Urban animal: new life

The city isn't only a place to gather food for many animals, but it can also be the ideal environment to raise young and find suitable habitats. This is especially true of species that like to live in holes, caves or crevices. The same goes for plants. As such our cities have become home to specialised wall and rock plants. In water-rich cities it is surface water in all shapes and sizes that attracts wild animals. Most animal life is hidden from view. This makes what we do see extra special...

Any pond, lake canal or ditch can be home to frogs. They like places with lots of water plants. A young frog is resting amongst the foliage of Shining pondweed (Potamogeton lucens). The frog is a Common frog, or Brown frog (Rana temporaria) as I know them. In the shallows of the sandy bank you can also see large groups of tadpoles the aquatic stage of this species.

Water in cities also attracts birds. These can be indigenous or recent arrivals. In the middle a park stream with a couple of Graylag geese with a single (remaining?) gosling between them. A female Mallard follows the pair around hoping their long necks will stir up food from deeper under water than the dabbling duck can reach. The Egyptian goose (right) is not a true goose and as the name suggests not native, but these exotic newcomers do very well in the Low Countries. They breed producing cute brown and white goslings that tend to keep close to mother. The Canada goose (a large true goose) is also -as the name indicates- a foreign visitor. They were seen as occasional winter birds, but have become a common sight, especially in parks. Until the 1990s they were considered a pest and were shot. Since this policy was abandoned their numbers have exploded.