Throughout the depths of winter the importance of the three
crucial elements of wildlife gardening – food, water and
shelter - will come into their own. A sheltered garden is a
warm garden (within reason) and I’m sure that anyone who has
moved from suburbia to the windswept wilds of the countryside
as I have knows the value of shelter. Water also is vital to wildlife
and the small barrel pond outside my window is constantly
visited by blue tits, wrens and dunnocks and has needed to be
regularly de-iced in the colder weather, such is its
popularity as a watering hole. And the third vital element in
any wildlife garden – food – has been and still is constantly in demand.
Sunflower seeds disappear at a rate
of several per second from feeders as finches, tits and
nuthatches approach and take off in a flurry of activity
reminiscent of the main runway at Heathrow. A peanut feeder
sports un upside-down great-spotted woodpecker hammering as
though his life depended on it (which it probably does) and a
mature Berberis is currently home to a couple of argumentative
blackbirds squabbling over the berries while another feeds on
a discarded windfall Bramley apple.
Providing food for garden wildlife is important and the view
outside my window only reinforces how vital it is in a
wildlife garden to provide food in as many forms as possible.
Diversity is the key to attracting wildlife to your garden,
and to providing a really good habitat while much of our
countryside becomes more and more impoverished.
The period between November and April is the hardest time of
year for wildlife, yet it is also the time when many animals
are preparing to breed and therefore need to be in good
condition. Birds and mammals in particular have to find
sufficient sustenance throughout the winter in order to be in good
breeding condition in spring, and many insects especially
bumblebees and early butterflies, will be coming out of
hibernation in a couple of months. We can provide two types of food – natural
and supplementary - and both are valid and have their
advantages.
Providing natural food entails gardening thoughtfully with the
requirements of local creatures always in mind, having nectar,
pollen, berries and seeds in the garden, and lastly growing
plants upon which the food chain hinges. These are the
plants that insects and other invertebrates feed upon,
creatures which in their turn provide food for animals higher
up the food chain.
Gardening thoughtfully is what all wildlife gardeners and
organic gardeners do by nature, whether they wish to attract
wildlife or not. We don’t use the chemicals that harm our
environment and we take into account the natural rhythm of
life outside our back doors. It also means gardening with our
eyes open to the consequences of our actions. I am always
saddened when I hear of gardeners taking out hedges, cutting
down trees or destroying an established garden in other ways,
simply for a new look or makeover. No thought is given to the
thousands of creatures to which that space was a home,
especially the amphibians and invertebrates that depend on the
shelter and the existing plants in an established garden. It
is possible to make changes in any garden without creating
disturbance on a grand scale; in fact this approach can make
the daunting jobs seem a little easier as it is more wildlife
friendly to carry out these grand changes a bit at a time.
For example cleaning out a pond is one job where the resident
wildlife benefits from a softly, softly approach. Reducing
the plant growth in a quarter of your pond every year instead
of tackling the whole thing in one go means that aquatic
creatures will still have somewhere to find shelter. Take
this approach to other large jobs and the small mammals,
amphibians and invertebrates which will be using your garden,
will benefit.
Growing berries and seeds for birds and mammals is something
that is frequently mentioned in books and magazines on
wildlife friendly gardening. But what does this mean and is
it as simple as it sounds? The answer to this is probably no,
especially where seeds are concerned. The explosion of the
wood mouse population in my garden in the last year has had
some interesting consequences, from the very good (tawny owls
and kestrels hunting daily – and nightly - over the long
grass) to the rather less good (wholesale consumption of newly
planted bulbs and destruction of pots containing wildflower
seeds), but we can learn something from this. It also pays to
use our common sense. Many plants have tiny seeds, for
example the mulleins, foxgloves and poppies, and in general
birds and mammals would probably use more energy collecting
and (in the case of mice and voles) storing these than they
gained from eating them. My wood mice have targeted the pots
with the larger seeds such as field scabious, teasel and
greater knapweed as these are going to provide the biggest
meal, so leaving all seeds in our borders over the winter
doesn’t necessarily help wildlife that much. The extra cover
provided by the leaves and stems will be very beneficial
though, so the answer here may be to cut off seed heads that
you suspect to be of little value but leave those with large
nutritional seeds.
Berries too are not straightforward, as many berried shrubs
have been bred with fruits that ripen very slowly to prevent
birds taking them early in the season. These may ripen
eventually but it is in late autumn and throughout the winter
that berries come into their own as an important source of
food for many bird and mammal species. If you are planting
new shrubs and would like to encourage birds as well as
provide winter colour, choose plants with red berries rather
than orange, yellow or white. There are always exceptions to
these vague rules – learn from your own experiences and
observations as to which berries are taken by the birds and
which are left alone.
Providing nectar and pollen is pretty straightforward and
lists of plants, both native and non-native are now
commonplace. Again use your own observations as plants that
produce good quantities of nectar in some gardens do less well
in other conditions. Getting to know your own garden and
where nectar plants will perform best (generally in sunny
sheltered spots) is important.
The third way we can help our local wildlife to find natural
food is to ensure that there is always a good supply of
invertebrates around by growing plants that these small
creatures feed upon. These animals are at the bottom of the
food chain and support everything else higher up in one way or
another, and although in this case native is best, there are
still plenty of non-native plants that are worth growing for
this purpose. Whether it is a direct link (your local robin
feeding on small caterpillars and flies) or an indirect one (a
fox hunting for a shrew that has been feeding on slugs and
caterpillars) these small creatures and the plants they feed
upon are the most important component of a wildlife garden.
Looking after the soil in our gardens by using home made
compost will make sure the earthy invertebrates are well
looked after too.
Although providing food in the natural sense is important, you
can still augment what is naturally there by supplementary
feeding, especially for birds and mammals. Most of us do feed
the birds now, and many gardeners feed their hedgehogs, foxes
and even badgers and deer. Seeds such as sunflower hearts,
nyjer, and of course peanuts as well as mixed seeds of all
types can mean the difference between life and death for some
birds. The decline of hedgehogs in the UK
is known to be due at least in part to lack of natural food,
as insecticides destroy the invertebrates that they largely
depend on, so supplying any food for these particular mammals
again will help their survival.
Encouraging wildlife to our gardens is not just about our
interest in the creatures that visit us. Many wildlife
gardeners that I speak to tell me that this interest is also
about caring for these animals, protecting them and having a
desire to provide them with a good place to be. Maybe that is
a rather sentimental view of what we are doing out in our
gardens, but to me that doesn’t matter. What matters is that
whatever our motivation, the things that we do, especially
providing food, really make a difference. |
