Wildlife in the City
    Please click on the blue ball to see the animals:
    Full of concrete, cars, and crowds, cities do not seem like promising places for wildlife. Yet a surprising number of wild plants and animals thrive in the center of these artificial jungles. People often think of cities as uniform and gray, but they actually contain a complicated pattern of habitats. The heart of a city is usually typified by tall, cliff like buildings, separated by a few open lots, and most cities are ringed by leafy suburbs full of parks and gardens.

    Parks & Gardens: magpies and crows live in the city parks while smaller birds such as wrens, thrushes, blackbirds, and tits thrive in backyard gardens, where they become prey to domestic cats. In summer house martins catch insects in flower gardens, raising their young n nests under house eaves. At dusk, bats take to the air, and hedgehogs and foxes come out to feed on insects and on scraps left behind by humans.

    Ponds, Rivers & Canals: More amphibians such as frogs, toads, and newts live in clean, suburban ponds than in rural areas. Fish from the three spined stickleback to the massive pike swim in unpolluted urban rivers and canals. Ducks frequent city ponds and great crested grebes and moorhens nest by reservoirs.

    City Center: Dry, well drained wasteland habitats attract plants such as Oxford ragwort, buddleia, birds foot trefoil, mugwort, nettle, and grasses. Butterflies such as the common blue and small tortoiseshell thrive among the plants. Pigeons fly around tall buildings, which are somewhat similar to the high cliffs where their relative, the rock dove, lives. The urban kestrel nests in churches and tower blocks, hunting sparrows. Garbage cans attract gulls. Many city plants and animals are not native. Oxford ragwort comes from southern Europe, and buddleia comes from the HImalayan foothills.

    The Survivors: Tolerant, secretive, or old animals survive the best in busy cities. Intelligent, enterprising species such as foxes and magpies have adapted well to urban areas. The house mouse also lives well close to people.

    Key Facts:
    Wildlife Corridors: Roads, railroads, canals, and rivers form links between cities and rural areas. Plants and animals live and move along these corridors. A rough mix of scrub, tall herbs, and common species such as oat grass, cocksfoot, binweed, and bramble grow undisturbed along railway cutting and embarkments. Warblers, finches, and familiar garden birds nest aong the scrub. Small animals live in herbs anf grasses along railroads anf roadsides. The kestrel, hovering overhead, hunts them. In clean waterways aquatic insects live in plants such as water milfooil, hornwort, and poondweed, attracting eels and fish such as roach, perch. and pike. In winter kingfishers fly along water corridors into cities to avoid the colder rural areas and to hunt small fish.

    When to See the Species:

    Plants
    Spring
    Summer
    Autumn
    Winter
    Mugwort
     
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    Birds foot trefoil
     
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    Iris
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    Reedmace
     
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    Cocks foot
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    Bindweed
     
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    Water milfoil
     
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    Hornwort
     
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    Buddleia
     
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    Oxford ragwort
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    Insects:
     
     
     
     
    Dragonfly
     
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    Small tortoiseshell
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    Cockroach
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    Common blue
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    Amphibians:
     
     
     
     
    Frog
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    Toad
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    Birds
     
     
     
     
    Magpie
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    Kestrel
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    Black headed gull
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    Wren
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    Song thrush
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    Blackbird
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    Great crested rebe
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    Great tit
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    Heron
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    Kingfisher
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    House Martin
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    WIllow wabler
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    Linnet
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    Mammals:
     
     
     
     
    Pipistrelle bat
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    Hedgehog
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    Fox
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    House mouse
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    Field vole
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