Wherever you live, your garden can be a haven for wildlife. Particularly during the winter, local wildlife can find life quite difficult, and anything that you can do to help wildlife to flourish in your own garden is great. You may be surprised at the nature haven that you create! Not only is it great for wildlife but also a rewarding thing for you and if you have any children, will help to encourage an understanding and respect for nature form an early age.
Spending time in the garden during the winter months is great – having an outdoor space where you can spend time is perfect, if you have a shed you could convert it to your own nature room – use it to store bird seed, nature books, a small chair inside makes it a great place to relax and de-stress. Shepherd huts from https://www.cotswoldshepherdshuts.co.uk/ also are great additions to the garden that make it fun to enjoy all year round.
One visitor you may well attract to your garden is the hedgehog. At this time of the year, food is scarce, and hedgehogs are looking for something to eat and drink and a place to sleep! Providing food for a hedgehog may well make it a regular visitor to your garden. Tinned meat cat food and dog food and also dog biscuits and cat biscuits are perfect for hedgehogs, or you can also buy special hedgehog food if you wish to.
Leave a bowl of water down for your spiky visitor to drink as well. They will also look for somewhere to sleep – piles of leaves and logs are ideal nesting places and also provide them with another source of food – slugs that live in these areas are one of the favourite foods of a hedgehog. Make sure that you don’t put any slug pellets down, as these are deadly to hedgehogs.
Hedgehogs typically hibernate between November and March and will have hopefully stored enough fat to see them through the winter. If you are tidying in your garden during this time, take special care not to disturb piles of leaves or logs, as you may be awakening a sleeping hedgehog! If you are mowing or strimming, make sure you check the area thoroughly first.
Birds are also a wonderful garden visitor and need help in the winter as food supplies are lower. Providing a bird table and an assortment of wild bird food, fat balls and nuts will attract plenty of feathered guests to your garden where they will also entertain you with their antics and acrobatics on the bird table.
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