On this day that only slips into our lives once every four years, it is fitting that we should look at something truly important.
The results of our second annual Wildlife Census – which we asked you, our readers, to conduct by recording the species you spotted in your garden during June 2019 – have come out and they make fascinating, if salutary, reading.
With the exception of specialised environments such as mountain and moorland or the seashore, our gardens have become the most accurate barometer of the state of the nation’s wildlife.
So monitoring what is actually there has become essential if we want to know how bad – or good – things really are.
Monty Don leans against a tree by his beehive. Growing wild flowers will help the bee population thrive
Then, from that knowledge, we can take action. The really good news is that the most relevant and helpful action can be done by everybody, almost without any extra expense, in their back gardens.
So let’s take stock. The survey looks at 58 creatures, from mammals such as weasels, foxes, hedgehogs and bank voles to all the common garden birds, as well as reptiles, insects, butterflies and, for the first time, earthworms.
Good news on the latter, by the way – 77 per cent of respondents recorded seeing earthworms in their gardens and, as regular readers of my column will know, earthworms are one of the gardener’s greatest friends as they mean your soil is good and, as a result of their work, will get even better.
22% The seven-spot ladybird is the nation’s biggest wildlife winner – sightings increased by almost a quarter on our previous survey
Other positive news is that ladybird and green shield bug sightings are appreciably up – but I’m afraid that’s about it.
There are 16 other creatures, including lacewings, goldfinches, bumblebees, starlings and pipistrelle bats, that are up – but all by low, single-figure percentages on 2018’s results.
The most common birds are, not surprisingly, blackbirds, robins, blue tits and house sparrows, with the vast majority of people reporting their presence in their garden.
These are essentially woodland birds that have adapted incredibly well to gardens, and long may that last.
The good news is that more than a quarter (28 per cent) of the nearly 8,000 people who took part in the survey saw a hedgehog in their garden last year and numbers are holding steady
Tips for a wildlife friendly garden…
Birds such as blackbirds (pictured) will be attracted to insects
■ Insects are the base of the pyramid upon which the health of our wildlife population is built, so make your garden a haven for them.
The easiest way to do this is to take The Wildlife Trusts’ Action For Insects pledge (visit wildlifetrusts.org) and stop using chemicals or sprays.
These do far more harm than good, are expensive and largely ineffectual in anything but the shortest term.
■ Having some long grass in the garden is the single most important way of attracting and maintaining insects.
It is also ideal for voles, frogs and other small animals. It can be cut in August and again in late October. You can then plant bulbs into the short grass in autumn – these will flower in spring before the grass grows tall again.
■ Grow wildflowers. They tend to be the best source of pollen and nectar for bees and other insects, and the foliage is a food source for many caterpillars.
The easiest way to grow wildflowers is from seed sown onto bare soil, but many, such as cowslips and primroses, can be bought as plugs and planted through existing grass.
Many so-called ‘weeds’, such as stinging nettles, dandelions and clover, are excellent for insects too.
■ Introduce water to your garden, and dragonflies, frogs, newts and water boatmen will appear seemingly out of nowhere. Birds such as blackbirds (pictured) and bats will then be attracted to the extra insect life.
Everything will be improved. Ideally this should be a dedicated wildlife pond with plenty of marginal planting, a shallow section of the surround to allow creatures to get in and out, and perhaps a floating log and submerged stones. But even a half barrel with a single water lily will make a difference.
■ Plant trees, shrubs and hedges. The more the better. They give somewhere for birds to nest and perch as well as providing a habitat for smaller mammals such as wood mice.
Hedges form a corridor for birds and bats and the fallen leaves of deciduous varieties such as beech or hornbeam provide cover in winter.
■ Plant shrubs that produce berries, such as hawthorn, pyracantha and cotoneaster, for birds to feed on.
■ Don’t be too tidy. By all means gather most leaves to make leaf mould, but leave some in heaps or pushed back under a hedge.
Make bundles of sticks for hibernating mammals, and leave the dried stems of herbaceous perennials over winter for insects to hide in. Not only insects will appreciate this.
I was clearing my grass borders one March when a hedgehog popped out of a mound of fallen miscanthus leaves, where he’d been sleeping happily all winter!
It surprised me to discover that until the end of the 18th century blackbirds were usually only to be seen in woodland, where they were quite shy, but the huge increase in suburban and urban gardens in the 19th century provided them with the perfect home, and they have increased accordingly.
The really important measure of a healthy wildlife population, however, is not so much the success of any one species but the number of different species that you share your garden with.
We could lose half of the British population of blackbirds – which would be an appalling disaster – but there would still be a lot left.
Lose half of our grass snakes or lime hawk-moths, though, and it would be a catastrophe from which they may never recover.
In other words, it is those things that you do not see much that are the most precious.
In some cases it is an amber warning, where individual species are showing an alarming rate of decline.
Wren and mistle thrush sightings are down by 5 per cent, which is a significant decrease in one year.
