Welcome to the GardenWild guide to wildlife gardening. As gardeners in North Yorkshire with over 50 years experience, we are passionate about planting, designing and maintaining gardens for wildlife. It’s in our name. Hopefully, during this guide, we will be able to answer all of your questions from ‘Do I need a hedgehog house?’ to ‘What sort of birdbath should I buy? ‘and everything in between.
Check out our full guide to Sustainable Gardening
However, before we start I’d like to tell you that you already have a wildlife garden... All gardens are wildlife gardens! The only reason anything grows in your garden is because of the symbiotic relationship that your plants have with every insect, bee, bird and mammal that visits it.
If I already have wildlife in my garden why am I reading this?
Our goal is to help you create a garden that caters for the wildlife that already lives there, and any other animal, bird or insect that drops by. We want them to think “this is a great garden!” and hang out with you for a bit, whilst they eat, drink and errr … be merry!
Are you put off having a wildlife friendly garden because it will be too untidy?
Well just remember! A wildlife garden doesn’t have to be wild and unkempt. With the right planting and garden design you can have a beautiful garden and a haven for wildlife. We’re here to show you how. That being said, if you have any questions or you think that there’s a topic that we should be writing about please get in touch.
The ecosystems around us are the most amazing things. We see them working everyday and for the most part we take them for granted. There is a constant cycle of thousands of tiny interactions and processes carried out between plants and animals that are vital to all life on our planet. Understanding those processes and how they work is key to understanding your garden.
Let's take a look at the relationship wildlife has with the plants in your garden.
The soil that your plant is sat in is teaming with life and it’s all having an impact on how well the plant is growing. King among them is the earthworm! The earthworm’s simple body is just a muscular tube that eats through the soil as it moves about under your borders, lawn and raised beds. Earthworms live for ten years and are hugely beneficial to plants.
These little pink wigglers aerate the soil, bringing minerals to the surface, providing drainage and creating paths for plant roots to penetrate. They also improve the quality of the soil by converting the nutrients stored in organic matter, such as dead plant and animal material, into a form ready for plants to use. Whilst they are busy improving the soil and benefiting the plants that grow in it, the earthworm is also ensuring it has a regular food source. No plants, no food, no food no earthworm. Everything in symbiosis.
From thrushes all the way to badgers, worms feature in many animals’ diet. When we’re gardening, especially if we are turning the soil, there will usually be a little Robin hopping around 4 or 5 steps behind us picking up all the worms we’ve exposed. No badgers yet though... !
Garden Plants and their Pollinators
Most people want plants in their garden for the show of flowers they produce. These flowers are not just a pretty face though! They are the plant’s sexual organs - pollen from the male flower needs to get to the female for fertilisation and, ultimately the formation of a seed. There are some plants, such as trees or grasses that use the wind to do this. These plants have a very plain looking flower. The plants with the bright, showy flowers are the ones that require pollinators.
Pollinators are insects, birds and bats, tempted by the scents of a flower, or by the colour or markings on petals and of course the nectar within. When a pollinator lands on a male flower, the pollen will get stuck to it and as it moves to a female it will fertilise that plant.
Many plants have evolved in concert to reflect their pollinators and vice versa. For example - plants pollinated by bees are often an odd shape, or brightly coloured. Think about the patterns on a foxglove flower which guide a bee towards the flower, like a landing strip. Plants that are pollinated by moths, such as jasmine, are scented at night, when moths are flying about. They also have long and tubular flowers, allowing their precious nectar to be accessed by the long unfurling tongue of a moth.
Most pollinators feed from the plants that they pollinate. However they don’t just get food in exchange for their service, they also are making sure that the lifecycle of the plant continues, to enable flowers to feed the next generation of pollinators. Perfect symbiosis.
The fruit produced by plants contains the seeds. There is only a finite amount of sunlight, nutrients and water in any one spot. Plants have come up with lots of ways to disperse their seeds and in doing so giving them a better chance of growing to maturity. One such method is fruit. The fruit that contains seeds is eaten by animals, like a bird, and is dispersed in their droppings. This has a few benefits for the seed, not only is it dispersed a good distance away but the trip through the birds digestion also helps it break out of its seed coat. The fruit, in return is very high in energy and is really good for birds during the winter months. Everybody wins!
Some seeds are also armed with hooks or barbs to catch on an animal’s fur as it passes by. As the animal travels around, the seeds get knocked off and dispersed elsewhere.
