'Top Trumps: British wildlife edition': How do our native animals measure up against one another

Capercaillie

Elusiveness: 100 (out of 100)

Speed: 40mph

Deliciousness: 70 (out of 100)

Population: 523 and declining

Location: Capercailllie live in Scottish pine forests, in places such as Strathspey, Easter Ross, and the Cairngorms — their pine forest habitat is now much depleted at some 180’000km².

Need to know: The capercaillie we have in Scotland today are descended from reintroduced birds brought to the UK from Sweden by Llewelyn Lloyd and Thomas Fowell Buxton in 1837. Fowell Buxton was a politically radical brewing magnate and anti-slavery campaigner. He asked his distant cousin, Lloyd (who was fishing in Sweden) to bring some capercaillie back with him to replace the original Scottish population, which had become extinct in around 1785.

The reintroduced population initially thrived, but is now struggling due to habitat loss, predation by pine martens, and collisions with deer fences.

The meat is said to be very strong and they come over the trees at an immense height. Old gamekeepers will tell you wistfully that capercaillie shooting (when numbers allowed) was a very fine sport.

Muntjac deer

Elusiveness: 25

Speed: 35mph

Deliciousness: 85

Population: 100,000 and rising fast

Location: Muntjac in Britain are abundant in East Anglia and the South East, particularly where there is arable farming. There is a growing number in Wales and into the north of England. They are a common site on stubble fields in autumn, but are also often seen in woodland.

Need to know: Reeve’s muntjac (the particular type of muntjac we have here), named after John Reeves, a naturalist employed by the British East India Company in the 19th century, were introduced accidentally by the 11th Duke of Bedfordshire. He put them in his park at Woburn Abbey and they escaped. His son then started releasing them throughout the country.

They bark when alarmed, hold their white tail up, and run away.

Muntjac are very harmful to hedges and woodland and if you look at woodland in an area full of them, you often see a very clear browse line about 18 inches high (the height of the muntjac).

Otter

Elusiveness: 75

Speed: 5.5mph (swimming)

Deliciousness: Reportedly 35 (fishy and strong, but very much protected here)

Population: 10,000 and rising

Location: Otters like lochs, lakes, craggy coastlines and even canals — they are a good indicator of clean water and they now inhabit every county in England. They have bounced back in the Highlands, are doing well in Cumbria, and are expanding their territory in Wales.

Need to know: By the 1970s, otters (made furry national treasures by the likes of Gavin Maxwell’s Ring of Bright Water and Henry Williamson’s Tarka the Otter) had almost become extinct. One of the main factors in their decline was the use of pesticides (such as DDT which Jonie Mitchell famously sang about) — these pesticides travelled up the food chain, eventually causing reproductive issues in otter populations and death. However, the banning of DDT, as well as habitat restoration (such a restoring meanders in rivers), and the reintroduction of otters in places such East Anglia and Dorset, has changed their fortunes.

Otters are occasionally seen in relatively urban places like Bristol and Newcastle, on the Rivers Avon and the Tyne.

There is evidence of otters being eaten as far back as the Iron Age and they were hunted both for their fur and because anglers saw them as competition for trout and salmon.

Grey partridge

Elusiveness: 70

Speed: 30mph

Deliciousness: 88

Population: 43,000 breeding pairs

Location: Once ubiquitous, the grey partridge or ‘English partridge’ as it's often known, is a sparse presence in agricultural England, particularly on light, dry ground in Suffolk and Norfolk. It also does well in Sussex. Greys can still be found in good numbers on the edge of well managed grouse moors, such as in East Lothian and in Northumberland. In Wales, however, it is largely gone.

Need to know: The grey partridge is our true native partridge, as opposed to the red leg partridge, which is reared and released. Grey partridges make terrific parents — the cockbird will defend his brood fiercely and they have even been seen flying at foxes. You can differentiate them from red legs because they cheep on the wing.

The loss of habitat and pesticides (which reduces the abundance of food for greys) has reduced the population dramatically. However, people like the Duke of Norfolk are doing their very best to keep wild populations going.

