By Duika Burges Watson, Nature Recovery Ranger, with contributions from patients and staff.
In February, staff from the RVI and Freeman downed tools for twenty minutes to join me on several micro-walks. We looked up. We listened. On the wards, some patients joined in from their windows.
It was the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch—the world’s largest wildlife survey. Last year 600,000 people counted birds for an hour tracking which species are thriving and which are struggling. For us, twenty minutes in the misty grey. It was lovely.
The Merlin app identifies birdsong. You hold up your phone, it listens and tells you who’s singing. Then you try to spot them. It’s slightly magical—like having a translator for a language you never knew was being spoken.
Long-tailed tits appeared in a flock of fifteen, moving like tiny acrobats. Blue tits. Great tits. Blackbirds. Magpies. Woodpigeon. Goldfinches. Heron gulls standing sentinel. Mallards at the Freeman pond, balanced on one leg, faces tucked into feathers—meditating, or perhaps pretending we weren’t there.
Most sightings happened at the edges—where hospital grounds meet Leazes Park, Paddy Freeman Park and the Coxlodge Waggonway. Boundaries that aren’t barriers. Not for wildlife. These green corridors connect us to important accessible natural spaces. We can use them too.
Watching adaptation in real time.
We’re living through extraordinary change. Climate shifts. Habitat loss. Species under pressure. Yet life adapts—if we give it half a chance.
Last week, a fungus I photographed near the Freeman labyrinth turned out to be a rare find. Nobody planted it. Nobody applied for a grant. It just found conditions it could tolerate.
This is why citizen science matters. We’re the ones positioned to notice what’s arriving, what’s changing. What needs our help. Every pair of eyes counts.
Good for them, good for us.
Research from King’s College London, published in Scientific Reports[1], shows that seeing or hearing birds improves mental wellbeing, including for people with depression, with benefits lasting hours beyond the encounter. In-fact for those living in urban areas bird diversity has been found to directly impact well-being (Hedblom et al. 2017),[2] which goes to show how important it is that we support birds in our greenspaces. Active noticing matters. It pulls us out of spinning thoughts and into the present. It allows us to make decisions that benefit us and nature.
We often imagine nature is somewhere else —national parks, countryside, holidays. But it’s here. Funghi in the grass. Moss on walls. Birds in the trees. Even at an urban hospital.
Especially at an urban hospital —where people spend long hours, sometimes years, navigating illness I co-wrote this blog with Jo, who spent years at the Freeman supporting her husband through a rare illness. Now home, she’s deeply grateful for the care they received. But she’s also clear: if we did more with our green spaces she’d have found the journey easier. “On day 100 of his time in the ITU we were able to take Richard outside. In his hospital bed, complete with portable ventilator, and all manner of tubes, pumps and monitors. The fresh air was wonderful but the only space we could access was outside the Cardiothoracic entrance- all concrete and bitumen. We need calming green spaces when everything around is bleak.”
We’re working on it with the support of Natural England and the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS). We need to think about hospital grounds—not as leftover land, but as therapeutic infrastructure. Spaces that heal us and the planet. Green wards.
So. Do we serve oysters at the Freeman?
No. But we have oystercatchers.
A pair of these striking shorebirds—black and white plumage, vivid orange beaks built for prising open shellfish—have made our pebbled roof their home. Beach birds, nesting miles from the coast, because apparently a gravel roof is close enough to a rocky shore.
They’re not confused. They’re adapting. Coastal populations are declining—disturbed beaches, predators, rising tides. But pairs on urban rooftops are thriving. Our hospital, it turns out, is a climate refuge.
According to staff, these oystercatchers have been here at least six years. Long-term residents, like some of our patients. Both finding what they need to survive. Both deserving spaces that help them thrive.
Nobody planned for the oystercatchers. They simply turned up and made themselves at home. We don’t need lots of money to welcome nature, we do need commitment and observation.
What else might we discover if we keep watching? What else can we do to support greening at our hospitals? Stay tuned…
[1] Hammoud, R., Tognin, S., Burgess, L. et al. (2022). Smartphone-based ecological momentary assessment reveals mental health benefits of birdlife. Scientific Reports, 12, 17589.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-20207-6
[2] Hedblom, M., Knez, I., & Gunnarsson, B. (2017). Bird diversity improves the well-being of city residents. In Ecology and conservation of birds in urban environments (pp. 287-306). Cham: Springer International Publishing.