The herbaceous growth of a plant is the green leafy bit and is the part that is consumed by animals. The energy that is in every ecosystem, including your garden and the food in your fridge, starts with photosynthesis that takes part in the herbaceous growth. This is the way plants synthesise food using carbon dioxide, water and energy from light and releasing oxygen as waste. The food produced is then used to create new plant tissue.
6CO2 + 6H2O LIGHT C6H12O6 + O6
Carbon Dioxide Water = Sugar (Carbohydrate)Oxygen
The energy in the plant tissue is then transferred onto various animals that feed on the plant tissue/fruit. The animals that only feed on the herbaceous growth of plants are called herbivores.
Amazingly, this actually can have some positive effects for plants, for example insects that eat leaves of taller plants will allow more light to penetrate to the smaller plants growing below.
This plant energy continues up the food chain to larger animals such hedgehogs, that feed on plant eating animals.
You can see from these examples how the plants in your garden connects to many different animals. They live symbiotically and the key to wildlife gardening is trying to encourage that.
Birds
A gardeners friend
Out of all the animals that people like to see in their garden, birds normally top the list. They are the most visible, audible and sometimes friendly of all the wildlife visiting your garden. If that wasn’t enough, they respond really well when you start to encourage them into your garden. The ones that are already there will spend more time in your garden and you will definitely see more birds coming to join them.
You will see the benefits of bringing birds into your garden almost straight away. In fact the Robin is called the gardener’s friend for a reason! And not just because they sit on your spade handle! Birds eat slugs, snails, aphids and insects that might damage your plants. They also play a big role in the reproductive cycle of many plants by dispersing seeds over a wide area.
Birds like the Blackbird and Robin, that traditionally were associated with the edges of woodland near fields, have now adapted well to the hedge, trees, shrubs and lawns in urban gardens. With more pressure being put on farmland and more greenbelt land being lost to new housing developments or bypasses, more birds are having to adapt. I’m going to give you a few tips on what you can do in your garden to help them feel more at home.
When trying to encourage garden wildlife into your garden you should try to mirror an animal’s natural habitat.
When it comes to birds, it’s all about choice. Different birds want different things, so the more choice you give them, the bigger the variety of birds you're going to attract. However if you have no idea where to start, you can’t go wrong with fruit and berry-producing shrubs and hedging.
During the autumn months when the worms, slugs and insects begin to disappear, berry-producing shrubs and bushes provide a reliable annual feast. Berries are also an excellent source of calories and antioxidants for building up fat stores for the colder months. Research from the British Trust for Ornithology shows that the antioxidants in berries also help ease the stresses birds feel while migrating.
Climbers, like Ivy, are a good choice for nonmigratory birds. They will flower in autumn and then produce black berries. Ivy berries are a really high calorie food source and birds like Robins will save these berries for the difficult month at the beginning of the year.
Some birds like to eat in a flock and others will aggressively defend their territory from anything that comes near. You might have seen a holly that has kept its berries throughout the winter. This will be thanks to the attentions of birds, like the mistle thrush who will jealousy defend it and it’s valuable food store.
Many birds will come to a feeding station to partake in whatever there is on offer. However, most species rely on invertebrates such as caterpillars to feed their chicks. I know it seems counter-intuitive to a gardener, but encouraging caterpillars through planting will eventually mean there are less caterpillars. There is no better chemical-free, completely natural pesticide then having a family of birds living in your hedgerow. As a general rule, native plants are better for attracting invertebrates. If you have the space, maybe consider planting some native shrubs or a mixed hedge, but if you don’t, just a potted plant containing Lotus corniculatus, Tropaeolum or Cardamine pratensis will still attract insects that birds eat.
Having a birdbath is another good way of attracting birds to your garden. However don’t be discouraged if they don't turn up straight away. Most birds get all the water they need from the food they eat and if they need more they get it from dew, a sparrows sip isn’t very big. There are two times however when they will flock to your birdbath, such as when it’s very hot or when it’s very cold.
Here are a few tips to get you started.
Birds bathe in shallow water. No more than 3 - 5cm
Not too close to cover, not too far away. Birds are vulnerable when they are bathing, especially if there are cats about.
During a light frost, put a tennis ball in your birdbath. The motion of the ball in the wind keeps an area unfrozen. This only works in light frost, In heavier frost you have to swap the water out each morning. DON’T USE SALT.
