1Good morning.
2Today I'd like to present the findings of our Year 2 project on wildlife found in gardens throughout our city.
3I'll start by saying something about the background to the project,
4then talk a little bit about our research techniques,
5and then indicate some of our interim findings.
6First of all, how did we choose our topic?
7Well, there are four of us in the group and one day while we were discussing a possible focus,
8two of the group mentioned that they had seen yet more sparrow-hawks - one of Britain's most interesting birds of prey -
9in their own city centre gardens
10and wondered why they were turning up in these gardens in great numbers.
11We were all very engaged by the idea of why wild animals would choose to inhabit a city garden.
12Why is it so popular with wildlife when the countryside itself is becoming less so?
13The first thing we did was to establish what proportion of the urban land is taken up by private gardens.
14We estimated that it was about 1/5,
15and this was endorsed by looking at large-scale usage maps in the town land survey office -
1624% to be precise.
17Our own informal discussions with neighbours and friends led us to believe that
18many garden owners had interesting experiences to relate regarding wild animal sightings
19so we decided to survey garden owners from different areas of the city.
20Just over 100 of them completed a survey once every two weeks for twelve months -
21ticking off species they had seen from a pro forma list -
22and adding the names of any rarer ones.
23Meanwhile, we were doing our own observations in selected gardens throughout the city.
24We deliberately chose smaller ones because they were by far the most typical in the city.
25The whole point of the project was to look at the norm not the exception.
26Alongside this primary research on urban gardens,
27we were studying a lot of books about the decline of wild animals in the countryside
28and thinking of possible causes for this.
29So what did we find?
30Well, so much that I just won't have time to tell you about here.
31If you're interested in reading our more comprehensive findings,
32we've produced detailed graphic representations on the college website
33and of course any of the group would be happy to talk to you about them.
34Just email us.
35What we've decided to present today is information about just three species -
36because we felt these gave a good indication of the processes at work
37in rural and urban settings as a whole.
38The first species to generate a lot of interesting information was frogs.
39And there was a clear pattern here -
40they proliferate where there is suitable water.
41Garden ponds are on the increase,
42rural ponds are disappearing,
43leading to massive migration to the towns.
44Hedgehogs are also finding it easier to live in urban areas -
45this time because their predators are not finding it quite so attractive to leave their rural environment,
46so hedgehogs have a better survival rate in cities.
47We had lots of sightings,
48so all in all, we had no difficulties with our efforts to count their numbers precisely.
49Our final species is the finest of bird singers, the song thrush.
50On the decline in the countryside,
51they are experiencing a resurgence in urban gardens
52because these days gardeners are buying lots of different plants
53which means there's an extensive range of seeds around,
54which is what they feed on.
55Another factor is the provision of nesting places -
56which is actually better in gardens than the countryside.
57Hard to believe it, but it's true.
58Incidentally, we discovered that a massive new survey on song thrushes is about to be launched,
59so you should keep an eye open for that.
60Now, I'd be happy to answer...