What British wildlife are you hoping to see this year?

[Indecisivelurcher]

Love the new board! Be nice to hear what people are hoping to see this year? For me, I'm heading to Skomer island next Saturday to (fingers crossed) see puffins... I can sometime be a jinx, but surely all 46,000 of them won't leave when they see me on the boat?!

I'm hoping for fledgling long-tailed tits. We've got a lot in the garden this year, unusually. They're so cute.

Long tailed tits are my favourite birds, I love to see them.

I've noticed significantly more insects at the moment (particularly on my windscreen) so hopefully that will mean a lot more birds.

We moved into a new house a year ago and were so happy to see hedgehogs snuffling around the garden but haven’t seen them this year. I’ve been putting bowls of calci worms under hedges and near the driveway which do get eaten but haven’t seen any yet

I would love to see a European green woodpecker and an adder. Lucky enough to have house sat for someone that fed badgers and was sat two feet from about ten of them, utterly unbothered by my presence.

I'm lucky enough to see badgers (and foxes) in my garden each night. I'm right in a town, but an end terrace, so I have a hole in my fence that they use to come into my garden to eat the peanuts (badger) and eggs (fox) that I put out each night!

As for wildlife this year: last month I got to see a wild boar in the Forest of Dean, which was amazing. Next week I'm going on a guided walking tour locally hoping to see the large blue butterfly, and later this month another guided trip to hopefully see beavers in Devon. Next month I'm off to Knepp so hoping to see lots of new-to-me butterflies...maybe even a purpler emperor if I'm very lucky!

In my own garden I'm really hoping to see goldfinches - have only seen one on my TV arial once - and I would love to see the jay that visited a couple of times last winter again.

@livingonpurpose Have you booked the guided beaver spotting trip through a company?

Edited to add: I was at a gig a few weeks ago and met the friend of a friend who had been releasing beavers at a Wildlife Trust site in Shrewsbury. I wish I'd asked him if there was the possibility of visiting the site with him.

@MissMarplesNiece yes - with this company: https://www.devonbeavertours.co.uk

@LaBelleSauvage123 The boat that goes out to the Farne Islands has been reporting almost daily orca sightings so you might get a bonus at Berwick!

@Colinthedaxi A couple of years ago I wondered why there was a red ball bouncing round the garden. Looking properly it was a green woodpecker! Seen it a handful of times since.

Not getting the love of adders. I've seen one once when I was about age 9 about to go for a wee behind a shrub on Ilkley Moor. Not sure which of us was more scared and I scarpered . Left me with a lifetime aversion to al fresco weeing.

I would like to see a kingfisher. Never seen one.

Orcas! How amazing.

I’d love to see an otter and a kingfisher. I need to visit the person I know who has seen both.

For all the Farne Island / Puffin lovers; The National Trust now had a live webcam on the Piffin colony in the Farnes this season streaming every day from Dawn till Dusk.

I'll see if I can find a link.

Well I'm quoting my earlier post here, because I want to tell anyone who'll listen that the woodpecker who visited my garden has been back - and brought her baby with her! I've now got both a female and a juvenile greater spotted woodpecker visiting my feeder several times a day

Skomer is fab. I've never landed on the island but have enjoyed a couple of boat trips. Even early in the season we saw loads of puffins. Don't make my mistake of leaving your phone in the car after using it for sat nav!!

@DramaAlpaca How super!

Foxes and a LIVE hedgehog. I see so many dead hogs on the road. I would love to see a live healthy one snuffling about

Today I saw a muntjac(?) deer in my parents' garden. I have never seen this before in nearly 60 years. Usually only have woodpeckers, squirrels, garden birds.

Though they did have 8 glis glis in the loft last year!

I always enjoy seeing one of the stoats that live down the hill. Usually in the morning on my way to work 🙃

Following on from my previous post, I saw a fox in my parents' garden at 7am today.

Wow what was the story behind the glis glis?

We feed our local badgers peanuts so get to see them every night this time of year- gets expensive in nuts!

I’d love to see an adder, and I haven’t seen a slow worm since I was a child and would love to show one to my daughter(she saw her first wild lizard in the uk this year), but 2023 we had a grass snake visiting and it laid eggs in our compost heap so desperately want to have it back!

@Brody77 My parents live near the Chilterns where some zoo ones escaped years back and they have been breeding and expanding territory since then.
My brother went into the loft for something and saw a 'weird rat squirrel thing', and after numerous visits from local pest control over a few weeks they trapped 2 adults and 6 youngsters!!

We live in suburban Brum too and see badgers (though only as roadkill in my case sadly) and hedgehogs and there’s a couple of mountjack deer in the big but not massive garden and woodland up the road! It’s really nice though definitely now I expected. Way fewer owls these days though compared to ten years ago 😭

We have bats!!!! Well one of them at least. Didn’t get a close enough look to identify species but they are around

I’m so chuffed

I've just made a thread about the Bat Conservation Trust monitoring survey. Here's the link if you're interested in taking part.
https://www.bats.org.uk/our-work/national-bat-monitoring-programme/getting-started/sunset-survey

I would love to see a hedgehog. Not going to happen though.