There is a lot that we can do to encourage native mammals and birds to come into our gardens.Try to integrate your garden habitat to reflect those of the surrounding countryside, you won’t attract something that isn’t found in your area so try to attract your local wildlife. For instance butterflies such as the Peacock or small Tortoiseshell will not will not normally breed in gardens because of a dearth of long grasses needed for egg-laying and larval food. The adult butterflies need nectar which your garden can provide.
Try to have some areas when the garden is not too tidy allow the grass and wild flowers to grow in some areas, try to find somewhere for a compost heap and allow your hedge to thicken up and provide shelter for birds mammals and insects
1. Provide a Wide Variety of Habitats and
Hideouts
Your garden creatures have basic needs; food, water, shelter, and breeding sites. If you provide these four simple basics, the more likely the animals are going to stay. Provide a variety of habitats i.e.; year round flowering, several vegetation heights and structure, a wide range of colourful flowers and fruits, damp and dry places, shade, sun, holes and crevices, young and old wood. It is not necessary to provide all of these listed above but if you do you will be able to attract more species into your garden. A pond will create a great home for a large variety of water creatures, if there is not enough space in your garden for a pond try a small water feature instead. Birds are attracted to water and need a safe source particularly in the summer when the puddles dry up. A shallow bath four foot or so above the ground is ideal, but make sure you keep it topped up when it is really hot so that they are safe from cats.
Another valuable addition would be a hidden log pile in a dark corner somewhere. Log piles not only provide sheltered hiding places and hibernation sites, but provide that rare element of rotten wood, on which a host of less conspicuous creepy crawlies depend for breeding.
You
don’t have to have a jungle to attract wildlife, planting schemes can easily
be designed to be attractive to people and wildlife. Just supply a mixture of
plants that are useful to insects and birds throughout the year.
- Attract useful Predators
Attracting predator into your
garden will help you get rid of pests
- Ladybirds are
active from late spring to mid-summer, they
mainly feed on greenfly, scale mite, mealy bugs and small caterpillars.
To temp them into your garden try to avoid over tidying your garden in
the autumn, dead fallen leaves, loose bark, and hollow stems provide
great hibernation sites.
- Hoverflies are
active from spring onwards, aphids, fruit-tree spider mites, and tiny
caterpillars are a good source of feed for their larvae. Grow flowers which provide pollen and
nectar for the adults to feast.
In winter they prefer small sheltered spaces.
- Lacewings also
active from late spring to mid-summer.
They feed on aphids, mites, leaf hoppers, scale insects and
caterpillars. Encourage them to
use your garden for winter by erecting hibernation boxes.
- Rove and Ground
beetles can be found in the garden all year round. They feed on adult slugs as well as
slug eggs, larvae of cabbage root flies and lettuce-root aphids. They prefer moist, shady areas so
leave soil, stones and logs undisturbed.
- Centipedes are
active all year round. They feast
on slugs, snails and insects . Live in good quality soil under
stones.
- Earwigs found all
year round. Can damage some
flowers but do feed on caterpillars, aphids and moth eggs. Found resting during the day in small
narrow crevices.
- Frogs, Toads and Newts
spawn during spring but hibernate through the colder months. As a group they feed on slugs, snails,
worms and insects. To encourage
amphibians to breed, a pond is necessary. Adults will finally move and live off
the land. They hibernate in damp
places such as under stones and logs.
Make sure there are shallow edges sloping into the pond. Newts need over hanging vegetation to
shield them when entering and leaving.
- Bats are active
during spring, summer and autumn.
Feeding on most small flying insects, such as; midges, craneflies, moths and aphids. During these three months they prefer
to roost in warm, dry hollows in trees or crevices in buildings. In the winter they prefer to hibernate
in deeper, solid places like caves.
Introduce Evening primrose into your garden which attract small pests like aphids, this will temp bats
to use your garden as a feeding place.
Put bat boxes in sheltered positions that will get morning sun
and afternoon shade.
