Wildlife Gardening

Wildlife gardens must be attractive to all creatures and a home to a wide variety, including insects. Buy or have fun making insect homes for them to overwinter. The more insects there are the better as they are an important food source for so many creatures, also you increase the chances of having bats either roosting and/or feeding in your garden.

Birds will naturally be drawn to your garden, but if you supply their needs other than what they find naturally then they will happily nest and stay. Once you have put feeding stations in place around your garden - where you are able to watch them, and added nesting boxes of various types, at the correct height  and in the right position (remember not facing direct sunlight), then birds will be encouraged to keep visiting and to stay. Birds also need to drink and bathe, feathers must be washed to keep them in prime condition and birds need to drink as much as we do, make sure the water is kept fresh and available at all times. There will be more about birds at a later stage in the wildlife gardening series.

With the right conditions your garden will soon be a home to short tailed field voles, bank voles, mice, moles - yes even moles. The first time you see a weasel disappear down one mole hole and appear from another, you will be enchanted and for quite a while you will have no more moles! Weasels are also great fun to watch as they energetically "play" round a pond, of course they are hunting really but they do it by leaping and jumping with such zest that you will be laughing every time you think of it.

I like to take photographs of the wildlife in the garden, however I have missed so many great opportunities because the camera is often in one room and I can't take my eyes off long enough to fetch it and if I do quite often it is too late. I know a couple who have successfully put up tawny owl boxes in the mature trees on their land and a shelf in an outbuilding for barn owls. Mature trees with holes are perfect for many birds to nest in, and as long as the tree is safe, leave it for the birds, dependent on the size and position of the tree and hole, one or another type will use it, tawny owl, starling, woodpecker, etc. We even had a great tit nest in a hole in one of our trees.

Wood piles are home to many creatures, more insects than you could imagine and so many types that you would never find unless you were searching for them. Weasels can be seen hunting all over and inside wood piles. Woodpeckers can be heard and if you are lucky seen drilling into old wood, searching for grubs. Hedgehogs often make their home underneath them and if there is a pond nearby, then under the woodpile will provide a welcome winter home for frogs, toads and grass snakes.

To be continued on next blog post.

A Wildlife Garden

A garden, for those lucky enough to have one and enjoy it, is a wonderful place. Even in the most formal garden, wildlife will abound, if not immediately in the main body of the garden then it will thrive in secret corners and unexpected places, giving sudden pleasure when it is found.

Most folk who have gardens love flowers, I also love flowers in our garden, however they are chosen with care, so that not only will their beauty shine forth and give pleasure but also each flower must be attractive to the wild life within or visiting the garden. Every plant introduced to our garden over the last thirty years has been with wildlife in mind.

I have kept a log of birds in our garden since we moved in, so far we have had visits from sixty-two varieties, actually in the garden. Four different varieties have been spotted in the field at the end of the garden, four others have been seen flying over the garden and if I include the river down the lane then there are another four to be counted.

There is so much joy to be had from a wildlife garden, once you start looking there are more creatures to be found than could ever be imagined, insects are so many and varied, beetles are so useful in the garden and many of them are so beautiful.

I have decided to make wildlife gardens the subject of my next few blogs, there is so much to write about them.