Wildlife Garden Planting

This case study is a natural history ramble through our garden for wildlife:

Our garden is a remnant of an original 6 acre plot from the 1700s when it was an Oakley grocer’s smallholding and more recently where the labourers of the Stevington post-windmill lived. This now 0.6 acre L-shaped area of land backs onto arable fields and is cultivated as a wildlife friendly cottage garden.

The terrain across the whole garden gently slopes north-west and down towards the River Great Ouse. The ground being slow draining clay loam, rich in nutrients has at the time of writing January 2014, been soaked full of water from the hill of ditchless fields behind our cottage. At least it fills the old well near the front door. Not long after we moved here, Susan saw a mature grass snake slowly making its way along the hot ground right next to the edges of the huge rocks which form the foundations of the old part of the cottage. There was just enough time to notice the narrow yellow band around its neck. Grass snakes search for water in hot weather. This, and finding three common newts under a stone near the well, reawakened her childhood interest in wildlife.

Seasons being defined by changes in weather, day-length and temperature govern much of the wildlife amongst us. As Susan wished to attract wildlife, the need to develop suitable habitats with food, water and shelter were top of the list and she began to make note of the birds and other creatures who choose to visit the garden.

The back boundary hedgerow abuts an arable field attracting all kinds of birds and small mammals from the countryside around.  One Boxing Day Susan noticed the silhouettes of 12 birds enjoying the wintry morning sunshine from the tops of the boundary trees. We had planted more hawthorn, wild rose, spindle, holly, mahonia and guelder rose to compliment the blackthorn and elder hedge plants. Then we added field maple for height and colour to the existing elderly wild plums and young elm trees. Cow’s parsley and ivy grow around the bases of the trees. Their seeds are naturally brought in by the birds. By allowing some of the hawthorn to grow to full height, we now have a windbreak hedge for the garden and a wide enough wildlife corridor to link with neighbouring gardens. We have watched birds regularly move from one side of our garden to the other side using the hedge‘corridor’. Susan once watched a blackbird being chased by a sparrow-hawk across the garden. The blackbird threaded through the hawthorn trees trying to lose the sparrow-hawk and ended the chase by diving into the blackthorn at the far end, where the sparrow-hawk gave up and calmly flew on. The blackbirds are terrified of sparrow-hawks and owls and make loud alarm calls most summer evenings at dusk.

On the south east side there is a stand of ancient hazel, frequented by a robin and a wren. When we do cutting back in February we often find hazel nuts that have been rolled far away from the stand, under foliage or between flower pots. Under the hazel there is a large pile of rotting tree stumps which is home to many woodboring creatures. There are seven compost and leaf-mould bins in this area where Susan also allows a patch of stinging nettles to remain for butterflies’ larvael food. The boundary continues with more blackthorn, a holly and then a long hedge of yew which provides shelter for birds in winter. The holly holds the most popular nestbox in the entire garden, which great tits reserve early each year. There is then a huge walnut tree, another holly and a Judus tree filling the corner, with a tall box hedge covering the fence and providing overwintering for some insects. The song thrush sings from our highest trees, the walnut and the yew, while the great spotted woodpecker ascends and absails their branches. A carrion crow has been spotted flying out of the garden with a walnut in its beak.

A short path where the cock pheasant struts past the greengauge and some shrubs, brings us out at the top of a short slope next to the cottage. This is covered with nectar rich flowering bulbs and hellebores in spring and shaded by a golden gauge in summer. Fourteen goldfinches were once seen calling to each other from the greengauge branches to many more seen delicately pecking at the lichen growing on our thatched roof. Mosses grow all around and there brave bank voles dart out from underneath a fern,to collect fallen sunflower kernels in spring or early summer. They live in holes and short tunnels left from the decaying roots of two old apple trees. From the kitchen window,. Once Susan saw an extra large greenfinch fighting off other small birds trying to reach our newly filled sunflower heart feeder.

In 2007 Susan found two dead female stag beetles in the garden. They die after laying their eggs in rotting wood deep underground.  Sheonce saw a wren flitting around the well close by, It disappeared under the planted trough on top of the well for a moment then reappeared the other side. It must have been after hidden insects.

