Garden wildlife

My readers will notice that I blog a lot about gardens recently (here and here to be more precise). It is probably a mere coincidence, or I just get into one of those blogging moods. This picture was taken in the Keswick Museum. I make any excuse to put more pictures from there. I have never seen a hedgehog in the garden of our block, but it is one of the animals that I discovered here in back gardens and which I consider (rightly so) quintessentially British. When I first arrived here, I was amazed about the wild life I could see on the lawn of the halls of residence where I was living: foxes, hedgehogs and magpies essentially. In Quebec we have mice, rats and squirrels. The squirrels can be fun too, but I find hedgehogs more exotic.

Of course what are most common in the garden here are birds and then cats, either wild asocial ones or domestified, friendly ones. No later than yesterday evening, the tabby cat showed up for some cuddles. I find fascinating that in an urban area (although the town where I live is quite small) there is so much wildlife, so close to us. I feel British wildlife much closer than I ever felt Québec wildlife. Autumnwatch also made me more conscious about it.