated cheese go out too.
Continued on next page
Wildlife on your Doorstep
Badger feeding in the garden