Wildlife in My Garden Delights 2025
... and there was already a very unexpected encounter in 2026
Hello, I’m Claudia, and Happy Quiet Life is where I share my view on the world as a Highly Sensitive Person. You’ll find reflections and stories about slowing down & living simpler, reconnecting with nature, mental health & self-care, books & reading adventures. Welcome!
While the garden without its beautiful snowy cover looks a bit bleak and dreary at the moment, it’s so enjoyable to revisit last years pictures and memories of what the garden looked like and what we can look forward to again in a few weeks or months time.
It’s not all about plants, it’s very much about wildlife — and while we are waiting for spring and life in nature to return, I’d love to share with you my favourite moments and encounters with wildlife in my garden of 2025.
The idea came to me while reading a lovely post by Rebecca Bradley and another one by Melissa Keyser about their respective 2025 Garden Moments.
My visitors may be not as spectacular as badgers, foxes or hummingbirds, but they were nontheless very special and dear to me and equally cherished. There was also the one or other surprise …
Rebecca also inspired me to install a trail camera next. I’m so curious what will await me this year - on and off camera.
Bees
Bees on crocuses, this is when spring really starts for me.
It was the first year that we had alliums in the garden and I was very much in love with their beauty, colour and structure, their swaying in the wind — and their attraction to all kinds of buzzing visitors. I spent very happy hours watching bees and bumblebees. Such a peaceful time.
It was also the first year we’ve had a bee hotel, and I was so curious what would happen. Would they find it? Would they like it? Who would come?
Some notes I made in my bee hotel diary in 2025:
11 April
First interested bees, inconspicuous looking, rather brownish, slender. Also a wasp is checking it out. Is this okay?
12 April
More interested bees. A different species. None holds still long enough to be identified with the help of an app.
Ha, these are red mason bees. I haven’t been able to identify any others yet, but I’m working on that. Once I know what they are, I can better select the plants I should plant nearby for them.
14 April
Yes! The first room is taken! (Or to quote The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel: “Now with guests.”)
15 April
It’s so very busy! Always six or seven checking out the rooms at the same time, shoving each other away. My husband and I are both absolutely fascinated by the traffic, the bee-syness and the varieties of bees that come looking for the perfect room.
I remove the spider webs from the bee hotel every morning. Nice try, spiders, but not on my watch.
17 April
The second room is taken. Funnily enough, on the same floor and just across the corridor, so to speak. They like it symmetrically.
22 April
The day before there were still only two rooms occupied, now there are seven!
My husband is talking about installing a very small camera at the bee hotel so we can watch any time what’s going on (without being in the way, litererally. Today a bee landed in my hair. She wasn’t easily pursuaded to let go.). I’m not sure, if my husband is joking about the camera or not. Let’s wait and see.
23 April
Thirteen flats rented out.
26 April
31 rooms are taken. It’s quite a popular building, apparently.
In the end, all rooms were full, quite a success!
Heron
February 2025
There are the birds I usually see when I look out of our kitchen window - blackbirds on the roofs and chimneys, sparrows and tits hopping on and off, in and out of the hedges, always in a hurry.
And then there are the exceptions. Like a heron on the neighbour’s roof. Call that an unexpected sighting! At first I thought it wasn’t real!
He stayed there for quite a while, watching the neighbourhood and particularly the fish in the pond in the adjacent garden. He made himself comfortable over time and even retracted his neck. It looked like a different bird altogether.
The heron returned every day for four or five days. Once I even managed to watch him arrive. Such an amazing view with this wingspan and his elegance. Beautiful!
September 2025
After some months of being on heron holiday, the grey heron reappeared with the beginning of September on the neighbours’ roof, eyeing his snack bar in the pond again. For me it’s still a wonder to see this majestic bird sitting on the edge of a terraced house bungalow in the middle of a residential area.
I never got tired of watching him from my kitchen window. What a beautiful sight when he takes off.
I looked out for him every morning when I prepared tea or hot chocolate for my quiet sunrise sitting in the garden. Most days he was there too, apparently sharing my liking for morning twilight.
