Ways to see AMAZING wildlife without even leaving your living room

Have you ever wanted to see an elephant, how about a chimpanzee, or even a pangolin. I’m willing to bet the answer is yes, I have wanted to see these animals ever since I can remember. However, especially with the lockdown, seeing these incredible creatures is harder than ever. So today I’m going to tell two different ways you can see these awesome animals.

The first one is my personal favourite, Zooniverse; Chimp and see. Now let me explain. Zooniverse is a website on which you can do online volunteering for organisations, they have everything under the sun, from transcribing bird nest sites, to mapping out galaxies, and you guessed it recording wildlife.

Chimp and See, is one such organisation, trying to both boost biodiversity especially in our all too rare cousins, chimps, but also to try and learn more about humans own evolution from the chimpanzees. I myself have spent several hours, identifying wildlife on this site, and can confirm its incredible. I have seen all the things mentioned above, from elephants, to chimpanzees, baboons, pangolins, mongooses, civets, duikers and antelopes. It’s amazing to see the extraordinary biodiversity of the rainforest. So definitely go and check it out !

Photo by Ishara Kasthuriarachchi on Pexels.com

Secondly online zoos. During the lockdown many zoos put up cameras, so that people could still enjoy wildlife from home. They are an amazing chance to see animals acting naturally, without thousands of people gawking in and disturbing them. Zoos such as, Edinburgh, Chester, Paignton, and London have all put cameras up in their enclosures and you can see, pandas, flamingos, meerkats and even giraffes. Chester zoo, also do ‘virtual guided tour’ type things where the tour guide, tells you all about the animals. It’s really fascinating and i loved watching them! Just serch up Chester zoo online, and it should come straight up!

Photo by Laura The Explaura on Pexels.com

I hope you enjoyed this post and found it useful. I really loved watching the virtual tours, and particpating in chimp and see, and I hope you will too. Bye for now!

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Top Five cool but unknown animals

Hey everyone and welcome back to Hedgehog Heaven. Today we are going to be looking at my top five cool but unknown animals. There are so many animals in this world, many of which everyone knows about, but what about the unknown ones? Today I’m going to be talking to you about my favourite cool but unknown animals.

The Genet – I had never ever heard of this animal until yesterday. The Genet has a fur coat that looks a little like a leopard, but a body that is more like a mink or weasel but bigger. The only species of Genet that can be found in Europe is the common Genet which lives in France.

The Tasmanian Devil – A fairly large four legged marsupial. The Tasmanian Devil is carnivorous and fairly dangerous. When people started settling in Tasmania from Europe, they heard strange screams, coughs and grunts in the night, and decided to go searching for the cause. They found a creature with long fangs, sharp claws, and black fur, so they called it a Devil. So it is now called a Tasmanian Devil.

Coati – This unusual animal looks a little like a cross between a lemur and a raccoon, and dwell mainly in South America. Coati also enjoy climbing trees where their sharp claws allowing them to climb down trees headfirst, and their long tails him them balance so that they can climb with speed and agility.

Axolotl – The Axolotl or walking fish, is not actually a fish but an amphibian found in Mexico. It is a carnivore and can grow up to three inches long. It has a long fish like body, and looks a little like a cat fish however it also has legs for manoeuvring on land. They are also able to regenerate body parts.

Echidna – The Echidna is a little bit like a cross between a hedgehog and a ant eater. With a back of prickly spikes and a long nose. They are mammals, but the only mammal other than the platypus to lay eggs. These animals are only found in Australia and New Guinea, but they have the largest distribution of all the native mammals in Australia, liking both forests, coasts and deserts.

Well everyone that’s it for today, I hope you enjoyed my post. If you did, don’t forget to leave a like. I you have any comments, suggestions or ideas, please comment them down below. And if you want to see more of this, subscribe!! Bye for now.

How have animals adapted to living in woodlands?

Hello everyone and welcome back to Hedgehog Heaven. Today I am going to be exploring how animals are adapted to their environment. I know often people talk about the crazy adaptations of other more exotic animals, and it often leaves you thinking that our hedgehogs and squirrels haven’t adapted at all, but this isn’t true. In fact all animals have adapted to their environment to some extent. So here’s some examples

Squirrels – Have you ever wondered what those cute, adorable busy tails are for? Well I’ll tell you, they’re actually for balancing, a little like monkeys, squirrels use their tail to help them balance when running along the trees. Another example of their adaption to woodland life is their unique technique for storing food. I’m sure you’ve all heard of how squirrels store their food in the ground in order to save up for Winter, however this is actually an adaption formed over countless generations of squirrels, not just a cool fact eh.

