As I am having to slow my bird feeding down until I get my doves sorted out, I am now turning my attention to suitable winter habitats for the other wildlife in my garden.
Up the road from where I live I have noticed in the grounds of a rather large house, they have been busy cutting down trees and have some huge stumps all piled up.
I had this idea (depending on whether the owner is willing) to obtain one or two stumps and use them as shelter. I thought I could drill holes in the bark to make homes for insects. In the summer I could use the stumps as bases for my tubs.
Before I go gamboling up to the owner are there trees which are more suitable than others. Obviously if they are cutting the trees down because of disease then I won't go ahead but is any tree bark suitable if healthy?
Regards
Kerry
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kezmo6310/
HI Juno,
You're a star! I've added it to my favourites, thank you!
Tree's stumps and any other decaying wood will be ideal to helps insects overwinter, you could even use bundles of straw which they'll also use. Its also worth checking out the info on the advice sections of the main website here.
L
Hi allI've been catching up with some of your other posts today - you are certainly busy gardeners! Think if I hired you all then I'd get my garden done much quicker :o)
There's some really interesting posts here, in case no one has spotted this yet, take a look at the new Homes for Wildlife blogs. Kezmo posted their question about decaying wood there to and you catch up with Adrian’s and my comments here.
You can get some good action points for providing dead wood in Homes for Wildlife Deadwood is one of the most important features anyone can have in a garden its also possible to provide it even if you only have a balcony! Decaying wood in ponds or at least hanging in them provides a niche for different aquatic invertebrates. For example, brown hawker dragonflies lay their eggs into decaying wood floating in ponds. It can also act as a means for wildlife to exit a pond. There’s a whole series of threads in the water features forum in the Community – check it out and please post some of the novel things you have been including in finishing off ponds such as providing dead wood, hibernacula for amphibians and so on. If you can include some pictures that would be great! I can see you’re all adapt at taking some really great shots and it does help people see what has been done.
There’s some novel ways of creating deadwood in a garden besides just log piles and leaving tree stumps. If possible, you can also create standing deadwood – check out my reply to Kezmo in the blogs.
Is yours a Home for Wildlife?Make your home and garden a better place for you and the wildlife that visits it. Click here and sign up today http://www.rspb.org.uk/hfw/
Hi John, thanks for the informative reply - my head is literally buzzing now with all the ideas you haven given on this post and I will definitely check out the blogs and water features.
Having a small problem in acquiring the tree sections as the people who live in the house are never in when we have tried to call but I'm not giving in yet. In fact I may have spotted another potential supplier (which is slightly trickier as the tree offcuts are sitting on the edge of a field and I don't know who owns it.....or alternatively there is alway the cover of darkness! obviously I am joking!) .
Hi Kezmo - have been catching up with this thread - we have been lucky to have lots of wood in our own garden that we can use. Here is a shot of one section which we have artistically named 'the legs'tistically We have two Dunnocks that spend more or less the whole day either on or around this particular piece of wood so assume there is plenty to eat there. Needless to say they disappeared as soon as I approached with a camera.
Hi lucybob,
Thanks for the photo - your "legs" look really great especially with the bark chippings. The wood looks pretty old so I should imagine there must be lots of insects on it and round it. This is exactly what I would like to do. We have a pile of wood which we have built up between the apple tree and shed but it's just a pile not big pieces of wood like yours. It works as I have often found it dislodged I assume from the birds or hedgehog. Then again it could be the mice as they live under the shed!
Lol! Love those legs!!
"All weeds are flowers, once you get to know them" (Eeyore)
My photos on Flickr
Mmmm - sometimes wonder if such things say more about us and less about our interest in wildlife. My husband refers to them as ladies legs and I say definitely mens - look how thick they are but quite a sexy pose!
Hi allThese posts about dead wood are really encouraging. For those of you engaged in this thread take a look at today's fantastic Homes for Wildlife guest blog Also, there's an intersting thread here and Wildlife Friendly has been showing some of the really great things they've been doing providing dead wood, drystone walls and re-cycling ridge tiles and bricks.
A friend was having some ancient estate hedge bottoms cleared out, and I begged a large chunk of decaying bole of a tree (but not with anything to harm our timber shed!) - she even had it delivered for us, and now it has ferns and bulbs planted around it, it is a focal point at the end of the garden as well as a home for "wee beasties".
Ospreys Rule OK, but Goldfinches come a close second!