Great Tits & Blue Tits
Great tits and blue tits are common in our garden, but they are really cute and so lovely to watch — all year round.
Red Squirrel
September 2025
We had a new visitor to the garden. A kind of ‘blink or you’ve missed it’ visit. A red flash. I just happened to watch out of the living-room window when a red squirrel appeared on the scene. I actually hold my breath and didn’t move any muscle when it zigzagged over the lawn, emerged under the corkskrew hazel, inspected the patio and the adjacent flower beds. It sat upright a few times for getting a better overview and to assess the location.
I laughed, it looked like a red meerkat on a lookout.
I like the way squirrels move on the ground, the wave-like body movement. The bushy tail, the pointed, feathery ears, I was enraptured by this visitor.
November 2025
The squirrel was back, to my great delight. It occupied itself with our hazelnut flood for at least ten minutes. Burried some on the lawn, climbed the corkscrew hazelnut tree and frolicked around on the ground doing whatever squirrels do. So much fun to watch!
Hedgehog
October 2025
When I sat on the patio at sunrise, a clear blue sky above, watching pigeons, blackbirds and a magpie flying over the garden, enjoying the tits’ songs and the sparrows’ chilps, there suddenly was a rustling noise behind me. Leaves and a twig moved and then there was a sneeze coming from the hedge. The tiniest and gentlest of a sneeze and then another. Leaves were rearranged. The small heap got bulkier. It rustled again. Then silence.
I got on my knees to peer under the hedge. Nothing. Just a bulky heap of leaves.
I smiled. I hoped the hedgehog had made himself comfortable. I wouldn’t disturb him. No worries to tiptoe on this corner of the patio until he’s fast asleep for the day.
I know that we have quite some hedgehogs in the neighbourhood and also in the garden. My husband once followed one to the long hedge surrounding our garden and was met with several stares from a whole group. He almost stepped into Hedgehog Headquarters (and retreated silently).
They drink from the bird bath on the patio with their front feet in the water and have been known for tipping it over sometimes. Every morning I find their droppings on the patio. But I rarely see the creatures.
They slip under the fence from the garden next door. A neighbour a few doors down has been known as “The Hedgehog Woman” in our small town for decades. She has nursed and tended to tiny and ill hedgehogs. She still has hedgehog houses and I’m sure our visitors or residents come from her garden. The neighbour liked to pick feather moss from our front lawn for the young ones because we are the only ones here without a super tidy and perfected garden (her words). (We are fine with that.)
… an unexpected visitor in January 2026
21 January 2026
It’s not the time nor the temperature (below freezing point) for a hedgehog to be wide awake. You can imagine my surprise when I saw one standing on the icy birdbath and trying to get to the water below the frozen surface. It took me a few moments to understand the situation while he turned around and around, poking the ice again and again with his nose.
It was in the middle of the day and nothing seemed to be right here.
I rushed to the kitchen and filled a bowl with warm water, hoping he would accept it. Then I returned to the kitchen to make scrambled eggs.
To my relief and delight it seemed to have worked. He devoured his meal and left only crumbs. He also gladly accepted the water. It’s fine that he stood in the water and on the plate. You just have to know how to help yourself when it doesn’t fit exactly to hedgehog dimensions, right?
I watched him for more than half an hour, so fascinated by this encounter. It’s the first time that I’ve seen a hedgehog in broad daylight so close by feasting on his food. So cute!
Already one of my favourite wildlife moments in my garden this year.
(I haven’t seen him since and very much hope he’s fallen asleep again.)
What were your favourite wildlife moments in your garden last year?
Oh Claudia, such a nice way to look back on your year! So much beautiful encounters in your garden! The hedgehog having a little meal, so adorable! I do also hope he’s back to sleep again. Thank you for sharing 🙏🏻🤍🌟
We are expectantly awaiting the arrival of the crocuses in the garden next - so many lovely garden moments to cherish throughout the year 🌿🌸