Create a Patch in 2026
Sunday 14 December
Patience is Rewarded
FINALLY - the Tufted Titmouse has succumbed to careful stalking and paused long enough to have his/her portrait taken. Patience pays off.
Note: it is estimated by Birds Canada that there are no more than 1200 birds of this species anywhere in Canada
Your Wildlife Patch
Like most people, I sometimes travel and take vacations and when I do, I look for interesting birds and other wildlife and plants because … because that’s what I like to do, and it interests me. What I don’t do is jump in the car and travel distances to tick off new species. Once I would have done that, but not so much anymore. Most of my posts in these newsletters have been about the wildlife we can all find, enjoy and study close to our homes. Wildlife that is around us whenever we go out for a walk nearby … a walk on our local patch.
Birders talk about birding their “patch,” but you don’t have to be a birder to get to know your patch and its inhabitants. If insects are your thing, then be a patch entomologist, or botanist or whatever is you. Consider marking out and studying your patch in 2026 - it’s just just around the corner.
https://www.audubon.org/magazine/want-training-ground-your-birding-skills-try-patch-birding
Having a personal local patch - it need not be more than just your garden, or perhaps a nearby meadow, an area of woodland, or a community park, the roadside habitat on the road you live on or beside a stream or pond - offers an accessible place where observation and learning happen right at your doorstep. The key feature is that it is somewhere you can visit regularly and often throughout the year. Such a patch might include various habitats in a connected area. Because it is close you will be able to make more frequent sightings, to track seasonal patterns, and you will develop a familiarity with individual wildlife behaviors, songs, and biodiversity. Over time, your patch becomes a personal reference point, where you notice subtle changes in population health, migration timing, or the arrival of new species, all of which enrich both personal enjoyment and citizen‑science contributions.
A local patch serves as a sort of living classroom for studying broader wildlife and plant communities. Its contained ecosystem will fascinate you by providing opportunities to notice interactions between insects, mammals, fungi, and plants. The very presence of a nearby natural patch of our shared world might foster community engagement. Sharing what you have seen might even encourage neighbours to involve themselves in habitat restoration, invasive‑species removal, and biodiversity monitoring, strengthening local stewardship and a collective appreciation for the interconnected web of life.
Patch wildlifing means that before long you will develop quite deep local knowledge. By repeatedly observing wildlife in the same area, your patch, you quickly become familiar with its varied habitats, seasonal patterns, and you will soon know which species are regular visitors and which are occasional guests or just passing through.
You will inevitably strengthen your identification skills. In short, you will become the local expert. This is citizen science at its best. The consistent, long‑term records from a defined location will build into reliable datasets that scientists and conservation workers can use to track population trends, detect changes, and prioritize conservation actions.
You don’t need to travel far or chase rare sightings - though you are allowed to if you really want to. Your patch, however large or small it is and however varied the habitats it contains, will yield a surprisingly rich species list in quite a short time. Many patch birders and other wildlifers share their results on platforms like eBird and iNaturalist as part of local citizen‑science networks, and it all helps to encourage collective stewardship of the area. Patch wildlifing turns any casual outing into a potentially focused, repeatable study that sharpens skills, contributes valuable data, and deepens your connection to a specific piece of nature in the place that you live.
New Year’s Day would be a perfect time to start.
Out and About
I know most readers are already subscribers, or at least follow this newsletter, so I don’t include an in-your-face “Subscribe Now” button too often … on the other hand, as the year draws to a close - next Sunday is the Winter Solstice - perhaps you would be willing to share the presence of Whilst Out Walking with someone you know, and who might enjoy some of that I publish. The button above makes it very easy.
Thank you
The night the world went quiet
… a story for those who can still hear the quiet things in nature…
Why Birds?
This one is really fascinating. Why did the dinosaurs that eventually evolved into modern birds survive the asteroid/comet impact on Earth 66M years ago when all the other dinosaurs died out?
When all the evidence is viewed together, the story clicks into place. Birds survived not because of a single exceptional adaptation, but because several of their traits aligned with the demands of a transformed planet. They were small enough to require less food. Flexible enough in their diets to endure when ecosystems stopped producing new vegetation. Equipped with beaks that may have supported generalist feeding. Mobile enough, in many cases, to relocate as needed. Possibly spread across regions with slightly different immediate impacts. And perhaps even fast-growing in ways that helped populations recover.
Bad Seeds
I won’t be writing very often about native plants and wildlife gardening until spring comes around. However, this article was in yesterday’s newspaper and I suspect the gardeners amongst my readers will find something of interest within,
Dr. Grenz highlights a persistent idea surrounding the management of these plants: People create a narrative of “before” and “after” colonization, in which removing invasives and planting natives is seen as restoring a space to its natural state. This is what she calls Eden Ecology: misconceptions that pre-colonial lands were pristine, untouched ecosystems. In reality, those places never existed, since Indigenous people had been stewarding lands for millennia when settlers arrived. Stewardship through learning and participation is what she promotes, too. “I hope that as you read, you understand what is behind this quest to decolonize and Indigenize ecological restoration so that we can heal the land together,” Dr. Grenz writes.
If you subscribe, and so received this by email, you will perhaps notice the new header image … serendipity caused a farthing from the year on which I was born to cross my path. Farthings have Wrens on them, and Wrens are great favorites. Perfection … the Hare can leap off to do other duties and the 1948 Wren (Troglodytes troglodytes no less) will keep an eye on things from the masthead. If you don’t get the email … here it is:
Thank you for sharing my work! It means a lot to me. Also, I love this piece. My passion for nature actually began when I started noticing patterns in which types of birds visiting my backyard feeders. It helped me study local wildlife better and develop my knowledge of my community. Your writing reflects very well on my own journey as a nature lover!
I truely resonate with what you wrote; it's such an insightful perspective on how finding beauty and complex systems isn't about chasing the next big thing, but about truly observing the local data set around us, even in a city.