7 Species in your Wildlife Garden
These 7 species can do well in our gardens -
Little Owls, House Sparrows, Bumblebees, Hedgehogs, Bats, Ladybirds and Swifts.
We’re lucky to have Little Owls in our villages, not everywhere has them visiting!
All our wildlife is under threat from both climate change and habitat loss. Each of these 7 species need a mosaic of microhabitats in our gardens. We can provide this variety of spaces through long grass, short grass, leaf litter, bare soil, trees, ponds, hedges, wildflowers, climbers, piles of wood or stone, as well as how we garden (such as no weedkillers or slug pellets).
Which of the 7 species do you already see visiting or living in your garden? And if you don’t yet see them, below are some ways to encourage them in and support them in your garden.
Little Owl
How to spot them: Listen out for daytime and evening calls and / or watch them feeding on the ground looking for beetles or worms.
Food: Little Owls eat beetles and worms so provide a home for these with open compost heaps, log piles, stone stacks, beetle banks. Also try growing night pollinated plants too such as evening primrose and evening stock to encourage in moths.
Shelter: A Little Owl nest box is ideal shelter, or large trees.
Water: A pond with shallow edges or a plastic tray with water in.
Other: No pesticides, weed killers, slug pellets, rat poison or other harmful chemicals in the garden.
More info: HUGS Owl page. And the HUGS Little Owl Facebook Live, supporting them in your garden.
House Sparrow
How to spot them: Sparrows have a distinctive chattering call and are easy to spot and hear in daytime.
Food: Adults eat seeds which you can provide for them either in bird feeders or leaving seeding plants left uncut over winter. The chicks are fed aphids, beetles and other invertebrates so our gardens need to be habitat for these insects (leave some nettles to grow in spring, leave some long grass, have wilder areas plus wood / stone piles).
Shelter: Sparrows nest in the eaves of houses. They also readily take to sparrow nest boxes.
Water: A pond with shallow edges or a tray with water in.
Other: No pesticides, weed killers, slug pellets, rat poison or other harmful chemicals in the garden.
More info: BTO’s House Sparrow page.
Bumblebee
How to spot them: Bumblebees are noisy flyers and tend to fly fairly low to the ground. You’ll hear them coming! Look out for them on dry, sunny days in your garden.
Food: They are some of the earliest emerging bees of the year and rely on flowers in early spring all the way through to winter. Having something in flower in your garden throughout the year will really help bumblebees (try helebores, winter aconite, mahonia, crocus, early daffodils, ribes and leave dandelions to flower in your garden too)
Shelter: Places for bumblebees to hibernate and take shelter in bad weather are key. They favour old mouse nests but may also use holes under sheds / in turf stacks. Some bumblebee species may also use bird nest boxes. Commercially bought bumblebee nests can be difficult to attract them but cheaper options include half-burying plant pots filled with dry grass.
Water: Shallow dishes of water are good for bees when filled with stones or gravel then they can’t drown. Consider floating large leaves / growing water lilies / star wart for flying insects to land on safely in your pond.
Other: No pesticides, weed killers, slug pellets, rat poison or other harmful chemicals in the garden.
More info: Bumblebee Conservation Trust
Hedgehog
How to spot them: They are rather noisy visitors and you may hear them through an open window if they’re visiting. They are most likely to visit between 11pm and 4am and might be in your garden any time between March and hibernation in November time.
Food: They can be fed on wet dog or cat food or high quality specialist hedgehog food but must not be given bread /milk or mealworms. They eat beetles and caterpillars so have a wild corner or two, as well as other areas of long grass, logs and stone piles.
Water: A shallow dish of water is perfect for hedgehogs. If you have a pond without shallow sides for hogs to climb out on – you can add a ramp.
Shelter: They may explore hedgehog boxes but will also look for undisturbed sites like leaf piles, compost heaps and bonfire stacks. Thick native hedging will also provide both shelter and food sources for them too.