Badger

Elusiveness: 30

Speed: 19mph

Deliciousness: 50 (in the Victorian period, ‘badger ham’ was sold)

Population: 500,000

Location: Badgers are now widespread throughout much of Britain, but are most common in the West Country and dairy country such as Gloucestershire. In recent decades, they have expanded their territory and can be found in parks and gardens, in relatively urban areas, as well as up into the Highlands. They are remarkably adaptable — they will happily dig a set in an old railway line or in deciduous woodland.

Need to know: In the Victorian period, due to badger baiting, snaring, and shooting, the badger population was much reduced. However, badgers became fully protected under the Badger Act of 1973 and have since increased dramatically in number.

They are prolific predators and will merrily eat the eggs and young of groundnesting birds.

Marsh harrier

Elusiveness: 65

Speed: 40mph

Deliciousness: N/a

Population: 550 breeding pairs

Location: The marsh harrier, as their name suggests, likes reedy, boggy country, and fen. They breed in the expansive reedbeds of East Anglia and are common too on the Somerset Levels. They are present across the Humber and up in Scotland around the Tay estuary.

Need to know: To ‘harry’ means to engage in attacks and harriers are notable for predating on rabbits, ducklings, voles, and frogs. Like the hen harriers, they were persecuted by gamekeepers because they were considered to be a threat to game.

When they are mating, the male birds will wheel, rise, and then tumble dramatically towards the ground. Occasionally the female with lock talons with the male. These displays have won them the epithet ‘the skydancer’.

They are migratory and spend and tend to leave Britain for Africa in October.

London fox

Elusiveness: 10

Speed: 45mph

Deliciousness: N/a

Population: 10,000

Location: Foxes in London live in gardens, on old railway embankments, on playing fields, and among derelict buildings. Sites for them to rest during the day are just as important as places for them to dig earths in — these resting places are often roofs.

Need to know: Foxes in London were first documented during the 1930s when urban sprawl was ramping up. It’s not so much that the fox came into the city as the city expanded its limits to meet the fox.

In rural areas, meat makes up 95% of the diet of the fox, whereas in the city, half their diet is found in rubbish bins.

Dr Thomas Fry, who researches urban foxes at Cambridge, has found that they tend to live in pairs in rural areas, but in London they will often live in much larger groups.

Red squirrel

Elusiveness: 70

Population: 160,000

Speed: 20mph

Deliciousness: N/a

Location: 75% of Britain’s red squirrels live in coniferous and broadleaf forests — they are found in places where there is a year-round food supply such as hazelnuts.

Need to know: Grey squirrels, which were introduced to beautify gardens, are larger than reds and are more aggressive. This forces reds to live in the few remaining places that there aren’t greys. Grey squirrels also often carry squirrel pox, to which they are immune. To reds, however, squirrel pox is lethal.

The pine marten, which is increasing in number, has been helpful in the fight for the reds because they prey on the lumbering greys — whereas the native red is too agile for them.

Brown hare

Elusiveness: 50

Speed: 45mph

Deliciousness: 75

Population: 600,000

Location: Brown hares love a mosaic habitat — where there are hedges, meadows, and arable fields, which provide food. They are abundant across East Anglia, but it is trickier to see them in dairy country.

Need to know: Brown hares, despite being a much loved part of British culture, were actually brought here by the Romans. They are most visible in spring when they box — this was thought, originally, to be two males fighting over a female, but we now know it’s actually a female fending off male advances.

Females can produce up to three broods of three leverets a year, meaning that in areas where food is abundant and foxes are controlled, the populations can be very large.

Lapwing

Elusiveness: 80

Speed: 28mph

Deliciousness: 65 (but not on menus for almost a century)

Population: 97,500 pairs

Location: Lapwings are present throughout the UK, but their numbers have declined by some 70% in the past 50 years. They nest in arable land or on short grassland with a low stocking densities of cattle and sheep.

Need to know: Known as peewits because of their ‘peewit peewit’ cry, lapwings were once abundant across agricultural Britain. Their eggs were much prized and appear in Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited as plovers’ eggs. This practice has been illegal for decades because of declining numbers due to agricultural intensification, which has reduced the supply of food and has destroyed nesting habitat.