Tap water is fine
Pollinators are some of the most popular of all the bugs among gardeners. When people think about pollinators, they normally think: Bees! However, if you look a little closer you’ll find butterflies, moths, beetles, flies, hoverflies and, even, wasps all contributing to thousands of different reproductive cycles. The sound of these insects buzzing around is the sound of a healthy garden.
It’s estimated that 80% of wild flowers and 84% of EU crops rely on insect pollination, so you can see why they are so important. Unfortunately, due to agricultural pressures, the widespread use of chemical pesticides and more and more green-belt land being given over to construction, the numbers of pollinators are in sharp decline.
When it comes to nesting, it’s good to have a variety of different options available. Birds are normally very territorial, so the fewer good nesting sites you have in your garden, the less birds will nest. They’re not going to share!
It's good to have a good mix of conifers and thorn bushes and maybe a beech hedge or some ivy. Also if at all possible, trees. The older the better. Older trees tend to have alcoves and hole that birds like woodpeckers like to call home.
Rant alert!!!
Everything you need to know at a glance
Birds play a vital role in the functioning of the earth's ecosystem. Their impact on human health, food production and on the success or decline of all species of plant and animal on the planet is formidable. Although often the work they do goes unnoticed by man, be assured, without them irrevocable damage would be done to the world we live in.
So just what is it that birds do that makes them so important? And why should we be doing everything possible to provide for and shelter for them in our urban gardens?
To make this easy here's a list of some of the everyday tasks that birds perform to keep our planet ticking over.
Pollinating Plants and Spreading Seed
Birds pollinate around 5% of plants used by humans for food and producing medicine. If the pollinator dies then so does the plant. Some plants, like the bird cherry, evolve with birds, requiring their seed to pass through the bird for germination.
Pest Control
Birds eat pests. In fact they eat an estimated 400-500 millions tonnes of insects a year! No wonder we want to encourage them into our gardens and agricultural systems. They are our most efficient biological pest control.
Balancing ecosystems and nutrient recycling
Birds# habitats range from coastal and sea areas to forests, marshes and grasslands. These habitats affect life across the whole planet, storing carbon, stabilizing the climate, oxygenating the air and transforming pollutants into nutrients. But without birds, many of these ecosystems may not exist. Birds maintain the delicate balance between plant and herbivore, predator and prey and spread nutrients from one habitat to another as they fly between them.
Popular Bird Blogs
Don’t panic! The statistics are pretty terrifying but most pollinators have short life cycles and therefore the potential to recover as fast as they decline.
You could have clouds of bees happily buzzing around your garden again sooner than you think. Urban gardens are never going to be able to replace the wild habitat that these insects have lost, but we can try and mitigate the effect. I’m going to show you how…
Flowers produce nectar, which is water and sugar, that the pollinator uses for the energy to fly, and the pollen contains the protein. Gardens with high pollen producing plants like Crocuses, Hyacinths, Borage, Calendulas, and wild lilac, see healthier bees that are more resistant to diseases.
There are tens of thousands of different species of pollinators, and (as I’ve touched on in the above section on ecosystem) each one has a slightly different niche. Many plants have evolved in concert to reflect their pollinators and vice versa. When trying to cater for a diverse range of pollinators, it’s best to grow as many types of flowers as possible.
Here a few of the most common families to get you started:
When your planting for pollinator, it is also good to try to plant flowers that bloom at different times throughout their active session (early Spring to late Autumn). Especially plants that flower in the late Autumn, like Crocuses, because it gives the pollinators a final meal before bedding down for the winter.
If you want to encourage more bees to your garden, lean more towards single-topped flowers like daisies or marigolds, as opposed to double-topped like rose. Double-topped flowers are pretty, but produce less nectar and the extra leaves make it a lot harder to get to the pollen.
Another good idea, if you have a lawn is considering letting a section of it grow and go wild. Let flowers like dandelions, clovers or siberian squill grow there. The longer grass is also a perfect home for bumble bees.
This next section can sometimes makes gardeners a bit nervous…
There’s no getting around the fact: the more enticing you make your garden for pollinators, the more likely it is that they’re going to lay their eggs. That means letting caterpillars and larvae into your garden!
MY CABBAGES!!! Yeah… To be honest, your cabbages might take the hit. Caterpillars love cabbages!
