Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
BRITAIN’S GLORIOUS WILDLIFE NEEDS YOUR HELP
A recent survey by Gardeners’ World magazine showed a drastic decline in our wildlife. Here, opening a new series, nature writer Stephen Moss and a host of celebrities urge you to help save it
Now that spring has well and truly sprung, there’s never been a better time to enjoy Britain’s wildlife. So why not get out and about in your local area to enjoy what’s on offer? We may not have fierce predators like lions and tigers, or spectacular deserts and rainforests, but we do have the most amazing variety of wild creatures: seals and skylarks, butterflies and brown hares, otters and owls and many more. Our nation really is a wonderland for wildlife.
Some species, including oncecommonplace animals such as hedgehogs and house sparrows, are declining drastically, as a recent survey by BBC Gardeners’ World magazine pointed out. Among their readers, 29 per cent didn’t spot any of the 21 garden birds on the RSPB’s endangered list, including turtle doves and starlings, and even ladybirds are down. But we can do something to help these creatures to rally, and you can discover what in this Save Our Wildlife special.
Meanwhile others are not just surviving but thriving: numbers of robins are at a
20-year high, up 12 per cent thanks to recent warm, wet summers leading to more insects and worms for their chicks. And just down the road from me in Somerset the Avalon Marshes is now home to bitterns, huge cranes and great white egrets – as well as the famous starling spectacle, when on winter evenings half a million gather to roost in the reedbeds. Further afield, Britain’s wildest places are home to rutting deer and breaching whales, golden eagles and fish-eating ospreys, and noisy colonies of seals and seabirds. If you know where to look, there’s masses to see.
All of this inspired me, along with my old colleague at the BBC Natural History Unit Brett Westwood, to write a new book called Wonderland: A Year Of Britain’s Wildlife, Day By Day, with a species or natural wonder to go and see every single day of the year. Between us, Brett and I have more than a century of wildlife-watching experiences to draw on and the book contains many of our own memorable encounters with wildlife.
The great news is that more people are watching wildlife than ever before – this magazine’s annual wildlife
photography contest is evidence of that. We’ve always been a nation of wildlife-lovers – for example, more than half of all adult Britons feed birds in their gardens. But now, thanks to countless TV nature programmes such as Springwatch and Countryfile, and the efforts of organisations like the Wildlife Trusts, the National Trust and the RSPB, our passion has turned from what was once derided as ‘organic trainspotting’ to a leisure activity enjoyed by millions of all ages.
So what can we do to put something back and help our wildlife to keep flourishing? Joining a conservation organisation is a great start. Then, having joined, why not get even more involved as a volunteer? And you can do your bit for nature in your own backyard, as Monty Don shows you on pages 76-77 of this magazine.
Britain’s wildlife truly is something to celebrate, and we hope the passion- ate celebrity nature-lovers on these pages will inspire you to do so. But helping out is not just good for the natural world, it’s good for us too. Recent research confirms that being outdoors and enjoying birdsong, butterflies and bumblebees really does enhance our physical, mental and emotional health. And most of all, as Brett and I can confirm, it’s great fun!
Wonderland: A Year Of Britain’s Wildlife, Day By Day, by Brett Westwood and Stephen Moss, is published by John Murray, £ 20. Stephen and Brett will be involved in Springwatch, which starts on BBC2 on 29 May.