KATE MARTIN: Hello and welcome to the National Trust Podcast.

I'm Kate Martin, lead ranger in the Northwest. And in this

episode, I'm going to be picking up lots of tips about

birdwatching but as I discover some of these avian residents

have more metropolitan tastes when it comes to making their

home.

When you think of places synonymous with bird watching

and avian encounters, I usually think of the sort of wide open

wetlands, of Wicken Fen, or maybe the wooded valleys of the

Lake District or even some nice rugged coastline somewhere like

Cornwall. So when I was told I was making a bird watching

episode and the location was Central Leeds, I was more than a

little confused.

But I'm currently headed towards the city centre to meet Keen

bird watcher Paul Wheatley, who tells me he has the perfect spot

for the early morning twitching.

But to be honest, amongst the rubbish collections and the road

sweepers and the early morning deliveries that you can hear

going past as we speak, there's an odd pigeon and a gull bobbing

around, but bird life here is pretty non-existent.

And just ahead to me, though, there is a guy who just looks

completely out of place. He stood on the side of the road

with a puffer jacket and a flask of tea, I’m assuming that's got

to be Paul Wheatley.

So let's head over and see if it's him.

Hello. You must be Paul?

PAUL WHEATLEY: Hi Kate! Good to meet you!

KATE MARTIN: You weren't exactly difficult to spot. So at the

moment I can see a scope pointing at what appears to be

nothing, I can't see anything at all up there.

PAUL WHEATLEY: Actually, you've come to one of the best places

in Leeds for a bit of urban birding.

KATE MARTIN: Really?

PAUL WHEATLEY: Have a Look at the screen.

KATE MARTIN: Oh, my word! I Are they what I think they are?

PAUL WHEATLEY: Peregrine Falcon!

KATE MARTIN: Oh, that's amazing!

PAUL WHEATLEY: Fastest bird in the world.

KATE MARTIN: So why have they chosen to make Leeds their home?

PAUL WHEATLEY: So out in the countryside they'll nest on

cliffs and craggy areas. But over the last 10 or 20 years,

Peregrines have been moving into cities and towns where they've

got plentiful supply of pigeons to eat.

Here in Leeds at the University, we've got the clock tower here

up on the hill overlooking the city centre. It's the highest

place, and that's where the Peregrines have chosen to come

and nest

KATE MARTIN: I suppose for a Peregrine it just an inner city

crag.

PAUL WHEATLEY: That's the location to look for them high

up.

Good way to start is to just buy a pair of binoculars that gets

you straight into accessing what's out there to be able to

see the birds well.

To step up a little bit and go for a telescope, you can get a

decent scope for a few hundred pounds.

I'm really into phone scoping and I combine that with the

camera on my mobile phone.

So with a little adapter I can attach my phone to the scope and

then suddenly your iPhone's got a 70x zoom. And that really

transports you from ground level up to the level of the

Peregrine.

I've got a replay here.

KATE MARTIN: So vivid isn’t it when you can get that close. Oh

look at that.

You can see every detail of the feather and the colouration.

Absolutely wonderful!

PAUL WHEATLEY: Did you hear that?

KATE MARTIN: Yes, I did.

PAUL WHEATLEY: That's Falcon calling, falcon’s calling to the

tercel, to the male.

Can you see the falcon?

KATE MARTIN: I can. I can see her very clearly.

PAUL WHEATLEY: And this is what's fantastic about an urban

birding location. You can get really close. We've got the

falcon now, coming round now, making a fantastic shape, this

sort of jet fighter shape, swept back wings.

KATE MARTIN: They’re Unmistakable, aren't they?

PAUL WHEATLEY: If you've got the optics, obviously great to be

able to watch the Peregrines from the street. But there are

other ways that you can watch Urban Peregrines. If you come

with me, we can go and check it out.

KATE MARTIN: Oh, fantastic! Let's go!

So where are you taking me?

PAUL WHEATLEY: Just around the corner to the engineering

department.

Here we are.

Kate this is Les Arkless

KATE MARTIN: Hello Les!

LES ARKLESS: Hello!

KATE MARTIN: So I hear you're the person who's helped to make

these peregrines famous.

LES ARKLESS: Yes. Yes. Yeah!

KATE MARTIN: Oh, wow! A web cam! So this is live now?

LES ARKLESS: That's live!

KATE MARTIN: So we can see. I'm guessing this is the Falcon is

it on the nest?

LES ARKLESS: She’s sitting on four eggs. There’s another two

weeks and about three days before they hatch.

KATE MARTIN: Is she literally just laying directly onto those

gravels?

LES ARKLESS: They make a little scrape, they lay down on it and

kick the feet out backwards and just make a shallow depression.

KATE MARTIN: It must be a great relief when they hatch and you

can actually see the youngsters in there.