Hedgehogs – well one of the most obvious adaptions for the hedgehog is the incredibly prickly spikes it has covering the entirety of its back. These are to protect from predators. They actually work really well with the hedgehog having no known predators in the wild. Another adaptation is their widely varied and diverse diet. Hedgehogs will consume just about everything, from berries on a bush to frogs and even snakes! Although a much more usual source of food would be a good old slug.

Swallow – Now a swallow is a very clever bird. They have camouflage, but in an cool way. You see, their belly’s and the undersides of their wing’s are white with a little blue, this means any predators looking up from the ground won’t see the bird as they will be looking at the white/blue belly in a white/ blue sky. Swallows also have a dark blue colour on top, this means that any predators looking down on them will only see dark blue in amongst all the other dark greens, greys and blues of the earth.

Fox – The Fox much like the squirrel has also adapted a cunning use for its tail. The tail provides balance for the Fox whilst sprinting, this means it can twist and turn at full pelt and not lose balance, enabling it to catch more food. On the topic of food the Fox also has a highly varied diet. I’m sure we’ve all heard the horror stories about Foxes eating out of people’s bins etc. However this is actually an adaptation for survival, a varied diet means more opportunity to eat and more chance of surviving the winter.

So there you have it four very different animals, all with incredible adaptation helping them to survive in the wild, right on your very doorstep. I hope you enjoyed the post, if you did leave a like. Got any ideas or suggestion comment them down below, and if you want to see more content like this subscribe! Bye for now:)

The best place in the UK to find wildlife

Hey everyone, today I’m going to be talking to you about the best place in the UK to find wildlife. David Attenborough has said that this place is the best place in the UK, to discover nature and wild animals, and it is of course Northumberland, but why is it so good for finding wildlife?

Well partly the reason is because it is on the coast meaning it not only has access to land animals, but also sea creatures. Animals such as seals and dolphins pop up everywhere, which is incredible!

It also has a huge national park which covers 405 square miles! There are loads of areas of outstanding natural beauty, rolling hills, thick forests, and good old sea air. The forests are filled with incredibly cute deer, just take a look at this footage

https://www.facebook.com/discovernland/videos/719252175629381/

But other animals including stoats, bats, wildcats, mountain hares, polecats, beavers and minks to name just a few, but you can get the full list at

https://www.nwt.org.uk/wildlife-explorer/mammals?page=1

They also run a number of projects such as

restoring ratty – which is a project focused on bringing the water vole back in larger numbers
Red Squirrels – Red Squirrels Northern England is an organisation working to help bring back red squirrels back!!
Wildwood – a project focused on replanting forests and brining woods back to the area

All of these efforts brought together create one of the most naturally diverse place in the UK, and as David Attenborough says the best place in the UK to find wildlife, which is my holiday this year is already booked and I’m headed straight for Northumberland.

Ten ‘facts’ about animals that are NOT true!

Hello everyone and welcome back to Hedgehog heaven, today I will writing about facts that pretty much everyone thinks are true, but aren’t. So let’s get right into, there are some surprising ones in here!

Camels don’t store water in their humps! They actually store fat there, they don’t actually store water anywhere, but have simply adapted to not being able to drink for long periods of time
Did you know chameleons don’t change colour in order to camouflage themselves. They actually change colour due to their mood and the temperature.
Goldfish are intelligent! Yes goldfish are in actual fact quite clever, they can remember things weeks after it has happened and can even be trained.
Bulls don’t get angry by seeing red. Bulls can’t actually distinguish colours, and so it wouldn’t matter if you waved a green, blue or pink flag at them. They react to the movement.
Bees can sting more than once. The one bee that can only sting once is the honey bee, but bumblebees can sting you as much as they like. Yikes!!
Bats can see. Although they also use echolocation, bats aren’t blind and some studies have shown, that they prefer to use sight when hunting prey.
Owls can’t actually spin their head 360 degrees. It’s more like 270, but that’s still pretty impressive and far more than a human.
The T-Rex has pretty good vision. Some scientists now believe that the T-Rex had better vision than eagles and hawks. And you don’t get the name Hawkeye for nothing!
Turkeys can fly. Yes although they can’t get very far they can and do fly! (domestic turkeys can’t as they have been breed to have a larger breast)
Wolves do not howl at the moon. Yes disappointing though this may be, they do not howl at the moon, the misconception comes because wolves often howl at night.

So that’s it for today everyone, I hope you enjoyed the post! And I will see you all next week.

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My Top Three Nature Books

Hello everyone today we have a sequel to last weeks post, over Christmas with these new lockdown restrictions in place there will plenty of time to settle down with a good book and so here are my top three suggestions for nature books .