- Birds will eat almost all insects, especially during the breeding season; these include many of the insects above. To encourage birds in the garden keep a good supply of natural foods, such as seeds and berries, especially during the cold winter months. If you feed the birds throughout the year you will attract the fledglings and get whole families coming to feed in your gardens. Introduce bird baths and nest boxes. Trees, shrubs, walls and fences will provide great nesting sites.
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Can be seen from mid-spring to mid-autumn, feeding on slugs, millipedes, earthworms and caterpillars. During the day they hide in long grass and hedges and hibernate during the winter. To encourage hedgehogs into your garden for hibernation, introduce a winter box, hidden in an abandoned compost heap, or leave an area in your garden to over grow. Dog and cat food will temp hedgehogs into the garden, never give them bread or milk as these can cause their stomach to swell and set off chronic diarrhea. There are several hazards that can cause real problems for hedgehogs if you have a pond with steep sides make sure that there is somewhere where they can get out. Hedgehogs are inquisitive and readily fall into things that they cannot escape from, look out for breeze blocks, drains without proper grids and empty pots sunk into the soil with no plants in them. Plastic mesh and discarded chicken fencing are another danger. If you still have bonfires make sure you make them and light them on the same day. Terriers, badgers and cars are the main predators that hedgehogs have to deal with. If you see a hedgehog in your garden make sure there are no slug pellets about, you do not need to poison your slugs if you are lucky enough to attract a hedgehog to control them for you. If you see a hedgehog in a dangerous place you might be able to move him to a safer garden.
Badgers are found throughout the United Kingdom, but they are known to favor certain habitats where they can readily dig a deep dry sett. Early surveys show that ninety percent of the known badger setts are dug into a slope as this helps the animals to move the soil that they have dug out. They tend to avoid heavy clay soils and prefer a wooded environment on sandy soils as the tree roots help to bind the soil and stop the tunnels collapsing. They are able to exploit the geology of the areas they live in and can often find areas of soil beneath solid rock for their extensive net work of tunnels.
Badgers prefer to have some cover at the entrance to their sett so that they can emerge inconspicuously and have a secure place for cubs to play and learn their environment. Most setts are in deciduous or mixed woodland although they will live on the edge of coniferous woods if there are no suitable alternative. Occasionally setts are found in open ground but this tends to be in upland areas where there is only a small chance that the animals will be disturbed.
In the wild earthworms are the most important thing that badgers eat. This is why they are often found on cattle pastures and have their setts close by. Badgers will also eat fruit, root vegetables and bulbs as well as insects and small mammals. You can attract badgers into your garden by tempting them with other food items that they cannot find for themselves. They particularly like peanuts, wet cat or dog food (if you can leave it out without attracting local felines and canines) as well as apples, pears and plums. I understand that peanut butter sandwiches and Sugar Puffs are a particular favorite. Badgers are noisy feeders and really seem to enjoy the things that they find. In the summer when the grass is dry they will also appreciate an easy water supply as worms are difficult to find at that time of the year. Use a heavy dog bowl for water that is difficult to tip over.
Remember badgers are protected by the Protection of Badgers Act 1992 and it is illegal to cruelly treat a badger or damage one of their setts. It is also an offence to posess a dead badger or sell or keep a live badger. It is OK to feed and watch them but you must not do anything more than that.
A word of caution if you watch badgers in the West Country, West Wales or the West Midlands. Sadly now many badgers here are infected with bovine tuberculosis. Over the years it has become apparent that badgers are the primary host of bovine tuberculosis as it spreads and grows more readily in badgers than it does in cattle or any other species. Sadly nobody will take responsibility for the welfare of badgers with tuberculosis, they are left to suffer and die largely un noticed often below ground. Until there is a fundamental change in our attitude towards diseased wildlife take care if you go near badger setts or feed them in your garden. Always wash your hands carefully if you have been out in the countryside and avoid toughing badgers that have killed on the road.
There are two breeds of squirrel resident in UK and you are lucky indeed if it is the Red variety that visits your garden. Before the grey squirrel was introduced from North America to private estates and zoological collections in 1876 it was the red squirrel that had a free run of the country. Red squirrels are only half the weight of their more robust American cousins. They are adapted to coniferous woodland and cannot digest the hazelnuts and acorns found in deciduous woodland. Because of this our native squirrel is confined to coniferous woodland in Scotland, in the north of England and small isolated areas of Wales. Red Squirrels are fully protected by schedule 5 of the wildlife and countryside act 1981 and are actively supported by the provision of feeding stations, nesting boxes and ropeway over busy roads to encourage their continued survival.
