29 Jan Home Sweet Home: Helping Wildlife Thrive at Warfield Park

Warfield Park & The Paddocks is lucky to be surrounded by beautiful green spaces and wildlife — and this year, we’re taking an extra step to protect and enhance them.

We’re proud to be taking part in David Bellamy’s Blooming Marvellous Pledge for Nature, a national initiative that encourages parks to make meaningful, positive changes for wildlife. Our chosen project for the year is the Home Sweet Home Challenge, and it’s all about creating safe places for animals to live, nest, and hibernate across the park.

What Is the Home Sweet Home Challenge?

Many animals struggle to find suitable shelter due to habitat loss and changes in the environment. The Home Sweet Home Challenge focuses on putting up artificial wildlife homes — such as bird boxes, bat boxes, bee hotels, and hedgehog houses — to give wildlife the safe spaces they need to survive and thrive.

These homes will be placed around the park, including our woodlands and our Suitable Alternative Natural Green Space (SANG), which helps protect nearby sensitive habitats within the Thames Basin Heaths area.

What’s Planned Around the Park?

Over the coming months, you may start to notice new wildlife-friendly features appearing in quieter, green areas of the park. Some of the ideas we’ll be working on include:

Bird and Bat Boxes

We’ll be installing a range of nesting boxes suitable for different bird species, along with bat boxes positioned in appropriate woodland areas. These provide essential shelter and nesting opportunities.

Bees, Bugs and Pollinatorsrevisiting and maintaining existing bug hotels, originally made by local Year 10 students as part of a work experience project

· Exploring the possibility of hosting a beehive, with guidance from a local beekeeping association, to support pollinators responsibly

Hedgehog Homes

Hedgehogs need safe, quiet areas to nest and hibernate. We’ll be creating dedicated hedgehog homes to help support this much-loved but vulnerable species.

Log and Brush Piles

By increasing log piles and brush stacks in suitable areas, we can create natural shelters for insects, amphibians, reptiles, and small mammals.

Why This Matters

Artificial wildlife homes can make a huge difference, especially when natural nesting sites are limited. They help animals:

· Find safe places to raise young

· Shelter from weather and predators

· Hibernate over winter

· Support healthy ecosystems across the park

They’re also a great way to help people connect with—and learn about—the wildlife right on their doorstep.

Looking After Our Wildlife Homes

Creating homes is just the start. All wildlife features will be carefully placed, monitored, and maintained to ensure they stay safe and effective. This includes regular checks, cleaning where needed, and monitoring what species are using them.

Bellamy Team Visit

We’re excited to share that we will be welcoming a member of the Bellamy team to Warfield Park during the summer months to see the progress we’ve made so far as part of the Blooming Marvellous Pledge for Nature.

The campaign is now led by Rufus Bellamy, continuing the incredible legacy of his father, David Bellamy. The visit will give us the opportunity to showcase our work, receive guidance, and make sure we’re on the right track. We’ll also benefit from helpful advice and tips on where we can improve or expand our efforts.

This visit is a fantastic opportunity to ensure our work is having a real, positive impact on wildlife across the park, and we look forward to sharing updates with residents after the visit.

Looking Ahead

As part of the Blooming Marvellous Pledge, we’ll be sharing updates and photos along the way. Completing the Home Sweet Home Challenge means earning a special logo to

recognise our work — but more importantly, it means creating a greener, more wildlife-friendly place for everyone to enjoy.

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#NatureAtTheHeart
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#ProtectNature
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