3. The science of animals : inside their secret world

This book is incredible, it has hundreds of pages filled with information all about animals, it is from the Natural History Museum and it is amazing, I love leafing through it’s pages and finding out all about a rhino’s horn, or how a dorsal fin works, or about the life of an emperor penguin. It is all there in it’s pages, everything anyone could ever want to know about animals

2. British wildlife detectives book by Miles Kelly

I absolutely adore this book for within it’s pages you can record every animals you see on a walk, whether it’s a seal, hedgehog or vole, it has [pretty much every type of animals within it’s pages, with a few facts about it and space to write about your observation, as well as room to put a picture in. This is a wonderful book and I have spent many years filling it in, with all the animals I have found over the years.

Do Unto Animals by Tracy Stewart

This is my favourite nature book of all time. inside it’s pages you can learn not only about all kinds of animals, whether they are pets, farmed, or wild, but you can also learn how to help them. How to make a bee hotel, or a hedgehog house. This book is filled with increible illustrations and even more amazing insight into animals. If you are going to pick one book from this list, pick this one. I promise it won’t disappoint.

So there you have it my top three nature books, I really hope you get them and enjoy them as much as I have over the years, and plus they make great presents, so if there are any animal lovers in your house this is an amazing present. If you have any comments please put them down below and make sure you hit that like button. If you want more content like this then make sure to subscribe as we have loads coming your way.

River Animals: Birds

Hello again, and welcome back to my river animals series, this week I will be looking at the birds that live in and around our waterways, so let’s jump right in!

The first bird of course has to be the swan. f England swans are well known for their grace and beauty and are a common sight around English waterways, especially in rivers, but did you know there are actually three different breeds of swan in England, mute swans are the largest and the only ones that stay all year round in England, the other two breeds of swan migrate to England from the arctic, these are the Whooper swan and Bewick’s swan, which is the smallest breed of the three .

Second on our list is the Grey Heron, an incredibly tall bird, famed for its ability to stand totally still when hunting, waiting for the fish to come to it. They mainly life to live in and around lakes and ponds and they can have a wingspan of up to 195 cm, that’s almost 2 meters! Herons are actually widely spread across the world, their numbers stretch from Japan to Africa. Plus they don’t migrate so you can see this feathery friend all year round!

Finally we have the Curlew a slightly unusual bird, it’s incredibly long beak gives it quite a comical look, so here are a few facts for you about the curlew, although it is a migratory bird in the rest of the world, they live all year round in the British isles as it has a milder climate than the rest of the UK. It is actually the largest wading bird, and they mostly eat little things they dig up with their longs beaks from the mud, such as worms and crabs. The curlew is unfortunately endangered due to loss of habitat, as it lives in moorlands and grasslands.

So there you have it my top three water birds, I hope you enjoyed reading this blog as much as I enjoyed writing it and I will see you next week where I will be looking at amphibians and reptiles that live in and around our waterways. So see you next time.

River Habitats 2: Fish

Yes, today I am going to be exploring what fish you could see swimming around in you local river, so let’s jump right into it!

The eel, yes we really do have eels in our waterways, although they extremely rare, they are critically endangered on the IUCN list of endangered species. It takes them about 3 years to reach English waterways, however they can live up to 100 hundred years! If you walking or fishing in the early evening them you may see an eel, especially Gloucester and Sharpness canal.

European eel, facts and photos — An eel!

Pike – the pike is much more common fish, however I think some people don’t realise how cool this fish actually is. It’s a fierce predator, thriving in canals where the water is clear, but has lots of weed to hide in and surprise it’s prey. The pike is actually a very large fish, a record weight being 46lb and 13oz, that’s roughly the weight of 6 babies!

Catfish, yes catfish live in English waterways, although they aren’t actually native to England. They are, however, the largest freshwater fish in the UK, reaching up to 64lb. They also have an amazing lifespan of around 90 years! Unfortunately they are more active at night, preferring to hunt in murky waters at night. But if you want to see one, there is a population of catfish at Marsworth reservoir near Tring

So there you have it my top 3 fish that you can find in English waterways. Next week we will be looking at birds that you can find on the waterways of Britain, so see you next time!

River Animals part 1

Hello everyone and welcome back to another Hedgehogheaven post. Now if you’re like me then you probably enjoy walking through the countryside, rolling hill, endless fields and beautiful, big, green forests. But most of all I like to walk along the riverside. Rivers are sources of fresh water for many animals and so it often surprises me how few animals I see. Then again I do tend to stomp my way through the undergrowth. However I thought I would look into what animals do actually live by and in the river. So maybe you can watch out for them next time you walk along a river, and hopefully have more luck than me and my great big boots. So this week I am doing all the mammals that you may see whilst walking along a river.

