| Worms
    Top: common earthworm; bottom: brandling worm© Top: Roger Key/English Nature; bottom: Andy CallowEarthworms, as Darwin famously observed, are among the most significant creatures on the planet because of their role in the formation of soil. 'Without worms.... the earth would soon become cold, hardbound, and void of fermentation; and consequently sterile.... ' said another famous naturalist, Gilbert White in 1777. Worms also provide food for many of our most familiar garden birds, such as blackbirds, robins and song thrushes and they are also the staple diet of badgers. Foxes eat them and so too will common shrews, great crested newts, hedgehogs, common toads, common frogs, kestrels, slow-worms and young grass snakes. PredatorsBadger, Bank vole, Birds, Black-headed gull, Carrion crow, Collared dove, Common frog, Common shrew, Cryptops hortensis, Cuckoo, Dunnock, Fox, Geophilus carpophagus, Grass snake, Great crested newt, Great tit, Hedgehog, Jackdaw, Jay, Kestrel, Little owl, Magpie, Mallard, Meadow pipit, Mistle thrush, Moorhen, Pheasant, Rabbit, Red ant, Robin, Rook, Smooth newt, Song thrush, Starling, Wood mouse, Woodpigeon WormsBrandling worm, Common earthworm |