LES ARKLESS: While they’re incubating eggs it's like about

five weeks when not very much happens. And then three will

hatch within 24 hours. The last one will hatch a day later.

KATE MARTIN: This is the Peregrine folder is it?

LES ARKLESS: It is yes.

KATE MARTIN: These are great photos. aren’t they?

LES ARKLESS: One little hatch!

KATE MARTIN: They look like little white cotton wool balls

of fluff.

LES ARKLESS: As it is, it's only about the size of a chicken egg.

KATE MARTIN: So this is where they start to lose that white

fluff and start getting their proper feathers through?

LES ARKLESS: Well, when the fledging they'll get big enough,

they'll flap the wings, get stronger, they'll go off, and

then hopefully they'll fly off and make it a across to a

building or somewhere to land on.

KATE MARTIN: And if they don't?

LES ARKLESS: They end up on the ground!

KATE MARTIN: Oh, dear!

LES ARKLESS: So there's one time that really stands out.

I had Paul ringing me up...

PAUL WHEATLEY: So the first year they had breeding success was

back in 2018, but they laid their eggs really late in the

year.

So it was into July before the birds actually fledge from the

nest.

And it was at that point that I found myself on duty. Les

himself was unfortunate on holiday, and that was when the

first Peregrine fledged the nest.

On this occasion, the Peregrine ended up on a low building but

wasn't a fed by the parents.

The Peregrine tried to build its strength through the day and I

actually saw it take a second flight about five o’clock that

and it flew for the church spire just opposite the Parkinson

Building.

It got about halfway up, crashed right into the side of the

building, scrambled with its talons, wasn't able to catch

onto anything and fell all the way to the ground and

immediately was up on its feet and was running towards the main

road.

So straight away I grabbed my telescope, ran across the road,

just narrowly avoided getting knocked down and managed to get

between the Peregrine and the road.

And with quite a few other people, we sort of corralled the

Peregrine around the corner away from the road.

I knew that the Peregrine needed to go up on the roof. There's a

lot of urban foxes in the area, so it was a real sort of welfare

situation. Straightway I was on the phone and I talked to Les

and Les said... [

LES ARKLESS: On Phone] "There’s a box left with security throw

something over it’s head, calm it down, put it in the box and

get them to go up onto the roof and just let it out."

PAUL WHEATLEY: They were the words of encouragement I needed.

When we got up on the roof of the Parkinson Building, you want

to be really careful.

So the worst situation is to release the Peregrine from the

box and spook the bird and straightaway it's off the roof

and on the ground again.

Just try to really take our time to gradually open the box and

let the Peregrine just wander out, giving it lots of space,

and straightaway the bird, was up onto a perch on the side of

the building, at which point, you know, everything's okay.

LES ARKLESS: This is not things the public should be doing. It

should be getting a qualified person to do it.

It was just the welfare of the bird, the time, the location and

Paul, he was being guided by qualified people to actually do

it safely.

The camera is great thing really, because we don't have to

disturb them.

We can watch it all remotely where it is and great thing for

public engagement.

And it is the most popular university web page apparently.

KATE MARTIN: That doesn’t surprise me actually, there's

just something so wonderful about seeing wildlife like that.

And they're so beautiful aren’t they?

LES ARKLESS: Oh, yeah.

KATE MARTIN: They’re just beautiful birds.

Inspired by this morning's encounter, I've driven 9 minutes

north of the university to Meanwood Park to meet Linda

Jenkinson, who's an urban birder.

And I'm told she'll be able to open my eyes to a hidden but

thriving urban avian world. It's a beautiful park.

And the area in front of me, sort of grassy with paths

crisscrossing and looking over. there's a lot of really nice,

mature trees.

And behind that is a bank of daffodils that Wordsworth would

be very excited to see.

There's a lady standing over here by the cafe.

Hello. You must be Linda?

LINDA JENKINSON: I am. Hello, Kate.

KATE MARTIN: Lovely to meet you You too.

This is a glorious spot.

LINDA JENKINSON: It's absolutely wonderful. Lots of people use

the park here. People running, cycling, dog walking. But most

people don't realize how fantastic it is for

birdwatching.

KATE MARTIN: My day job's outdoors, so I know a little bit

about birds, but probably not as much as I should! So I'm hoping

you might be able to teach me something today.

LINDA JENKINSON: Okay, well, if we go sit over there, maybe I

can give you a whistle stop tour of one of my workshops.

KATE MARTIN: Great. Let's go.

LINDA JENKINSON: Okay, well, if you're a complete beginner,

there's four things I really need to advise people on to

start off with.

That's books, maybe get yourself a decent book.

KATE MARTIN: Yeah.

LINDA JENKINSON: Binoculars, of course, because you can see

birds flying around all of the time.

But you need to see the detail.

KATE MARTIN: Yeah.