Small white butterflies are down by a really serious 13 per cent. The small white is one of the most common butterflies in the UK, which masks that kind of decline because there are still an awful lot around.
But any negative trend, from however healthy a base, is a warning sign because suddenly you can reach a tipping point – when the numbers get so low that the position becomes very hard to reverse.
This is now the case with hedgehogs, which have seen a catastrophic decline over the past 30 years.
They have almost disappeared from farmland, with gardens becoming their last sanctuary.
The good news is that more than a quarter (28 per cent) of the nearly 8,000 people who took part in the survey saw a hedgehog in their garden last year and numbers are holding steady.
But it is well worth analysing why some people had hedgehogs in their gardens and not others – allowing for the fact that, as with all the species involved, especially nocturnal ones like hedgehogs, there will be a significant number that are not noticed at all.
The survey reports that of the people who saw a hedgehog, 89 per cent have a tree and 83 per cent have a hole in their fence that allows hedgehogs to move from garden to garden.
Finally, 55 per cent of sightings were by people who used no chemicals in their garden.
The analysis of this is that trees and hedges are vitally important for the whole food chain – along with long grass and ponds and a certain amount of untidiness that not only provides cover for small mammals like hedgehogs, but also encourages insects, which are an essential part of their diet.
We know that hedgehogs have territories that span a number of gardens, and that holes in fences for them to get through are essential.
We also know that using slug pellets is actively harmful. The irony is that hedgehogs are poisoned by the pellets after eating the slugs, not the pellets.
So by not using slug pellets, you not only save the hedgehog but also allow it to eat up your slugs.
There is a wider lesson to be taken from the hedgehog example. The fact that 55 per cent of respondents who spotted a hedgehog did not use chemicals is good.
But the other 45 per cent did – which is really bad for wildlife and utterly unnecessary and counterproductive for gardens.
It maintains a vicious cycle of boom and bust in your garden, and means just plain bust for insects, birds and mammals.
Healthy plants will resist most problems, be they from pests or disease, and a healthy garden with lots of assorted wildlife is extremely good at healing itself.
I have not used any kind of chemical in my garden for more than 25 years and it has not turned out too badly.
The ‘pest’ that is eating your broad beans or roses will certainly be food for a predator, which may in turn be predated on by something else.
Small white butterflies are down by a really serious 13 per cent. The small white is one of the most common butterflies in the UK, which masks that kind of decline because there are still an awful lot around
Unless you understand the whole food chain, from the smallest sub-microscopic organism in the soil to the apex predators such as sparrowhawks, owls and badgers, focusing on any one part of it is a meaningless and harmful waste of time.
However, the sad truth is that the survey shows a number of steady declines that are not attributable to any particular gardener or garden practice but just to the trends of modern life.
-13% Small white butterfly sightings in British gardens last June dropped significantly compared to the previous year – the biggest decline of any creature
One of the saddest is the spectacular decline of swifts. Only 27 per cent of people in urban and suburban areas reported seeing these lovely summer visitors last June, and only 33 per cent of people living in the country.
I have certainly noticed a dramatic reduction in the skies above my garden over the past 20 years.
Nothing you can do in your garden this year is going to immediately take the number of swifts back to the levels of 20 years ago.
But we can work together both to start to reverse the decline and also to stop other species suffering the same loss.
There are a number of easy actions that will make a real difference in both the long and short term, as well as making your garden even more beautiful and enjoyable for yourself.
The results of the survey show that people with the most different features in their garden have the most wildlife.
Trees, hedges, long grass, wildflowers, ponds, decaying wood, piles of leaves – there are lots of ways to support wildlife but variety is very important.
In fact, if you have nine wildlife features in your garden you’re likely to see twice as many species than if you have just one. And remember it’s the number of species that counts, not the numbers of any single species.
Our rescue mission based on bugs: Insects are at the bottom of the food chain and everything – including us -depends on them. Help them to thrive, and the nation’s wildlife will benefit too
By Christopher Stevens For Weekend Magazine
Aren’t we the posh ones! Thousands of Weekend readers have a hotel in the spacious grounds of our residences, providing five-star accommodation for our visitors.
This surprising fact is part of a trend to encourage insects into our back yards – because these are ‘bug hotels’ and the statistic is revealed in our second Wildlife Census, the nation’s biggest annual garden health check.
You sent in data by the sackful in answer to last summer’s appeal for sightings in your gardens, and the information is proving invaluable to scientists at The Wildlife Trusts, helping them to build up the most precise picture yet of Britain’s biggest nature reserve… our own gardens.
About a third of the country’s natural habitat is enclosed by the hedges, walls and fences around our houses and when taken as a combined whole they comprise an area far bigger than any of our national parks.
The results of our second annual Wildlife Census – which we asked you, our readers, to conduct by recording the species you spotted in your garden during June 2019 – have come out and they make fascinating, if salutary, reading
It’s our job to make this huge resource as friendly as possible to wildlife. That’s why bug hotels are so important.