Of course I’m sure you have all heard of this one, the otter, a very secretive mammal and definitely one which you would probably more likely find in the countryside, however if you are walking through the countryside don’t forget to watch out for their distinctive paw prints, as they use their paw prints to mark their territory.

The next animal is one which you probably won’t see, it is of course the little water vole, incredibly quick and elusive it is rare to see one, but they have their burrows under the river bank so as you walk along think about what’s happening underneath you. A little water vole may be scurry around down there.

The water shrew is one which is more numerous that the water vole , but just as elusive, surprisingly feisty this little animal has poisonous bite which subdues its prey. It eats animals like larvae, freshwater shrimp and even frogs!

And if you are very, very lucky you may even see a beaver, they were reintroduced to England after being hunted to extinction in the 17th century, the beaver is a very shy creature and build their dens under the water. But it is just great that we have these really quite large mammals back in town!

Other animals you may see whilst on you walk don’t actually live in the water, but use it for other things. Deer for example drink from the river, foxes use the river to move about their territory and hide in the trees that grow near the river, and although this one may be a little strange, rats use the river to forage too.

When you think of mammals you don’t really think of water, but this just goes to show how incredibly diverse mammals are and how they can adapt to anything. If you enjoyed this post please don’t forget to leave a like and if you have a suggestion or question please don’t hesitate to comment below. If you want to find out more about wildlife then definitely subscribe as there is going to be so much more coming out! See ya next week!

Autumn Food – Episode 2

Hey everyone so this week I’m going to be talking to you about food. Yes food is delicious and I love a good pizza as much as the next person, but unfortunately I’m not here to get your mouth watering over, marshmellows or Haribos. Instead I’m going to be talking to you about the next ‘episode’ in my All About Autumn Series. So let’s get into it!

First off animals’ diets change considerably in the autumn. Many animals especially carnivores find their food changes quite rapidly. During the autumn, animals start to migrate leaving those who stay behind, with not much food at all.

Squirrels get around this problem by burying their nuts in the ground. This is an incredibly unique way to store food and it works really well, mostly. Some squirrels do forget where they’ve put their nuts, Princeton University conducted a biology experiment and the results showed squirrels could remember where they had stored about two thirds of 112 of their nuts. Many are quick to judge and say that squirrels are forgetful and stupid, however squirrels are actually very clever. For example if a squirrel thinks that a thief squirrel is watching him, he might dig a hole and then pretend to put his nut in it, he will then close the hole up and run off, the thief will then dig up the original squirrel’s ‘nut’ to find nothing at all, by this time the original squirrel has buried his nut safely. They have also been seen to calculate risk, a squirrel might bury some of his nuts in predator territory, because he knows that a thief squirrel is less likely to go there as they would have to spend longer looking for the original squirrels nuts.

A squirrel looking for a place to bury his nut

In fact many animals store food, during the winter food is very scarce and so Autumn is a period of finding and storing what food animals can. They store things like nuts, but also leaves and seeds. Did you know that moles store worms to eat during the winter. In fact foxes store food throughout the year, only usually for a night or two, but still, talk about getting ahead of the game. Get it?

Other animals change their diets to fit with the changing seasons, badgers for example, will usually eat meat, animals like mice, rats and rabbits, however during the winter these animals are all hibernating, and so the badger must change its diet during the autumn as more and more of it’s usual diet start to disappear, the badger must adapt to eat as much food as it possibly can while there is still food around. This means that badgers are omnivores, they will eat both meat and plants, during the autumn they eat loads of berries, nuts, seeds, insects and fruit such as apples that have fallen from trees. Badgers will eat almost anything, this is because they don’t hibernate and so when food is scarce during the winter they still have to find it.

I find that putting out food not only really helps animals, but it is also amazing to have wildlife in your own garden. It just feels so great! A couple of weeks ago I mentioned bird feeders in one of my posts. I would really recommend these as they attract so many birds to your garden in a very short space of time. You can buy them in almost every garden centre and they are very cheap too! You could also put out food for animals. I know that some of my neighbours put out bread for the foxes, but I also sprinkle hedgehog food in my garden and it is all gone by the end of the night. In fact I have stayed up many times to watch our hedgehog as he eats his way through his food, if you want more information on hedgehog food please check out my hedgehog food post, it has all the information you need there!

Thank you so much for reading all about animal food in Autumn if you enjoyed this post please leave a like, and if you want to see more content don’t forget to subscribe. Please leave a comment below if you want to ask something or want me to write about something, I would really love your input. But anyway see you in the next Episode!