But if you think about it, it’s a pretty fair exchange! You’ll have your garden full of butterflies all summer and (as I said in the section on Birds) a lot of birds rely on caterpillars to feed their chicks while they’re in the nest. You’ll be helping butterflies and birds! That’s two for one!
If you don’t want to grow cabbages just to see them eaten, you can grow other Brassicas like sprouts and rape seed or Nasturtiums, like ‘purple emperor’ and the ladybird rose. Caterpillars like them as well.
On to bees…
Most bees build their hives and nests in holes where ever they can find them. You’ll find different species of bees in walls, some like trees and others prefer under ground.
There’s a couple of things you can do to help them out.
One thing you can try, if you’re feeling crafty, is make a bee hotel. Gather old, dried hollow stems, such as hogweed or garden cane and place them in a container, a plant pot will do. Once you have got all the stems in the container, cut them to the same size and point the entrance slightly towards the sun. This is perfect for solitary bees. The female bee will lay its eggs in separate cells along the length of the hollow stem. Each cell has a parcel of nectar and pollen in it for when the egg hatches.
You can build a low wall (dry stone walls are best) in a sunny position. The female bee will lay her eggs in the cracks between the rocks. It’s relatively easy to construct and will look good too.
If you have the space, you could think about creating a low bank of sandy, loose soil at least 10cm deep against a wall or a fence, preferably facing the sun. This is perfect for bumble bees! The female bee will dig a nest that will serve as a place to lay her eggs in it and a good place for her to hide out during the winter months. You might have seen bees flying out of holes dug into the exposed silty soil on the side of river banks. This is the habitat that you’re trying to recreate… just without the river.
Beetles, woodlice and millipedes are normally somewhat overlooked when it comes to wildlife gardening but they shouldn’t be. They perform a large amount of beneficial tasks for the garden. There are some that damage plants, no one’s denying that but there are more that help.
There’s the ladybirds that eat aphids before they can eat your plants, there are ground beetles that eat weevil larvae and slugs. Other beetles help turn decaying matter into a form ready for plants to use and they live in nearly every habitat in your garden.
Here’s a few ways to keep them happy and in your garden.
Making sure there is lots of organic matter, such as a log pile, dead leaves and compost heaps. This mirrors the beetle’s natural habitat: woodland. You’ll amazed how many you find when you turn over a log. Most beetles, as well as living in also lay their eggs in dead wood over the winter, behind the bark or in the soil around.
Another good idea is to mulch your borders. As well as it being a good idea generally, for the soil and to prevent weeds, beetles and woodlice love it. Woodlice will eat a huge amount of dead leaves and other spent organic material and are hugely beneficial when it comes to the decomposition process. This is also the perfect environment for the likes of the violet ground beetle and the centipede, that sneak through across the mulched bed hunting for small slugs, caterpillars, small snails and spiders.
If you have the space and the inclination, you might consider creating a flower rich meadow. The meadow is another of the beetle’s natural habitats and is especially good for pollinating beetles. You may have to tolerate aphids for the sake of ladybirds. Plants like stinging nettles are perfect for aphids, but maybe not so perfect for you garden.
Slugs and Snails are among the least popular of all the wildlife in our gardens because they keep eating all our beautiful plants and flowers! And you know it’s them because they leave a trail! But… slugs and snails are a staple diet of animals like birds, badgers and hedgehogs and you can’t have one without the other. So here are my coping techniques for limiting the effect they have and still keeping them around.
Before we start I’d just like to try and deter anyone currently using slug pellets. The poison in the pellet stays in the slug and then gets transferred to anything that eats it. They are really bad for the birds and mammals in your garden so stop using them… Please…
My first coping tip is grow plants that slugs and snails avoid. The smell of plants like Basil, Garlic, Lavender, Marjoram, Parsley, Peony and Rosemary are said to deter slugs from your flower beds.
Second tip: Place slugs and snail hides always away from valuable plants. Both slugs and snails hide away from the cold in rock and log piles of compost heaps. The further away these are to you plants the less slugs you’ll get.
Third tip: Crush up egg shell, sharp sand, bran or human hair around your flower beds. They don’t like anything that dries up their mucus so they won’t cross the barrier.
Final tip: Sink a jar of beer in to the soil. Slugs and snails love it but it will kill them. Be sure to put a rock over the top to avoid tipsy hedgehogs.
No animal lives in a vacuum. In order to cater to one, you have to cater to all. The good, the bad and the slimy!