An early March morning

From the kitchen window a slight movement near the fence caught Susan’s attention. Was it a brown leaf moving in the breeze? No breeze. The profile of a brown bird perched on a rotting log, slowly twisted its body from one side to the other – a glimpse of red – a robin! Its beak was held high with its neck stretched out, standing perfectly still it then slowly twisted its body from side to side, six or more times. Then quickly flew to the near cover of yew.

Another cold still morning in dull light four Dunnocks were on top of the trellis. Two of them fluffed up and flicking their wings in a flash. The other two follow them with interest, keeping just a couple of feet away – awaiting their chance?

A variety of evergreen shrubs and ivies screen the next stretch of fence before the mature yew tree where,on several occasions, we have found hoards of yew berries stashed away in an old bird box. The yew tree seems to be the stopping off point from entry into the garden (deletion) on the way to the bird feeders. We think this is because we keep pollarding the willow and the yew is better cover being evergreen. One Christmas morning Susan noticed several long tailed tits calling from the yew. Although it is popular for daytime cover and for roosting, we have never had a nest box used for nesting there. Was the yew planted here many years ago to help keep the well water sweet?

One early afternoon in October our neighbours’ willow had forty to fifty starlings in the top of it. There was much squarking, with the occasional bird glide down to our yew tree and takinga berry back to the top of the willow. Another time Susanheard a song thrush, blackbird and starlings all calling from the willow at the same time.

Closeby is an old buxus hedge, cloud pruned and in an L shape, is used for summer roosting once our cats are inside for the night. The small lawn in this area is shadowed by the yew and frequented by a song thrush. On a cold morning Susan noticed a flash of brilliant olive and lemon colouring from a male greenfinch, then seven goldfinches well camouflaged while feeding on michaelmas daisy and evening primrose seedheads.

A small rarely used shed in a corner was chosen as the ideal place for a princess hornet to make her winter accommodation, a perfectly ‘planet venus’ shaped nest hanging on the inside of the roof. Susan watched carefully until she had vacated before taking it down to marvel at its delicate and painstaking construction.

The back of the garage, under the eves, had been a shortlived home for a grey squirrel. Nearby has always been several leopard slugs living on the wall of our outside toilet. There are also huge spiders, and last year a bumble bee nest in the cavity of its outside wall. They get in by moving tiny balls of soil into a heap outside the lowest piece of clapboarding. Mice sometimes fall into the toilet pan when the seat has been left up! Needless to say we have rodents in the garage after bird food stored there in the winter. Recently, Susan extracted a mouse from inside the sack of sunflower kernels. The mouse recognised escape so ran up the sleeve of her coat and jumped back into the garage. Maybe it was too cold and wet outside.

The forecourt is made up of unpointed granite setts, between which moss grows. The blackbirds and pheasant have been seen many times pecking this out to get at grubs. On returning home one snowy lunchtime in January, in the field opposite our entrance, a cock pheasant shook its head of snow from where it had been foraging and strutted towards a copse of trees. On our forecourt the freshly fallen snow bore the characteristic foot and dragged tail prints of the pheasant’s amble to and along our hedgerow before it crossed the road to the field.

A huge cherry tree provides shade and a perch for nestlings from the bird boxes on the garage wall. One Boxing Day Susan watched a pair of great spotted woodpeckers courting on the cherry tree, hopping from branch to branch, following each other and cocking their heads towards each other. Both were seen in the yew tree an hour later. The log pile beneath the cherry is naturally damp attracting blackbirds and wrens. Susan once found a winter store of cherry stones at the back of the woodshed and the remains of a mouse nest.

There is now only one old apple tree in the front lawn. We left the stump of the other one for the stag beetles we know we have there. In August a blackening wax cap toadstool was identified (Hygrocyte rescens).  Susan regularly puts out the ration of apples from our store on the lawns under trees for the many blackbirds we have here. In the front garden a mistle thrush has been seen feeding on these and several blackbirds at one time in the back garden under the boundary trees. On another occasion one late morning I saw a mistle thrush chasing a male blackbird away from the cotoneaster berries and crab apple trees in our neighbours’ garden.

