A birdbath will transform your feeding station into a bird spa.
We continue our series on making our gardens great for wildlife.
Water is really important at this time of the year. You may think that because we live in a wet place there is lots of water for birds available, but of course it is also really cold – especially this year – and birds will find puddles frozen and they cannot drink seawater so anything you put out for them is a huge plus.
The best thing to put out is a birdbath. Here are the important characteristics of a birdbath. It is so simple you will have one up in not time at all.
Shallow enough for birds to bathe in.
Clean water – rainwater is best, but if not, you can fill it from the garden tap.
Finally, not frozen. To defrost your birdbath, pour hot water into it every morning. DO NOT ON ANY ACCOUNT PUT IN ANTIFREEZE OR SALT. you can also float stick in the bath. This helps to keep the water moving and not get frozen, so they say. I just put the kettle on and do it as part of the morning ritual as I make coffee.
That’s it, sooooo easy.
You can use any contained or create a small pond using pond liner. My first birdbath was the old baby bath which was no longer used for the boys when they outgrew it. You can fill it with stones to decrease its depth. I also use old bowls, dishes, etc, as long as it is large enough for a bird to have a splash in.
Often people have birdbaths which are placed a little higher in a predator (cat) proof place, so the birds can have a peaceful bath.
Clean the bird bath regularly.
Enjoy watching your feathered friends enjoy themselves.
This article was written by me, Stephanie Sim. I worked in the RSPB for ten years and have worked as a Steiner teacher for almost nine. Together with Jonathan McMurray we both have almost 20 years of educational and forest school experience between us. If you are interested in finding out more about the Forest School sessions we run for your child/ren, school, organisation or club, please contact us at hello@elementsschool.net
Snow bunting, photo by Anthony McGeehan, painting by Stephanie Sim
It is a tough time of year for anyone. Our wildlife friends have found it more and more difficult over the passing years as fields are gleaned for every seen and hedge thrashers remove any sustenance from the edges. Urban gardens are increasingly oases for animals to survive over the winter as the very forests are also decimated to be replaced by coniferous plantations which don’t do any awful lot for biodiversity.
So you want to help… what can you do? Even if you have a very very small garden or no garden at all, here are some simple things which won’t cost you a lot of £££. Remember that once you start KEEP GOING. Don’t disappoint the animals who have come to rely on you.
Leftovers:
Fruit which is about to go off or which has been sitting in your bowl for an overly long time is a good offering. Share apples, pears and berries. I’ve heard that birds are partial to watermelon as well!!!
You may cut them in half or just chuck them out. Thrushes are mad for them. You could have blackbirds, fieldfares, redwings and song as well as mistle thrushes flocking to you garden.
Breadcrumbs and scraps of cake, etc are also good. If you have a birdtable so much the better. You can make one as a gift for a friend or as a gift for the wildlife in your garden. You could also just SET UP a birdtable. All you need is a tallish structure which is rat proof (think plastic), and a little flat surface. Take your bits of cheese and bread from your breakfast table and put them there. You can also buy bird food for birds which find it hard to hang off feeders like blackbirds and robins
2. Birdfeeders
This is the most ubiquitous image of wildlife care. If I have any advise to give you regarding beginner level bird feeding, it is the following:
a. A simple feeder is just as good as a fancy feeder. Birds have no idea what you paid for the feeder. Just get a simple one if you are starting off. You can get a peanut feeder and a seed feeder. The above is a seed feeder. A peanut feeder looks like this.
b. The important thing about feeders is that you must keep them CLEAN. So a simple feeder is much better than a fancy feeder. Please resist the tempation to buy a fancy one until you have found your birdfeeding groove.
Wash them every two weeks with a bottle brush, just hot water and the brush. No need for soap, etc. If you don’t keep them clean they become ground for breeding the botulism bacteria especially in the summer. Birds that die from the botulism bacteria die slow painful deaths as their organs shut down. So wash your feeders. (Incidentally it is also the same bacteria which is used in botox. So, now you know.)
c. A bird table is a good idea if you want to feed birds that cannot cling to feeders – anything which isn’t a tit or finch. Robins can just about do this. But anything else, apart from the acrobatic jay and enterprising squirrel will be unable to use a feeder.