Squirrels breed between December and January and again in August and September. Red squirrels can have as many as eight offspring whereas three is the average size of a grey squirrel’s litter. They are born with no hair and do not get a full covering until three weeks of age, they will not venture from the nest until another three weeks have passed.
Grey squirrels have a natural curiosity and will do anything for a peanut so they can readily be attracted to garden bird feeders if you give them half a chance. Peanuts and sunflower seeds are not a balanced diet for rodents however and can cause problems in juvenile animals if they take them in excess in preference to wild food. If you have a family of young squirrels that come regularly to your garden try introducing them to rodent pellets or a quality fried puppy feed to give then a more balanced feed.
Squirrels have few natural predators buzzards are said to take them although they will have problems catching them in wooded areas, and are more likely to come across animals killed on the road. Cats and terriers may kill squirrels if they get caught out in the open. In the autumn there always seems to be a period when many squirrels get run over presumably as they take more risks to build up their food stores for the winter.
Take great care if you find an injured squirrel, they are wild animals that have a viscous bite and do not adapt readily to captivity. The adults are unfortunately difficult animals to treat and present us with a difficult problem as it is an offence under the Wildlife and Countryside Act to release grey squirrels back into the wild.
We work in a beautiful part of rural Shropshire and have no experience of urban foxes. Over the years we have had the opportunity to treat foxes that have been hit by cars and on one occasion an individual that was reared in a Public House, but became more and more unmanageable as he grew older. Rural Foxes behave in a different way to their urban cousins. They tend to be more wary of people and visit our gardens only to harvest our ducks and poultry rather than investigate any easy source of unused food that we are throwing away. As far as I know nobody in our immediate area is feeding foxes in their gardens.
Foxes mate in the middle of the winter and cubs are born in March and early April. The Urban Fox has a smaller territory than the ones that we see as their food is easier to find. They tend to like quieter areas where there are owner occupied houses and railway embankments where they will not be disturbed too often. They tend to have several dens and regularly move between them depending on how safe they feel and how easy it is for them to get food. It is not until the cubs are five weeks of age that they are seen above ground.
More than half of the cubs born do not get to their first birthday. This is mainly because of accident than deliberate control measures. It is rare for a fox to survive for more than five years and they will breed from a younger age if their numbers are low. They have a varied diet and particularly like meat, as well as earth worms, bread, fruit and potato peelings. They like the take a ways that we discard and get to know the waste bins where the remains of our meals are likely to be discarded.
When ever we see sarcoptic mange in dogs there has been some contact between our patient and a fox. Often it might just be that they have investigated a fox hole or come across a dead fox on a road. Fortunately sarcoptic mange is much easier to treat now that Stronghold is in all of our Surgeries. This is a mite that burrows into the skin and will cause intense irritation. Two applications of the drug are needed and sometime we have to use other drugs to stop the itching and limit the skin damage.
Moles are fascinating animals but not everybody welcomes them into their garden. Seldom seen we always know where they are and sometimes spend a great deal of time trying to persuade them to live somewhere else.
There are 29 species of mole world wide yet it is only the European mole Talpa europea that we have in the United Kingdom. There are no moles in Ireland. These busy animals can grow to 16 cm in length and have been known to dig more than 20 metres of new tunnels in a day. They are unusual in the way their fur grows at right angles to their skin so that they can move forwards and backwards in their tunnels. They have very small eyes and small ears and rely almost entirely on their sense of smell and their ability to detect small vibrations in the soil.
Moles are solitary creatures who are aggressive to their own kind and only tolerate one another when the sow wishes to mate. They can have up to four offspring who are hairless when first born, but ready to leave the mother's territory after five to six weeks. This is the only time that they are seen above ground and they are very vulnerable to predators when they move away from home.