Mammals
Furry friends
Mammals are probably the hardest of all the wildlife to tempt into you garden. The problem is that most species are either nervous or nocturnal. A lot of them also have a large territory and your garden may only fulfill a portion of the animal’s needs. However that is no reason to give up. Even if they only drop by, because their place in the food chain, they can have a dramatic effect on your garden ecosystem.
Hedgehogs were voted as Britain's favourite garden animal and you can see why. They are soooo cute! Unfortunately most people only see hedgehog after they’ve been killed on the road. They often have a hard time eating and collecting enough food for the winter hibernation. Slug pellets poison them, they are frequently killed in bonfires and regularly drown in sleep sided garden ponds. The good news is there are loads of things that you can do to help them.
They are not territorial but they do tend to stay within relatively close range of their homes. One of the best things you can do for a hedgehog is let it into your garden. If you can, replace your fence with a hedge, because this will give the little guys rooms to get in. If that option’s not possible, you might consider putting a hedgehog hole in the fences around your garden. This means that, not only can the hedgehog get into your gardens, but the surrounding ones as well. A 13cm by 13cm hole should be enough for a hedgehog to fit through and this has the added benefit of being too small for most other pets.
Hedgehogs mainly eat invertebrates, essentially everything that wants to eat your plants. That’s why they’re so good to have around. By planting to encourage this, like caterpillars and slugs, you’ll be able to tempt them into your garden. However the winter month can still be really challenging for hedgehogs so you might want to provide supplementary food, cat or dog food is fine. It’s best to buy/make a hedgehog feeding station, to protect the food so that foxes and cats don’t beat the hedgehog to it.
Piling deadwood, sticks, dead leaves and branches will create a good place for a hedgehog to hibernate for the winter. Inside them the temperature stays cool but never freezing. Unfortunately, they often mistake wood collected for bonfire night as a perfect spot for a nap and that’s why they are frequently killed in them. You can also buy hedgehog houses, which you fill with dry leaves and are the perfect shape to prevent attack from foxes.
Squirrels are the most commonly seen out of all the mammals, however mainly the greys nowadays. The red squirrel is native to Britain whereas the grey was brought over from North American about a hundred years ago. Unfortunately, when the greys came over they brought the squirrel pox virus. The greys were largely immune but the reds were not. Grey squirrels can eat and digest unripe acorns and nuts and the reds can not, meaning that the greys have a head start on every harvest. These two reasons almost wiped out the red squirrel population in the UK but there are still parts of Scotland where they hold out.
If you’re going to encourage squirrels into your garden, you should know what you’re in for! Both species damage trees by ripping off bark and greys take it a step further by getting into root space and chewing cables. They will also take a few eggs and/or chicks if they can find them and they will smash your bird feeder to bits!
You can feed squirrels with a squirrel box. This might stop them from destroying your bird feeders, but make sure you clean it well and keep it stocked.
If you are lucky enough to have a red squirrel near you, try planting a pine tree, they prefer them over the oak. Actually you’re most likely to see one near a pine forest in Scotland because is one of the only places you can see red squirrels now. That being said if you live opposite prime squirrel real estate don’t feed them. You’ll be swapped with squirrels! Squirrels everywhere!
Here’s some tips to stop squirrels destroying your bird feeders…
Hang the feeder on a thin line between two trees.
Put your feeder in a strong “guardian” cage.
Put some chilli powder or tabasco in with the bird feed. The squirrels hate this, but the birds don’t seem to care
You can now get snazzy new bird feeders that close when they feel the weight of a squirrel.
Mice are common mammals in your garden, even though you might not see them because of their nocturnal habits and shy nature. Gardening for them has loads of knock on benefits. They are very good prey for owls and kestrels and their burrows are really good nesting sites for bumble bees. There are three species of mice that are commonly found in gardens around the UK.
The wood mouse
The yellow-necked mouse
And the house mouse
The wood mouse and the yellow-necked mouse are the ones that we want to encourage, because of their place in the food chain. They eat berries, seeds, caterpillars and small snails. To encourage them, you try to give them woodland areas, beech hedgerows, thick vegetation and uncut meadows.
The house mouse lives up to its name. It prefers being indoors to hedgerow and will quite happily eat your food store and chew through cables. They have a very developed sense of smell, so you can try and deter them by using a smell they don’t like.