2. Feed
And now the vexing question of feed. There is no two ways about it, if you are putting out 5 kg of feed a day the birds will eat 5 kg of feed, so don’t try and keep up with them or you will be very broke. There is a reason why sparrows were considered vermin (actually, criminally, they still are.)
Put out what you can but do it daily.
Here are some other top tips:
a. Do not, and I repeat NOT, buy birdfood with wheat it in. It a waste of time and money, unless you are planning to grow wheatfield in your garden. The birds will either poop it out or just throw it out. I spent many an amusing morning watching the tits chuck out the wheat grains and just take the other seeds. Also the rats wait under feeders for their wheatfeed.
b. Sunflower seeds, mealworms, etc are all good. All birds love this. You can also get them fatballs and bird ‘cake’.
c. Nyger seeds are the next level of birdfeeding. Only get this if you have goldfinches in your garden. They will need their own biredfeeder.
3. Where to set it up
For the best out of your birdfeeder do the following:-
a. Place your bird feeder at a convenient height so you can reach it to change it. Make sure your cat can’t get at it. So there should be good lines of sight for your birds. I have a cat btw, it has learned there is no point chasing the birds because they will be long gone by the time he gets there.
b. If you have a shrub like a buddleigh or a medium sized tree, this is quite good because the birds can skulk in the shrubbery until they feel safe enough.
c. Put the feeder near enough to a window so you can observe the birds. There are even feeders you can buy that ATTACH to windows. Watching them is the BEST THING EVER!!!!
d. Finally, be patient. It can take up to a week or more if birds don’t know about the feeder. It can take a while to establish itself. However, once it gets going they will be there everyday and if you don’t put food out they will come along and wait until you do!
We have had an amazing month. We have made ink, charcoal, cordage, bows and arrows, held a birthday party already and had more than twenty children through our doors. We have soil tested, counted up frogs, learned how to clear dead wood and remove ivy. And we have only just started.
Thank you to everyone who has been so supportive, especially Joan Woods and Tina Kearsting, our fairy godmothers – without them nothing would have been possible. And of course, the elementals themselves, who have been with us every step of the way. Thank you guys!
Part of our mission is to do some serious Citizen Science – this consists of ordinary people taking part in data gathering or helping scientists do things like figure out complex and puzzling problems. This has been used for everything from doing wildlife surveys to spotting new black holes.
Tomorrow we will be counting the Frogs and hopefully spotting a Smooth Newt or two, in order to start a record of the wildlife on the site.
This is a smooth newt… I’m sure we can all agree it looks much like a dragon… but much smaller
However, we aren’t JUST doing Citizen Science. We are also doing habitat restoration. This will consist of pruning ivy off trees which are being strangled by the creepers. As lovely as ivy is, it is not great for the trees. So we will be out with pruning saws to give our beautiful trees a chance.
Pruning Ivy
And we will also be lighting a fire in the Main outdoor area and perhaps even giving it a name. It is all go for our first day. Yes it is fun to be outside, but it is also satisfying to be giving back. I do hope you will be able to join us.
This tree is going to be too large for an average sized suburban garden Think about how large it needs to be before you go out and get an oak, chestnut, etc…
It may be too late to plant a wildflower meadow, but you can think about native plants. And you usually put them in late winter, so you can start planning for where you want to put your new friends.
We start with trees because they are the structural bit of the garden. It is like having a frame to then hang things one. Trees are that frame.
Shrubs/Hedges/Small Trees
Hazel
If you have a regular sized suburban garden whatever you do, do not put in a proper tree. Think beech (which isn’t native anyway but naturalised), oak, chestnut, etc. That is a tree. Do not put one in unless you are prepared to keep it in check.
Instead go with more modest plants like hazel, elder, rowan (the elements’ tree!), cherry, hawthorn, birch, etc.
