What sort of birds and animals should be in my area?

[Bethy]

i forgot to mention that i had just about every starling in the neighbourhood on the roof of my outhouse eating scraps of bread that i threw out after breakfast, quite a funny sight actually, and noisy

[BarbaraEmma]

Have you got flowers in your garden Bethy,and a little pond , these will attract lots of different wildlife into your garden. What about a ladybird house ,I had one that got used by lots of different insects.I had fun watching them and trying to identify them.
I remember my grandaughter became fascinated with watching snails eating with a magnifying glass and then she had a wormery made from 2 sheets of perspex filled with garden soil and left in a shady place in the garden,you could see loads of different things in it and try to find out what they were.Perhaps she was a bit younger than you ,but I still love doing stuff like that,and I'm ancient.
What I'm trying to say is Wildlife can be all shapes and sizes,but it's all interesting.
If you encourage the smaller things to live in your garden you'll soon get the bigger things, like more birds ,hedgehogs and frogs.
You're already lucky ,because I have't seen a Starling for years.
Best of luck from Barbara.

[JB9302]

Hi Bethy , I was brought up in a little village near Barnsley ( Blacker Hill ) and we used to call the Starlings Sheps , dont know if anyone has heard that name ?
Good advice above re flowers etc in garden to encourage wildlife.

Julian

[Bethy]

thanks people, I have lots of flowers in the garden and have seen a few snails nearby, my little brother's sandpit got filled with rain water and there were some little brown beetles swimming around in it. does anyone know if they could have been pond beetles, and if so, how far do they usually travel, cos the nearest pond is about half a mile away.