LINDA JENKINSON: And then one fantastic thing that you can get

now is a decent app. There are some that are very good for

reference, especially for things like birdsong as well.

And the last thing is, is you really need to know what to wear

because the last thing you want is to be freezing cold or

soaking wet. So gloves, scarves, hats, that kind of thing.

Okay. So I think I've just given you the heads up on what you're

going to need to get started. So shall we have a little walk?

KATE MARTIN: Oh yeah, let's!

LINDA JENKINSON: Fantastic.

With this particular park, we've got some conifers, Yew Trees and

some Pines and that means that we get even more diversity.

So things like Coal Tit, which got nice little stripe down the

back of it’s head and Goldcrest as well.

KATE MARTIN: And they’re teeny tiny aren’t they Goldcrest?

LINDA JENKINSON: They’re our smallest bird!

Very, very fidgety and fluttery and does lots of fly catching.

Oh did you hear the Blackcap then? It's the one that's

going [imitating bird call]

KATE MARTIN: Yes. Just!

LINDA JENKINSON: I cant do a very good impression. But it's

very, very, flutey very fast. And they've only just arrived!

Believe it or not, this is probably one of the best places

to find birds.

KATE MARTIN: There’s bramble, there’s lower sort of scrubby

stuff. There's obviously a bit of cherry in there. But it is,

It's really, really dense.

LINDA JENKINSON: This is what birds need in order to be able

to thrive. So these brambles, they contain lots of insects,

but as soon as you clear all away, then you're not going to

get birds.

This is Chiffchaff that’s singing here. This is one of our

earliest migrants.

You can just see it right above us.

That likes really tall trees. It sings this chip chip chip sound

Yeah Chiffchaff!

But it's actually nesting in this bramble scrub really low

down.

We're going to go walk over to the stream.

So this is one of the good places to see Kingfisher.

KATE MARTIN: Oh, wow!

LINDA JENKINSON: So we sit down on this bench here, we might be

lucky.

KATE MARTIN: To see that flash of blue!

LINDA JENKINSON: So kingfishers are potentially going to be on

this spot here because we've got some still water that you can

actually see the bottom.

KATE MARTIN: Yeah.

LINDA JENKINSON: It will sit on a little perch that's

overhanging the water to wait for the fish to come by and then

plop straight in and then out again.

Why don't we just have a few seconds of quiet and see if we

can see one flying by?

KATE MARTIN: Those Kingfisher seem to be eluding us.

LINDA JENKINSON: Why you might not see a Kingfisher unless it's

right in front of you is that they're not really blue.

There's no blue pigment in the Kingfisher feathers at all.

Wow!

The way that the feathers are made up, it refracts the light,

and you actually see the blue spectrum as you're looking at

them.

KATE MARTIN: That's amazing, I did not know that!

It's great to be able to come out to a park like this, but

obviously not everybody can get out to places like this.

So if you're stuck at home or you know, you're in a flat, is

there ways you can still get involved and watch the birds

that are local to you?

LINDA JENKINSON: If you just put up things like bird boxes, site

them in the right place so they're not going to get too hot

during the summer months. Have some nice, untouched areas where

birds can nest.

So a typical example of that is one of my urban birding

colleagues, Mary-Beth, who's managed to change a two meter

square piece of concrete into a fantastic wildlife haven.

KATE MARTIN: I've made my way to the other side of Leeds, and as

Linda suggests, I've come to meet Mary-Beth, and I'm assuming

this is probably her garden because it looks like a lovely

little haven for wildlife.

It's quite a small space, but there's loads packed into it.

There's trees and bird feeders everywhere, a little hedgehog

house, and it's absolutely gorgeous.

Hello Mary-Beth!

MARY-BETH WHITTINGSTALL: Hello, Kate!

KATE MARTIN: What a lovely, lovely garden you’ve got!

MARY-BETH WHITTINGSTALL: Thank you so much! In you come, would

you like a drink?

KATE MARTIN: Tea would be grand, thank you.

MARY-BETH WHITTINGSTALL: I'll put that on for you now!

KATE MARTIN: I have to say I absolutely love the décor of

your house. There's just nature everywhere. Bees and birds and

everything. It's absolutely amazing.

MARY-BETH WHITTINGSTALL: It's a back to back house, which is

quite a traditional house in Leeds, in Yorkshire. It's a

really small space and as a consequence we don't have like

lots of gardens in these houses. But as you can see with my

neighbours and myself, we make the most of the small space.

There you go, cup of tea.

KATE MARTIN: Perfect. Thank you.

It's lovely sitting here on your very comfy couch, but it's a

really perfect view you’ve got to set up of the feeders and the

birds outside. It does make you feel like you're in a sort of

cinema watching a wildlife documentary in front of us. So

what species do you get?