‘Insects are vital for the health of all creatures, including humans,’ says biodiversity expert Dr Sam Cartwright, senior conservation officer at the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust.
‘They are pollinators for our crops, they provide food for animals and birds and they are natural recyclers – they help to break down dead wood, for example.’
There are plenty of attractive bug hotels available from garden centres, a bit like bird boxes but stuffed with hollow tubes and sticks.
‘They don’t have to look like deluxe mansions, though,’ Dr Cartwright says. ‘It’s easy to create a simple version for free by collecting dead sticks, leaves and pine cones in a pile in a sheltered corner of the garden.
‘This will attract everything from woodlice to beetles – and if you’ve never looked at a beetle close up, you really should.
‘They are often beautiful, shimmering garden jewels, and they play important roles in the ecosystem of our gardens. Don’t underestimate beetles!’
HELP OUR HEDGEHOGS
As well as encouraging insect diversity with bug hotels, it’s crucial we cut down on pesticides, weedkillers and slug pellets.
Dr Cartwright urges gardeners to find organic alternatives this year, a promise that nearly 20 per cent of respondents to the census have already made.
One of the first species to benefit from this will be hedgehogs. ‘It is such a delight to see hedgehogs snuffling in our gardens in the evening, but their numbers have declined significantly in the past 30 years,’ says Dr Cartwright.
It’s crucial we cut down on pesticides and weedkillers
‘Although 28 per cent of respondents to the survey said they’d seen them, the message is stark: this great British species needs our help.
‘The correlation between reduced hedgehog sightings where poisonous slug pellets are used should be a wake-up call to anyone still using them.
‘Slug-eating birds such as song thrushes, and toads too, will benefit if you stop spreading pellets. It’s fantastic to see so many people saying they won’t use bug sprays or weed killer either.’
And the good news is, as more gardeners heed this advice, hedgehog sightings are holding steady.
‘They can really thrive if we give them a helping hand,’ says Dr Cartwright. ‘Their natural food is earthworms, so it’s encouraging that 77 per cent of people saw these in their gardens.
‘You can support your earthworm population by letting leaves gather on flowerbeds, creating a rich layer of mulch that is ideal worm food.’
GO WILD WITH FLOWERS
One of the best things we can do in our gardens is sprinkle wildflower seeds. These will add colour and attract a wealth of insects.
‘Wildflowers will really set your garden buzzing,’ says Dr Cartwright, ‘and just over half of our respondents are cultivating them.
‘If you know anyone who has wildflowers in their own garden, just ask them at the end of the flowering season if you can snip off a few seed heads to sprinkle on your own flower beds.’
BE GOOD TO BUTTERFLIES
Some plants that until recently were regarded as weeds, such as nettles, are now recognised as an important food source for the caterpillars of butterflies and some moths
Some plants that until recently were regarded as weeds, such as nettles, are now recognised as an important food source for the caterpillars of butterflies and some moths.
But one butterfly gives rise to the single greatest cause for concern in our survey. Sightings for the small white, once so common that many gardeners regarded it as a pest, are down 13 per cent.
‘It’s a worry,’ says Dr Cartwright. ‘Butterflies are an indicator species: their abundance is a warning about the health of less visible species.
‘If the small white is in trouble, there could well be significant declines in all sorts of insects – including the ones that are harder to spot.’
Last year a group of Wildlife Trusts published their Action For Insects report, which found that insects are dying out eight times faster than larger animals, and that more than 40 per cent of insect species worldwide are facing extinction.
‘The extinction crisis is real,’ says Dr Cartwright, ‘and last year’s drop in small white numbers is one of the ways we might be witnessing it on our own doorstep.
‘That has to galvanise gardeners to do everything possible to reverse the trend.’
CREATE A COMPOST HEAP
A compost heap is another feature that’s easy to create. Gardeners often worry that rotting food will attract rats but this can be avoided by making sure you add only vegetable matter to the heap, with no eggs, dairy or meat scraps.
A heap of composting grass cuttings makes a warm, safe habitat for grass snakes – one of the least reported animals in the census.
AND SOME POSITIVE NEWS…
Another bit of good news from the survey is the increasing prevalence of seven-spot ladybirds – up 22 per cent on the previous year.
Other insects showing a healthy rise are the green shield bug, the marmalade hoverfly and the lacewing.
Ladybirds are especially good for gardens because they eat aphids, which can wreak havoc on plants.
One unexpected sign that your garden is insect-friendly at ground level might be a green woodpecker… not on a tree trunk but stalking the lawn.
They eat ants, and their numbers seem to be holding steady. One rarely seen bird that does sometimes roost in gardens can make its presence felt in another way – by its distinctive call.
Tawny owls hoot an unmistakable call-and-response mating call. ‘They need mature trees for roosting and seeds and insects – not to eat, but as food for some of the small mammals they prey on,’ says Dr Cartwright.
Once again, it all comes back to insects, so make sure there are plenty of bookings at your bug hotel.
Visit wildlifetrusts.org.