Page 28 - BBC Wildlife Volume 36 #11

Talking

point

BRINGING ot long ago I turned
an unloved Brighton
courtyard into a thriving
wildlife oasis. Before I
took the decking up there
BACK THE N at all – there was neither
was virtually no wildlife

food nor shelter in this barren artificial
landscape. But within just two months of

GREEN ‘unbuttoning the earth’, digging a pond,
laying a lawn and planting native shrubs, I
had breeding leafcutter bees, damselflies and
dragonflies, several species of butterfly and
a small colony of 30 house sparrows, which
would take it in turns to bathe in my pond.
It might not seem such a huge deal, but it
Is it inevitable that wildlife cannot thrive in was – especially as so many of my neighbours

modern cities, or should we all be living up were busy paving, decking and fake-turfing
their gardens. I created a habitat where there
to our reputation as a gardening nation? hadn’t been one for around 30 years. And the

wildlife moved in straight away.
Sadly, my story is an unusual one. Around
By Kate Bradbury Illustrations Elly Walton the country, which often likes to style itself

28 BBC Wildlife November 2018