Try and get a tree which bears fruit.
Shady Trees
Alder
Trees which grow in the shade or in watery type habitats are alder, willow and blackthorn. I mention these because they aren’t too large.
These trees also produce leaf litter which are great for mulching and insects.
Fruit trees
You discover something new every year. So this year I discovered that my overripe fruit was being used by insects and when they fell on the ground, worms, etc would eat them. Having a native fruit tree is such a pleasure.
Here is the cherry tree in my garden
Here is the fruit it gave (some strawberries mixed in there!)
Where to put them?
As far away from the house as possible. A tree’s roots grow as far as their crowns. So think about what your tree looks like and if it has a huge crown, it will have a massive root system. It makes sense right – except for beeches. I have seen innumerable numbers of beeches upended in storms because of very shallow root system. So be careful when choosing your tree – just stay away from very large trees.
The smaller shrubs can be used to make an interesting hedge that bears lots of fruit. A fantastic planting to try is: dogrose, hawthrown, blackthorn, hazel and elder. The elder can get out of hand so make sure you keep it control at all times. This hedge will give you a lot of beautiful flowers through the year, smell amazing in the summer and give the birds and insects plenty to be happy about until the dog days of winter.
Fruit trees like cherries and plums can be the centre pieces of a garden. Use them to ‘anchor’ plantings. you could have two fruit trees (no more) in a regular sized suburban garden, and then have a pond and some smaller plants amongst them. The fruits then can be shared between you and your wildlife.
Remember trees give shade – so think about the amount of shade you can live with.
Where to get them from?
You can contact local garden centres to ask them about their native tree stock. You can also ask Conservation Volunteers, although I have heard that they tend to order their stock from abroad. But ask around. I got my trees from a garden centre and friends!
Good luck! Never too early to start planning for what trees/shrubs you are planning to put in over the winter!
So now you should have figured out what your garden does through the year for sunshine and shade, AND you know the type of soil which you have. Unless you invest heavily in infrastructural changes, then you are going to have to work with what you have. This is yet another great thing about native plants. They already have this place sussed out!
Do not worry if you have only concrete – you can still have a garden that attracts wildlife. I’ll talk about that right at the end.
A field of common wildflowers
Rethink the lawn
I really want you to rethink the lawn. The idea of the lawn came from the 18th century when people had too much money and time – made from usually very questionable sources (think sugar plantations in the Caribbean, just sayin’). The time for the lawn is now past. It is a green desert, a waste of space. It is also full of chemicals, sprayed on to keep plants which are good for bees, spiders, butterflies, away. WHY???!!! There is no reason apart from it is ‘tidy’.
If you do have a lawn, and cannot bear to let the entire thing go, then you could do it in small spaces and create ‘artistically wild’ spaces. So let it grow out in patches. You can now see this in the more enlightened councils where they let the grass verges grow out to host a plethora of grasses and wildflowers such as cuckoo’s flower and corn marigolds.
The flowers we have in them are so important for wildlife – dandelions and nettles are also edible for us and really good for us too (although if you are planning to do this, make sure your land has been free of chemicals for a few years.) But there is nothing lovelier than seeing the once barren and tired lawn now covered in clover, buttercups and daisies buzzing with bees.
Also, they are way easier to maintain. Just cut it two or three times during the growing season. Put a sign in your lawn saying it is an Ark.
Wildflower meadow
Beautiful and costly but well worth it
If you really want to go the whole hog, then you could replant the laws as a wildflower meadow. Or you could do just the edges, or again in patches.
Before I get into this, you must know that the time for planting wildflower meadows is past. You need to do this either in late winter but I much prefer doing it in early spring. Around March. This is because I once planted it in the autumn and we had such a rotten spring that all the seeds rotted and we had next to nothing.
So, plant it around March/April. Nothing later.
Here is how you get a foolproof wildlife garden.
Rotivate the soil. This is the hard part. You can dig it with kids as well. I have found that if you don’t do this, then you don’t get nice seeds. If you are a no dig philosophy, then wildflower gardens will have to come naturally for you.