MARY-BETH WHITTINGSTALL: I'm really lucky, actually. I get

lots of different birds visiting. I have like a little

colony of House Sparrows that visit, and I’ve got the

Blackbirds, the Robins, the Great Tits.

So quite common really, but still very much appreciated.

I've also had a Common Whitethroat visiting, which I

never expected to see, and I've also had a flock of Redpolls

visiting which are really striking little finches.

Then again, I never expected to see those in my, you know, my

little Leeds yard.

For the last couple of years. It's really had a very profound

effect on me having this small green space. The first lockdown

in 2020, I was diagnosed with breast cancer.

When you've kind of been presented with something like

that, you really do start to consider your mortality a lot

more. And in doing so, you start to really think about what

matters to you the most and what what you want to do with your

life.

And for me, what mattered to me the most was being outside and

being around nature. But I couldn't do that because we were

in a lockdown.

I had my first of two surgeries, followed by a few months of

chemotherapy and then followed by radiotherapy.

So I kind of lost that year to cancer treatment, which meant

that there was days when I physically was so unwell I

couldn't really move off the settee.

But I had my birds visiting. So, you know, it was so important to

me to have that view.

My mum actually was the one who got me my window bird feeder

because she said, While you're on the sofa, you know,

recovering from surgery, you can watch the birds more clearly

when they're right there on the windows.

Me, and my mum have our shared passion for birding and that was

a present from her that was very appreciated and her way of

connecting back with me as well because we couldn't see one

another and that was very, very tough.

Straight away, It was kind of really obvious to me that if I

continue to get out as much as I could on my good days and be

around nature, that would keep me, keep me going and keep me

kind of feeling positive.

And then even on those days when I was too unwell to move really,

I could still see the birds in the garden.

KATE MARTIN: It was a hard time for everyone then to add

something like that on top of it and then as you say, then not

being able to connect with your real family, for want of a

better word I suppose having a sort of little avian family was

kind of the best thing you could have in that situation when you

can't actually physically meet your human family.

MARY-BETH WHITTINGSTALL: The birds in my garden, these sorts

of feel like family in a way. You know, I was seeing them

every day. I was putting food out for them. We had that

relationship. It's that connection with nature, it does

feel very personal.

Every night, I would be up sometimes very late making sure

the hedgehog had visited. Things like that. It's so silly. It's

like, I need to go to bed now, but I want to make sure the

hedgehog has had it’s tea.

KATE MARTIN: It is, it’s just such a nice thing to have

literally so close to home right outside your doorstep.

So, can you give me a tour of your garden?

MARY-BETH WHITTINGSTALL: Of course.

KATE MARTIN: What have you got?

MARY-BETH WHITTINGSTALL: The favourite food here is usually

the sunflower seeds. All kind of the birds really enjoy those,

particularly the Blue Tits and the Great Tits.

There’s also the suet feeders for the Robins and the

Blackbirds. I also put mealworms out.

We have the little suet bowls here which the Long-Tailed Tits

really like.

I've also got a little bee house.

KATE MARTIN: Oh yeah!

MARY-BETH WHITTINGSTALL: Just over there.

KATE MARTIN: For solitary bees?

MARY-BETH WHITTINGSTALL: Yes, my favourite type of bees. I even

have some Red Mason Bees in some of the brickwork. A couple more

weeks and they'll start to emerge as well.

KATE MARTIN: It's amazing what you can do in such a small

space.

MARY-BETH WHITTINGSTALL: It really is. Yeah. I would never

have imagined we could have all of what we have here in this

little, little concrete box.

KATE MARTIN: Mary-Beth, thank you so much for showing me

around this beautiful little oasis of calm.

MARY-BETH WHITTINGSTALL: It’s been lovely meeting you, an

absolute pleasure.

KATE MARTIN: Oh, you too.

MARY-BETH WHITTINGSTALL: Take care.

KATE MARTIN: Thanks very much.

When I was told I was coming to Leeds for the day, you don't

really think about it as somewhere to come to see

wildlife. But what's been really special today is meeting people

who not only are really passionate about the city that

they live and work in, but are really passionate about the

nature that's here.

From seeing the peregrines, to listening to the black caps and

the chiffchaffs, and then obviously coming out with

Mary-Beth and listening to her talk about how important that

connection with nature has been to her personally, and the very

difficult journey that she's been on the last few years.

It really makes you appreciate that no matter where you are,

nature is literally at your fingertips. If you make a home

for it, you make space for it. If you take the time to look for

it, you'll find it. And that connection with nature is just

so important to all of us.

Thanks for listening to the National Trust Podcast. If

you've been inspired by this podcast, and would like to find

out more about bird watching, or ways to encourage wildlife into

your garden, follow the links in our show notes.

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Find out more about audio programs from the National Trust

at nationaltrust.org.uk/podcasts

And until next time from me, Kate Martin. Goodbye.