The animal that you are most likely to see is the Grey Squirrel. They are most obvious in the Autumn collecting acorns and beech nuts for the winter. You may find nuts that have been chewed by them or pine cones that have had the scales chewed off. Small animals that you are unlikely to see are Shrews and Wood mice. You may find holes in walls and muddy banks where they live. They eat other small creatures such as worms, snails and slugs. We once discovered a tiger slug at the top of the park. These are unusual in that they eat other slugs, just the sort you need in your garden!

Roe deer have been seen as well as Hedgehog, Rabbit and Fox, though they were probably passing through. There are some moles living in the park, leaving evidence by mole hills.     

 

Birds

Many birds visit our woodland park. Some are particularly attracted by the many oak trees including Jays, Nuthatches, Woodpeckers and Treecreepers.  There are a number of Jays at the top of the park that are easily spotted as they are quite large and a pinky brown with bright blue feathers on the wings. They are also very noisy birds making their presence known by sharp squawks. In the spring Woodpeckers can be heard drumming on the trees. Owls have been heard in the night though we are not sure they live in the park. In 2015 a pair of Sparrow hawks nested in one of the pine trees, very interesting for us but not so good for small birds and mammals. However they were not seen this year.

We have erected a number of bird boxes to attract small nesting birds in the spring.

When we are working in the park there is often a robin hopping around looking for worms and insects that we have disturbed.

Other birds that have been recorded are Blackbird, Jackdaw, Crow, Black-headed gull, Wood pigeon, Song thrush, Wren, Dunnock, Redwing, Blue tit, Crow, Magpie, Wren, Goldcrest, Great tit, Willow warbler, Chaffinch,  and Woodcock.

There will be a bird walk on 17th April 2017 lead by the RSPB.

 

Click the button to see a report of the last RSPB visit.

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Bats

We are lucky to have a specialist in bats, Mr Robert Bell, who leads a walk each year. This year in September fifteen of us enjoyed listening to the calls of the bats of Prince of Wales Park as these nocturnal creatures feed on insects amongst and around the parks trees and open areas.

There are 17 species of bats in Britain and we recorded two species during the walk including common pipistrelle and a Myotis bat species, which may have been the Daubenton's bat. 

If you want to know more click the button 

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This is the time of year for mating and some of the common pipistrelle bats were heard social calling whilst a pair of bats were also observed chasing each other around the edges of the quarry, oblivious to the surveyors below.

Bats can roost in a wide variety of locations and whilst the common pipistrelle bats we observed would be likely to roost in nearby housing, other species may roost in the crevices and voids within some of the mature trees in the park.

Robert explained that Bingley has a healthy bat population with several large bat roosts known from the area including within Ireland Bridge. He also highlighted how there is still much to find out about the bats of the local area. In particular how a substantial cave above Bingley may even yet prove to be a significant 'bat disco'!”