Birds, Mammals and Wildlife Gardening – attracting wildlife

Basically, all animals have the same instincts and if you can meet those instincts you can turn your garden into a place that wild visitors will find appealing.

The instincts are:

Hunger
Thirst
Shelter (which includes finding a safe place to raise young).

The easiest way to attract birds to your garden is to put food out for them, especially in the winter months when natural food is scarce. Once you start feeding you have to continue until the following spring because if you stop, the birds may starve - once they learn where to find food they'll keep coming back and they may find it difficult to locate new sources of food if they’ve got used to being supplied by you. Birds will take a variety of food, which you should put in a number of different places: on the ground, hanging from a tree, or on a bird table.

Birds and animals need to drink water all year round. A shallow dish or tray is sufficient, but birds also like to bathe in water, so the larger the container is, the better. An ideal way to provide water is to create a pond by digging out a hole with shallow and sloping sides so that if any animals (such as hedgehogs) fall in they can easily walk back out again. If you are keeping fish in the pond, it will need to be deep enough for the fish to swim well below the ice when the surface freezes over in winter. A pond will also provide a home for many other species such as frogs, newts, toads, dragonflies, damselflies and other insects. These, in turn, attract more birds, so you set up a virtuous circle which draws more species to your green spaces every year.

Birds, mammals and wildlife gardening pond photograph by Noel Lee, used under a creative commons attribution licence

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