Ammonia
Moth balls
Chilli oil or powder
Peppermint oil
These are some of the smells believed to deter house mice. Check for any entry point to your house and, after blocking them up try spraying them with one of these scents. Be careful because a mouse can squeeze itself through a 1cm gap.
The Dormouse has to be the most adorable mammal that you might see in your garden.
Unfortunately the dormouse population is in decline and in the UK they are nearing extinction.
More information on the Dormouse
Visit the Wildlife Trust (registered charity) for more information on how to help.
Shrews are super cute and may look like mice but they are even more beneficial to your garden because they are insectivores. And they will eat and eat! Mainly solitary animals, they will make their way though your garden eating insect larvae, caterpillars, spiders and woodlice. You tend to only find shrews in larger, more rural gardens but you can encourage them, by creating meadows and thick hedgerows, still you’ve got a better chance if you're in the countryside.
The much despised mole can undermine your flower beds and push up mounds of mud in the middle of your lawn. You can get to the point where you want to tear your hair out!... But if you think about it, a mole’s damage in your garden is only superficial and maybe you can tolerate them.
Moles are famous diggers and their tunnels can stretch for 100m - 200m for each mole. You see mole hills when the mole extends his burrow in search of food or a mate. They are fiercely territorial but there have been signs of interconnecting tunnels, mole highways. Moles play an important part in aerating the soil and the mole hills actually provide perfectly sieved loam for potting medium.
Catching moles is time consuming and very painful for the mole. Considering the actual damage that they do is cosmetic maybe we can give them a break?...
The red fox is actually a wild dog, a very attractive one, that still survives in most of western europe. Not only does it survive, but thrives in nearly every environment, from the country to the big city. Be careful when encouraging them though because you could end up with more than you bargained for.
A foxes diet consists of… well… everything! A fox is quite happy eating anything from small mammals to blackberries, from carrion to kitchen scraps. They will commonly make dens in gardens especially in big cities and while they’re there they can cause all sorts of mayhem. They will dig up your lawn and flower bed looking for worms or root around in your bins. It's also been known for them to kill small pets like kittens and rabbits and if you have chickens… game over!
How to discourage foxes:
Don’t overfeed birds, this encourage the foxes to come and take the leftovers
Keeps pet cages very secure
Board up any gaps in your garage or shed
Properly secure your bins
Fox mange is a big problem for foxes especially in cities. It's caused by a parasitic mite burrowing into the foxes skin and cause terrible itching. In some cases it kills the fox! They become so preoccupied with the itching that they don’t hunt enough and start to waste away. There is a treatment for it visit https://foxproject.org.uk/fox-facts/sarcoptic-mange/#:~:text=Mange%20treatment%20given%20to%20captive,over%20a%20two%20week%20period.
Badgers are an infrequent treat and are actually a lot bigger than you expect. They can grow to just under a meter long! They are foragers rather than hunters and will eat a really wide range of food. Anything from beetles to acorns but earthworms are a staple of their diet and fruit in the winter.
They’re found, unsurprisingly in deciduous forests and hedgerows. Badgers live in clans, a social group of up to 8 adults, sleeping through the day in their setts (borrows). The setts can range up to 300m long, built in banks or under tree roots and have several entrances. They emerge after dark to look for food.
You should probably only look to encourage badgers into your garden if you have enough room for them because they can make an awful mess otherwise. They will happily smash through your soft fruit bushes and destroy a vegetable crop. They will also dig up your flower beds and lawn in search of worms. There is a nervousness about badgers in quite a few places in the UK because of their connection to bovine tuberculosis. So you might want to have a think before letting them in.
If you want to discourage badger from your garden here some ideas:
Don’t leave bird feed on the floor
Make sure that your bins are properly secure
Consider using solar power electric fencing found your valuable vegetable plot
However if you think you garden can take it, here’s some ways of attracting them:
Leave a bit of your lawn wild for them to dig and find worms
Plant fruit trees
Provide food for them: wet dog food, peanuts, fruit and raisins but only a little to ensure that the badgers don’t become dependent on it. Don't feed them any sugary food or anything with milk.
Habitats
Create your own
From wildflower meadows to wetland habitats, Create your own little nature reserve. This is a collection of blogs on how to turn parts of your garden in to the different wildlife friendly habitats.
This the story of the bird rescue that happened in our house this Christmas. As my son, Arthur, is bird mad, when we found this little guy stunned and immobile in the garden, he was the first to want to rescue him.