Hedgehog houses
Hedgehogs really need our help. Their numbers have been in steep decline in recent years. They are often prevent from moving about to feed and escape danger by walls and garden fences, so leaving ground-level gaps in boundaries is great for connectivity. One step futher, a fun project can be making a safe place for them to sleep. To host your resisdent anti-slug patrol, they prefer a shelter which is:
- In a sheltered, shady spot, with dappled light About 40x40cm in size
- Has overhanging eaves or gutters to keep dry
- Has a door about 13cm across, with, with a porch to stop foxes and cats
- Some ventilation to prevent damp
Find more detail from the Wildlife Trusts
Bird feeding and houses
Helping birds through the more difficult times of the year can make a big difference, especially with there being reduced natural landscape around outside the city. It can also be very rewarding as you get to see them up close in all their beauty.
Find tips on what and when to feed garden birds, and other way to help, like making bird boxes, from the RSPB
Make a mess
Nature loves a mess, or beauty is in the eye of the beholder, either way, not tidying up gives more edges for wildlife find a way in.
- Leave piles of logs and sticks. These make a habitat for benficial insects and hedgehogs, amongst other things, all useful to keep slugs in check
- Leave dead trees and branches, where safe. These can be very beautiful, and a habitat to many bird species and their food
- Allow the lawn to grow longer . This will get less dry in hotter summers, and allowing the plants to grow longer provides habitat and flowers for pollinators, and can give any wildflowers the chance to self seed.
Here are other actions you can do to help insects, key to every food chain, and provide habitat for other animals from the Wildlife Trusts