Other: No pesticides, weed killers, slug pellets, rat poison or other harmful chemicals in the garden. Talk to neighbours about whether they have hedgehogs visiting and create a CD sized hole in the bottom of your fence so they can come and visit you. In autumn, always check bonfire piles before starting to light them.
More info: Hedgehog Street
Bat
How to spot them: Bats are nocturnal and like hedgehogs they also hibernate. Look for them in May onwards as the air temperatures warm up, silently hunting in the air above your garden.
Food: They will be looking for moths and other insects flying at night-time, so provide food for moths to feed will attract bats. Consider night pollinated flowers such as jasmine, evening primrose and tobacco plants. Moths also need shelter in the garden, so wilder areas, layers of vegetation and longer grass helps. Bats navigate using landmarks such as hedges so look after your hedges and help the bats by not cutting them too short.
Water: Bats hunt above ponds looking for prey such as mosquitoes.
Shelter: Bats will roost in mature trees, with hollows or woodpecker holes, or under hanging tiles and boarding on buildings. They will also roost in bat boxes if placed high enough on trees and buildings where we won’t regularly disturb them.
Other: Bats, in common with other nocturnal species (including their main food sources), are adversely affected by bright artificial light. Try leaving all outside lights off at night.
More info: Bat Conservation Trust
Ladybird
How to spot them: Ladybirds are generally brightly coloured and can be spotted on plants from spring onwards. Their larvae hatch from eggs and can be seen from late spring looking fierce and hunting for aphids! You might also see adult ladybirds hibernating in winter in hollow stems, vegetation or in your garden shed.
Food: Both the larvae and the adult ladybirds eat aphids and other small insects. Leaving such pests on your plants (for example on roses) will mean feeding ladybirds and therefore a better balance of nature in your garden. There are many different types of ladybirds and they eat different foods. Have a variety of microhabitats in your garden will support a greater range and number of ladybirds. Leave early dandelion flowers in your garden as they will look for pollen as they come out of hibernation. And leave early nettles to grow as a source of food for aphids.
Water: Ladybirds drink dew from plants. If you have ponds or standing dishes for water, have some stones at one end so that ladybirds can crawl back out if they fall in.
Shelter: Create a variety of homes for ladybirds and their food sources; log and stone piles, different lengths of grass and bare patches of soil in the sun and the shade. Try to avoid tidying the garden for autumn and winter and instead leave plants to die back and leaf litter on the ground. Have a wilder area that stays undisturbed all year round.
Other: Leave tidying and cutting back your borders until spring and the chance of frost has gone. Avoid using chemicals in the garden.
More info: UK Ladybird Survey
Swift
How to spot them: From April / May onwards through the summer look up for them in the sky and listen out for ‘screaming parties’ of swifts when they swoop down low in groups and screech! They have a light throat but are otherwise dark against the sky and have a short forked tail and scythe-like wings.
Food: They eat on the wing finding insects that fly or are carried up in the air. Wildflower rich grass is fantastic for creating the home for insects that swifts will eat. Have more long grass in the garden and allow more wildflowers to grow.
Water: Ponds are good for attracting insects. Swifts can drink rain drops in the air and also fly low over areas of still water to swoop and take sips.
Shelter: Swifts used to nest in holes in trees but have adapted to holes in buildings instead. They readily take to swift nest boxes and swift bricks built into new buildings. RSPB swift nest boxes can be bought online and mounted 5 metres up on the eves of your house. East-facing is best. The birds are very clean and only spend 12 weeks of the year in their nests returning to them each year from Africa.
Other: Swifts like to live in groups, if you can talk to your neighbours and each put up a nest box or three each! TV Ariel companies are worth asking about installing nests as they need to go high up on your house.
More info: Action for Swifts
p.s. thanks to David Bird for the Little Owl photo, Malcolm Brownsword for the Bumblee photo and to Wikipedia Commons for the other images.
