Wildlife

Place Farm covers five acres or so of woodland, gardens and fields. We're told it dates from 17th century, originally being a farm in the estate of Tostock Place. It isn't a working farm any more, obviously, but we are very fond of our wildlife. And we do have some chickens.

Since we arrived in April 2000, we have identified more than 30 species of bird. Our two large natural ponds are home to families of moorhens and mallards and are breeding sites for frogs and newts. We have lots of rabbits, moles, squirrels, bats and rodents and we are visited by muntjac and roe deer. The wildflowers attract butterflies and bees. Predators include sparrowhawks, foxes, owls and weasels.

We also have a couple of paddocks which we let to horses from time to time. The woods contain fine examples of fearsome nettles a few bluebells, dog's mercury and lots of lovely native trees. The pictures on this page should give you an idea of how beautiful it is here.

We took some video of our baby birds in June 2008

And we counted 158 bats this year