Moles have a varied diet of earthworms, leatherjackets, wireworms and slugs so they are not all bad and they do tend to aerate the soil and leave little piles of soil that is ideal for potting compost. They have a high metabolic rate and must eat every few hours to avoid starvation it is hard work for them to consume half of their body weight in food every day to keep alive.
There are no easy ways to deter moles. We tend to get one in the same area of our garden each winter. I have tried up turned bottles on a stick and various things that make a noise in the wind without a great deal of success. Sometimes things go quiet for a while so that I think he has gone and then he starts digging again with renewed vigor. Our mole always seem to disappear in the spring when I start to mow the grass. To be fair it does not take very long to repair the damage that he has done and make the lawn level again so we have grown to respect one another now.
If you are interested in moles you might like to take part in the Mole Watch Survey. There is an opportunity to get your moles on the map.
In many ways I am pleased that I can find a reason to include the British Otter Lutra l. lutra here. Silent and secretive it is most unlikely that you would ever be lucky enough to see one of these wonderful creatures in your garden, but they are about during the night and if you keep fish in a pond you may well know to your cost just how efficient this aquatic hunter is.
From time to time we have had early morning sightings of Otters in Minsterley and under the Welsh Bridge in Shrewsbury. Twice there have been road casualty cases found near a bridge at Chirbury and once in Pontesford. There is at least one Otter active in Church Stretton as two garden ponds have been raided last summer. It is usually the biggest most valuable fish that they take first.
Otters are members of the mustelidae family that includes stoats, polecats and badgers. They are the top predator of our rivers and water courses and have to eat 1 to 1.5 kg of fish each night to maintain their body weight. Dog Otters can weight up to 14 kgs which is nearly twice the size of the females. They have small eyes and ears and can close their nostrils when they are under water. Otters have a short dense coat of hairs close to the skin and a longer top coat of stiff guard hairs that can trap air to act as insulation when they are under water.
It is thought that most dog otters have a home range of twelve or more miles of river and females will patrol for eight miles. They are constantly on the move and regularly scent mark at prominent places to communicate their presence to others. It has been found that in rivers that contain salmon and trout these fish will be only 10% of their diet, the rest is mainly eels, course fish with some amphibians, small mammals and birds.
It is encouraging to find that Otters are once again able to establish themselves in our rivers, sometimes along quite small water ways. They have few natural predators as long as the water quality in their extensive territory is maintained. Sadly it is motor vehicles that are one of the main treats to their survival.
Common/ Hazel Dormouse
(Muscardinus avellanarius)
The common dormouse is a small native rodent, not to be confused with the much larger edible dormouse, which was introduced into Britain by the Romans as a food source. Dormice are omnivorous and tend to live in mixed hazel woodland with honeysuckle. They are very long lived for such small rodents, with over 5 years having been recorded and it’s been suggested this is because they spend so much time in hibernation or torpor (a state of reduced metabolic drain). Over winter dormice hibernate in leaf litter and around April/May of each year they wake up to feed and nest. They build many beautifully woven nests during a single season and females produce on average 5 babies per litter with only one, maybe two litters in a year. Over recent decades the common dormouse has undergone a population decline, probably due to loss of habitat, reduction in mixed woodland and possible climate change. However, due to recent conservation work, the dormouse is making a comeback. Populations have been re-introduced in Cheshire and Derbyshire and found in Shropshire and Denbighshire.
This small rare rodent is found in this area around Habberley and parts of the Hope Valley, but you are unlikely to be lucky enough to see one. Occasionally torpid dormice are found over winter in peoples sheds or wood/compost piles. If this happens it is best to replace the sleeping animal and try to leave the area undisturbed until spring/ summer to allow it to safely hibernate.
If you do have a burning desire to see a dormouse, one of the best ways is to join a monitoring team organised by the Shropshire Wildlife Trust, Peoples Trust for Endangered Species or Forestry Commission. There are several projects going on at the moment in the Shropshire/Cheshire area and volunteers are usually welcomed, unless days are very oversubscribed. Dormice are fully protected by law and a licence, issued by English Nature, is required to disturb, handle or photograph them. The photograph on this page was taken during routine monitoring of nest boxes and shows a young adult female.
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