Mike Dilger’s wildlife watching

In his series of great places to watch wildlife in the UK, the star of BBC One’s The One Show this month takes a trip to the peaceful suburbs, where an eclectic mix of wildlife appears to feel perfectly at home.

There’s nature on your doorstep when you live in the suburbs

From peregrines to black redstarts, charismatic species can be found thriving in the very heart of our metropolises. But many other ‘urban’ species rarely venture into the concrete, glass and steel world of office blocks, shopping centres and pedestrian plazas. Instead, they prefer the more relaxed ambience of our leafier suburbs. More than 80 per cent of England’s human population also live in suburbs, and it transpires what works for 47 million of us is equally acceptable to a surprisingly diverse range of wildlife.

Most suburbs, certainly in Britain, slowly took shape in the 19th century, when rapid changes in transport enabled a larger proportion of the urban population to move out of the centres and live for the first time at a distance from where they worked. Planners and reformers of the day were keen to espouse the virtues of family life in the suburbs, which were deemed healthier and happier places to live, far removed from polluted, sometimes dangerous city centres.

Many of the more affluent suburbs ultimately consisted of estates of detached or semi-detached houses in landscaped settings, with tree-lined roads, enclosed private gardens, public parks and relatively few shops and pubs. This combination proved attractive to two distinct groups of wildlife: the species that stayed put while we built around them – such as badgers – and the species that moved in from the countryside to take advantage of the ample bed and breakfast on offer – such as foxes and frogs.

Welcoming neighbours

The diversity of habitats on offer is what has inadvertently made suburbs so nature-friendly. An abundance of planted trees and shrubs in suburban areas have, in the words of Chris Baines (the godfather of wildlife gardening), turned our gardens collectively into “forest glades”.