Get a good wildflower mix.Ecoseeds is a great place to go to. Make sure they send you native Irish mixes. They are expensive because they are tedious to collect, but Eco Seeds’ mixes are more or less foolproof. However, once you have put them in, you don’t mow the lawn for the entire season. Think about that. It pays for itself and it is so very very pretty. Whatever you do, do NOT buy them from those cheap discount stores. They are mostly sawdust.
Make sure you have the right soil. Many wildflowers are for arable soil – that’s how they started anyway. If you have wet, clayey soil, it is not going to work. Much better you think about having a pond instead. how do you find out what kind of soil you have? Walk out into the garden on a dry day. If you socks start filling with water, you have clayey soil. Grass does badly in clayey soil anyway. You cannot get it to grow.
Make sure you have loads of sunlight. You cannot plant a wildflower garden in a dark shady place. Opt for plants which thrive in the shade e.g. comfrey, borage and alkanet. I’ll talk more about these tomorrow.
How to put in a wildlife garden
Between mid March and April, rotivate (till) the soil.
Remove all the grass and weeds. The soil needs to be nice and clean. Yes, it is a real hassle, but if you have an army of children, or even one or two, they will enjoy doing this.
Make sure the soil’s texture is nice and crumbly – you may need to sift the soil. Mulch it, etc.
Scatter seeds. They will come with instructions about how much per sq metre. Then, using a straight rake (borrow one, or buy one, it is a worth while investment), gently rake the seeds into the soil. It should only go down like a little less than an inch. Do not rake them in too deeply… they will struggle to get out.
Get a board out – like an old plank and place it on top of the soil and step over it. Or you could let the kids jump on the plank – they love this bit. This helps the seeds to bed in and stops them from flying away. Or eaten by birds.
Water it. Keep it moist, but not soaking. Never let seeds dry out when they are growing. Once they are established, they are a little hardier.
Now, you just WAIT. The first shoots should be out in two weeks time and in a month’s time you should see them come up about three inches or so. They will grow like the proverbial weeds over May and by June you should have some flowers.
If you want to mix out own mix of wildflower here are some you can get in a garden centre and DIY it yourself.
Cornflower, nastursium, sunflowers, calendula, poppies, foxgloves (these are poisonous, so be careful).
Nettles
So I have to say something for the nettle. It gets so much of bad press but it is hands down one of the best plants to grow for the garden. You just need to keep it in check. You can also use the leaves for mulch. It is full of great good things for the garden. plants like the nettle bring up the nutrients in the soil to the surface where you can reuse them.
Plus all kinds of insects love them. If you have them growing in your garden, consider yourself lucky. Just create a good corner for them – they love the shade. Let them live there. Sure what were you going to do with it anyways?
Red Admirals, an endangered species of butterflies, loves them.
OK, that’s how to destablish a lawn, grow a wildflower meadow and become an advocate for nettles.
You can then do flower ID, and insect ID with the kids. Press flowers, make pictures, create presents using resin, etc…
OK, so may you don’t want to redesign your entire garden and just want to have a few manageable changes.
Here are three things you can do to make the garden a better place.
Let it go
Allow corner of your garden to ‘go’. This means selecting corners of your garden which can become places you can left leaf litter pile up, leave your sweepings and compost, let go a little wild. This will encourage insects and earthworms, and in turn this will help birds. If it is possible a nettle patch will also do wonders.
Nettles are good for gardens
Sadly nettle have a bad rep, but they are a really important plant for butterflies and moths who lay their eggs on them. They are also very good to eat! (But only in spring). And their seeds can be collected and sprinkled on salad for a peppery taste.
Other things you can do – delay time between cuts. Let your lawns grow out a bit. The clover and dairies are very good for bees and other pollinators. And the grass harbours spiders and other insects, which is good for birds.
Finally, let your hedges grow out. You are not allowed to cut your hedges between March and October anyways. I know it doesn’t look great, but I can promise you loads of wildlife are using it.