November

The first frost of coming winter gently thaws in brilliant morning sunshine. A lone woodpigeon and a collared dove share the old apple tree as a perch. Their movements are torpid as they warm their chilled bodies. A dunnock perched atop the forsythia sings brightly and flits off to a richly berried cotoneaster tree.

The hawthorn hedge along the front boundary is popular with house sparrows especially when they dust bath in the gravel driveway. Susan found the nest of a long tailed tit in the hedge, good thing we left the hedge trim until later.

Neighbours’ plants benefit the winter visitors here. Susan has sat in her car watching winter visiting fieldfares strip the cotoneaster of its scarlet berries, while the resident blackbirds screech out their alarm call hoping they would depart. The same blackbirds covet the orange pyracantha berries and Susan has noticed that, given the choice, they will eek out the supply - making it last all winter. This happened in the autumn of 2013 when Susan heard that due to unexpected weather conditions over the north sea, avian winter visitors from the continent turned back. We have known a greenfinch to nest in the pyracantha.

Another boundary with a neighbouring garden features a long rustic trellis erected to support a wide variety of wildlife friendly climbers to two metres with shrubs below. The climbers include ivy, which is good for roosting, nesting wrens and robins. There are honeysuckles for night flying moths. There is a wide gravel path all along this trellis planting which receives windblown and bird deposited seeds. Some of these has been allowed to develop into plants and there have been some interesting observations and surprising plant combinations to enjoy.

A dewy sunny morning in March. A goldfinch grabs a vertical stem of brilliant yellow forsythia as it lands. A quick movement closeby in honeysuckle and an equally brilliant blue tit is observed pecking at its stems. Then it pulls off a piece of honeysuckle bark and then a second piece. When it has gathered three pieces it flew off to maybe a nest closeby.

One summer Susan heard fluttering inside the climbers at dusk and previously we have heard and seen hedgehogs rummaging through leaves along the back hedge but not since 2010. As there are many badgers with territory here, We know that as some badgers get a taste for hedgehogs this could be another cause of hedgehogs becoming very rare here. Last year a novice blackbird started to build her nest in the honeysuckle just half a metre off the ground. In mid February at 3 degrees C atnoon the sun came out and a brimstone butterfly was seen by the warming fence. An hour later a female bullfinch was in the apple tree.

At the far end of the garden, is another shed frequented by mice in winter which nibble the dried material stored there for decorations. Close by are two water-butts and a large compost bin for garden refuse and lawn cuttings. All our home-made compost bins are in the shade. However we still make enough compost to mulch the entire garden each spring.

The body of the rest of the garden comprises areas of lawn and deep flower and shrub borders and beds, filled with mainly wildlife-attracting and scented plants. Goldfinches have been seen feeding from the uppermost seedheads of an evening primrose stem. A mistle thrush calls from the cotoneaster tree. On a cold sunny morning at about 9am, Susan walked into the garden because she heard blackbirds sounding alarm calls. She saw twenty to thirty fieldfares flying up from the herbaceous area into the trees and hedgerow and a few into the neighbouring allotment. Cotoneaster berries were the attraction.

In recent years Susan has seen a toad, but more often the disturbed soil marking the top of its wintery ‘grave’. She is careful not to tread there so as not to damage it while it is hibernating underground. In this quiet area next to the yew hedge, on the edge of a border and following snow, She uncovered a small piece of limestone: the ‘anvil’ of a song thrush, surrounded by the remains of thirty eight banded snails in pink, brown and yellow. Another February on a slab of concrete next to the water butt were the remains of a couple of dozen banded and garden snail shells. The pergola beds are deeply shaded and frequented by the song thrush. Here Susan has found that hercarefully chosen and placed ‘anvil’ stones, hadbeen used to break many different kinds of banded snails.

There is another old apple tree with honeysuckle climbing through it where blue tits nest and a robin sings. Nearby is a mature laburnum which attracts many bees when it is in flower, so many that you can hear them before you see them. It seems that each time Susan goes into the garden and notices that the bird feeders are empty, the birds are making a loud noise. They have a different kind of an occasional high pitched call when she returns with fullfeeders and hangs them back in position.

