Help wildlife this winter by Sue Burch

The three basic needs of any living creature are water, food and shelter.  You can help provide water by placing a dish of water at ground level for mammals and birds to get a drink or, better still, a large bowl sunk into the earth if you can’t have a pond.

The food chain starts with the plants and they are necessary for nectar seeking insects; if you can leave some ivy to flower for late flying bees or add some early flowering plants such as pulmonaria when bees and insects can be observed moving from flower to flower on warm spring days.

The wildlife visiting the garden this spring and summer has been a delight for many of us and as the summer comes into autumn there is a tendency to tidy the garden.  However, areas left a little untidy can become havens for insects, shelter for small mammals and hedgehogs; there is plenty of scope for improving the habitat of your garden to sustain the wildlife over the coming months, for example by leaving a pile of logs or stack of brushwood at the back of the garden.

You could provide shelter for amphibians and reptiles by creating a hibernaculum in your garden.  A hibernaculum is the term for an underground chamber which creates the ideal amphibian hibernation area.  You can make one by using logs, branches, rocks and bricks, with spaces in between for frogs, toads and newts to crawl into.   This will help them to keep safe and warm during the cold winter months.