Feed the birds
OK, so you don’t think having a wild garden is your thing. But you can feed the birds. By the way, all of the above will provide plenty of natural food for birds, but if you want to set up a birdfeeder, do so.
Here are some tips on how to feed birds. Just so you know, birds now have plenty of food in the wild so they won’t come to your feeders as much. They don’t tend to feed their young grain, but eat it for themselves. The young are given insects.
Get a birdfeeder. A simple one. The one above is a peanut feeder. The birds which will gravitate towards it will be the tits and starlings. If you get a seed feeder you will also get the same, but also the finches. Like chaffinch and greenfinch. It takes about two weeks for a feeder to get established. Once it is, keep topping it up – your birdy friends will rely on it. I tend not to top it up in the summer though. I’d start around mid October when food is scarcer.
Give them your leavings. Birds are happy with crumbs, literally. If you have crumbs or leftovers, and have a high enough table to leave them on to deter rats and mice, you can leave them there.
Make sure whatever you leave out for them has no salt.
3. Finally you can give them your old fruit. Apples, soft fruit, etc all can be left in a corner of a garden for insects and birds to discover. I just tend to throw mine out towards the back and the blackbirds and other thrushes will find them.
Build a bug hotel
If you leave your garden wild, bug hotels come naturally to it. But you can make ones if you prefer to have a more organised garden.
The principle is simple… bits of wood and straw to enable the bugs to live and feed. This is a great example of a bug hotel and you can build it using leftover scraps. Make sure that the wood you choose is untreated or has been weathered.
So here are three things you can do without having to massively redesign your garden. Tomorrow, we start with looking at things we can do to create a garden for wildlife.
We take a short break now, just in case you are losing the motivation to do this, to say why we should garden.
Gardening is good, for start. Children especially love gardening and if you can start gardening early it is a serious life skill which they will have and be able to pass on. Growing things, being outside, getting exercise, using different tools, working with the seasons… the list goes on. Then you can grow your own food. I mean what is there to NOT like about gardening?
But gardening for wildlife? That’s even better.
It is not pretty much shown that there is MORE biodiversity in suburban and urban gardens than there is in the countryside and farmland. This is because there are more variations in garden habitat than there is in farmland. Gardens are now an important lifeline for not only our local birds, but migrant ones as well.
Why is biodiversity important? It is important because it creates resilience in the environment. A biodiverse habitat is one which is healthier on every level. Birdsong, bees, flowers, insects… they create a sense of life which in turns give us a sense of life. Think about a humming patch of brambles compared to a concreted over garden. I think you know what I mean.
Planting leeks
So here are some dos and don’ts for gardening for wildlife
Do start small. I have given a masterplan and once this bit is done you can start seeing where you can begin. Keep working on the masterplan for a couple of days to get to REALLY KNOW you garden. If it is very large garden section off an area which you want to transform. A small win is much more heartening than running out of puff half way and having nothing to show for it.
Do be patient and have faith. When you garden you work with the fourth dimension – time. This is very difficult, especially if you are a new gardener and have no idea what you are doing. But start small and manageable. Do things which have easy wins (I’ll go through this as we go along.)
Do use native plants. Where possible, use native plants. Now this does not mean ripping out old established exotics, as they are called. Keep them especially if you love them and they are adding to the garden. But when you are getting in new plants make sure they are native. Here’s why:-
Native plants do better in this climate. (Yes, that is just so obvious, right?)
If they escape they will not become an invasive nuisance.
They just support a better range of wildlife. It has been shown that native plants tend to support up to four times more wildlife, especially insects.
They decompose better.
Their leaves can be composted and/or used as mulch. Exotics tend to take much longer to decompose and can end up clogging your garden.
Start simple. If you have no idea what a tool does, do not buy it. Work with what you know.
Invest in a beginner’s gardening book and a gardening journal. Even get one aimed at children – this way you can both learn together! A gardening journal will help you record what you have done if you have a poor memory. It is also a great way to chart your progress, success and failures.