There are green shield bugs in the garden which often hitch a lift on my gardening jacket after an afternoon of working in the garden.

The cottage has virginia creeper along one wall where greenfinches have nested in the past. A wren chose to make her nest inside the apex of the porch and you could clearly see the nestlings from the front door. As the cottage is in the centre of the garden, our windows look out in all directions across the garden, neighbours’ gardens and the surrounding countryside. In winter we have often watched the spotted woodpecker move around the garden from tree to tree. And at night, when it is quiet, we can hear the owl screech right outside the dining room and kitchen windows as it flies around the cottage. Our cats have been known to bring live woodmice inside in January.

A bird table on the patio the south of the cottage attracts reed buntings in snowy weather. The first time Susan saw this she thought it was like a sparrow and got the binoculars and bird book out. Since then we have seen a fearless pair and more recently two pairs of buntings feeding together here at other times of year. At the same bird table we have seen blackbirds, five starlings all on it at once in November and a lone yellowhammer one early summer. Two male blackbirds with chest feathers puffed out and tail feathers fanned squabbled (deletion) one morning in November.

In the early 2000s we had a hot summer and one quiet afternoon Susannoticed a young grass snake against the cottage wall. We have an old water-filled well a couple of yards away, which may have attracted it. There is a pile of limestone rocks close by which it might have been using for safety.

The main lawn is another centre of activity. One snowy night from upstairs windows, we watched a fox stroll across the main lawn and around to the other side of the house. Three house sparrows were seen feeding together on the grass seeds of the turf in November.

We always look forward to nest box cleaning day when we find out which boxes we have sited in the correct places and which species has nested there. Both front garden apple trees and two of the three sparrow houses have had nests in them. Also in the willow, yew and two nest boxes on the pergola.

Snow

Susan can see that the larger birds have been so hungry that their pecking has broken up the compacted snow beneath the bird feeder. Where the dog fox has trotted you can see where a possible injury to a leg has caused it to drag in the snow.

Fox regularly visit the garden as wefind their poo in different locations and especially near where bird seed has fallen.  Two cock pheasants were seen fighting on a cold morning, their steamy breath rising in puffs of hot air! We like the way we can see further into the garden in February, when all the herbaceous perennials have been cut to the ground and the grass is a luminous green in the low light with the skeletons of our trees set against the sky. In spring the blackbirds hop and peck their way over the grass. By contrast in summer, the cottage is surrounded with tall leafy trees, colour, scent and birdsong. The main lawn is regularly used by blackbirds and starlings for feeding and by a magnificent green woodpecker from time to time.

In summer a skylark can sometimes be seen singing high in the sky overhead. When a buzzard or red kites wheel, all the birds dive for cover.

From the back door in October we have witnessed the return of the geese flying low over our cottage in formation, calling excitedly to each other, heading north towards the church and then turning towards the east.

Habitats: It is these different habitats and the way they work together which have made this garden such a wildlife success. General habitats are for all the ground dwelling creatures, many of which are food for other creatures and attract these in. Sites which attract: borders and beds of plants. Lawns for birds. Leaf pile. Log pile. Home made compost heaps. Large flat stone with gaps to creep underneath. Damp area. Wildlife pond with shallow sides. Dead wood,twigs which have been allowed to accumulate in a quiet corner of the garden. Access between gardens, under fences or gates. Specific: Dead tree for woodpeckers.

Our garden has been planted with many plants of all kinds to attract wildlife by providing food, safety, shelter, hibernation and nesting sites. Susan has noticed that cover for insects, mammals and birds from predators is essential to having and seeing wildlife to observe and enjoy. Fresh water must also be nearby or provided and shade in summer provides moisture and a damp environment many creatures need to survive and thrive.

Food is needed for all the months of the year that the particular creature are not in hibernation or overwintering. Putting out food for adult birds helps keep their energy levels up while they are frantically searching for enough insect food to feed their fledglings.

Wildlife needs safety: from predators.

Shelter: from strong wind, heavy rain, intense cold.

Hibernation sites and for overwintering: Toads in the soil, snails in nooks and crevices in shade, slugs in flower pots.

Nesting: the suitability of a nest site for different creatures has different but cruital characteristics if there is to be success.