Do enjoy it! Please, enjoy gardening. If it is too much hard work, just get a birdfeeder. I will talk about some easy wins in my next posting, in case you don’t want to go an an all out assault on the garden.
Here are the don’ts
Don’t use any kind of -cide Whatever happens, DO NOT ever use any kind of herbicide or pesticide. These are deadly to wildlife. Salting, slug pellets, Roundup, etc… they are bad for the wildlife and really REALLY bad for the soil.
Don’t think of weeds as weeds We are now rethinking our dandelions, buttercups and daisies, nettles, dock and willowherb. Manage them so that they are part of your garden, rather than pulling everything out. It will save you time as well! They are critical to wildlife and biodiversity. Learn to live with them.
Don’t spend loads of money Gardening is not meant to be an expensive hobby. Share everything – from seeds to tools and information. One of the best places to go to is an allotment to get information of how you could do things. Join a local gardening club. They will have loads of good ideas for you too!
I’m sure I have left out loads of things, so if you have any ideas, leave it in the comments section below!
Have you decided the kinds of animals you’d like to attract? Good. Now before we take a look at the plants, we need to look at your site. The site and the wildlife – plus what else you want out of your site and the work you want to put into it – will determine the kind of garden you will have.
Taking a look at the site is a lesson in mini geography.
Draw a map
Draw a map of your site. It doesn’t have to be to scale, just in the right shape. Make sure you have key features in the site. It should include
Your house
Fences/ Borders
Any other important features like oil tank, a pond if you have one, seating area, paths, levels, decking, etc.
Where the sun rises and sets THROUGH THE YEAR. This is called the ASPECT
Wind direction
A word about Aspect
Aspect is the most important factor in the garden. It will determine what kinds of plants you have and it may even determine you reconfiguring the garden. When you do the aspect you may discover that your shed is in the sunniest part of the garden, which is a waste of space.
How to do aspect?
Get your compass points – N, S, E,W.
The East is where the sunrises and it then travels to the West, mostly in the Southerly direction. This is why South facing sides are sunnier, better, warmer. You really want a South Facing garden.
This about how the sun travels in the winter AND the summer. Is there any part of your garden that is in permanent shadow? Is there a part which gets lots of wind?
Shade all of this on your map.
Soil, etc
Now you are ready for the last bit. Look at your soil.
Is it clayey? Retains lots of water? Sandy? Lets the water drain out.
Soil can be easily improved over the course of the year. You can do this by mulching. This is introducing compost to sandy soil.
You can also introduce sharp sand into clayey soil – although this is harder. Once you have done this, you are ready to move to the next step.
Here is a complete garden plan
You don’t have to do a super complicated plan. Just get to know your garden. I suggest you spend about three days doing this in short bursts – like half an hour each. This is because ideas will come to you as you do this.
Vision board
Get a vision board or a little folder which you keep ideas as well. Collect these as you get to know the kinds of wildlife you’d like to attract.
Tomorrow: The Benefits of Gardening and Wildlife Gardening
Sometimes it is hard to know where to begin with creating a wildlife garden. But nothing could be simpler. Today we have a rainy day and gardeners love planning on rainy days.
I will walk you through how to do this.
Rule No 1: Have a variety of habitats
Wildlife gardens are mini ecosystems, so you need to have different types of places for your creature friends to live. Any garden, no matter how small can be a wildlife garden. You just need to have different types of places which support different types of wildlife.
Transition Stirling
So, first think about the types of wildlife you’d like to support with your garden.
Soil: Earthworms, beetles, woodlice. Some people love snails and slugs, and that’s fine, but you then have to bear in mind to garden so that they don’t destroy your efforts
Pond life: Frogs (frogs in slugs btw), water invertebrates like beetles, etc (for some people with larger ponds you could have dragonflies and damsel flies)
Birds: Garden birds and migrant passerines and thrushes like blackcaps and fieldfares
Mammals: Hedgehogs
Tomorrow: What kind of plants would you like to have?
