Aibu to urge anyone with a garden/ balcony to start thinking about the summer months now?

[wellthatsinterresting]

Last year was horrific for our local wildlife. I found 2 dead hedgehogs on the schoolrun, and one more that was alive but died shortly after being taken to a rescue centre.
There were also loads of dead birds (avian flu? or water shortages?)

I've never seen a dead hedgehog in my life, I live in a city not the countryside so even live animals are a rare treat to see. But 3 in one year on just one route. (no car running them over, this was the street or front gardens)
The hedgehog rescue said they had loads of dehydrated hedgehogs, way more than other years (this was around the few days of 40° but we had very little rainfall for the whole summer)

They said the best we can do is put out bowls of water, tell our friends and family to do the same. We also made posters and leaflets, the water needed to be topped up a couple of times a day because it'd just fucking evaporate in mere hours. No wonder they died, poor things.

Anyway, I had a little look online and apparently insect lava was drying up due to heat, so we started spraying the wildlife section (aka overgrown boarders) with water (bath/shower water) and hoped for the best but ehat else can you do? My children started bringing water guns to the park to spray the millions of bushes but obviously its a drop in the ocean.

It's very worrying. So if anybody can spare a couple of minutes a day to take shallow bowls of water out, or if you have a big basin spare, one of those with wood or stones that act as a ramp so no little creatures fall in and drown, that'd be wonderful. Also a small stick or something that Bees and insects can sit on instead of drowning also.

Also if there's anyway to add a small section of flowers/ or just let the weeds grow.
It's become very apparent that we as humans are stripping wildlife of habbitat. in my small area alone we have had several of our parks and naybe 4 green spaces bulldozed and concreted over. This has actually lead to some minor but still disruptive flooding in the area (water pools and runs but can't sink into concrete)
Loads of houses have had drives or fake grass put in, where are the animals going to go?

We have looked around at local tree planting schemes (which helps with anxiety more than anything) but there's still loads to be done.

We have an allotment and water butts and so it was easy enough to 'measure' the lack of rainfall, we had a terrible year and water was really something to treasure. something I'd never really had to think about before but it brought home how fucking lucky we are to be able to get a drink from a tap and not worry ever about dying of dehydration. I just wish I could win the lottery and buy all the land and fix everything.

Poor sods.

Anyway. I just wanted to get ahead of the game because I only found out that animals need human intervention in cities in the middle of summer last year after spotting my third hedgehog. I honestly just thought animals would be OK. but they weren't and they probably won't be again this year and I know mumsnet is full to the brim of lovely people who will make me feel better.

Blimey, that was long
put bowls of water out please.

We’re rural , and yep , I already have bowls of water out ( or old pot plant saucers that currently are topped up with rainwater )
Mostly / partly because I like seeing the little birds go in and splash about having a bath
Adding to your very sensible post , put bird feeders out if you can
we now have woodpeckers coming into our garden to eat the hanging peanuts
Theres a water bowl for the birds on my bird table too

My husband took great umbrage of the fact that I left old cat food out to encourage flies at the back of the garden last year, but I didn't care. The birds need to eat something. It's that simple.

Lovely post, thank you for bringing it to everyone’s attention.
I also recommend leaving any small gaps in your fence uncovered so animals such as hedgehogs can pass through.

I leave out water for the birds, have not seen a hedgehog for years.

We look after hedgehogs and those little souls have so much against them you wouldn’t believe. I think extinction would be the kindest thing for them.

If I were to ask anything of anyone it would be stop fucking with your gardens. The amount of people around me that have ripped out hedgerows. Cut down trees. Pulled up the grass to replace with gravel or Astro. Tarmaced over the front garden. Just on and on and on. We’ve fallen out with all of our immediate neighbours as they are demanding we cut down trees and pull out hedges for shiny new fences. Honestly a pox on all of them. I will continue to prioritise the wildlife.

Good thinking OP.
I've got trays of water out in the back garden, but I'll add one to the front garden as we do get hedgehogs passing through.
I gave one a saucer of water last summer and he drank and drank as if he'd not been able to find any for miles 😔

Lovely post and so agree. It's been so dry already this year, need some rain 😔

Foxes and squirrels drink my water- is that still safe for hedgehogs?

Agree. We are lucky enough to live rurally and have a garden and we always have large saucers of water out for the wildlife. So important. And very important that if you start to do this you don’t suddenly stop or let them dry out as animals come to depend on them.

We have water out and a teeny gap between our neighbours gardens to let the little hogs pass through 😄 keep meaning to sow a few wildflower seeds etc but I'm so crap at gardening. I must try this year to do something and DS loves the bug hotel at a family members house so going to get a small one for our garden too 🐛🐝

Feels like a losing battle as like other posters, neighbours are ripping out hedges and grass. Cars are more important to most people than wildlife.

Lidl is currently selling a bug hotel for £4.99

We put water out and we don't kill insects, including wasps or their nests. I encourage insects with insect hotels and leave windfall apples on the ground. We had a toad in the garden last year and put water out for him as well. I have a micropond which encourages insects too. Wasps can be fed with jam on a saucer at the top of the garden.

Picture of last year's visiting hedgehog in our front garden.

Thank you for spreading the word. I have a couple of water pots (I like pond plants but have no pond) which birds and squirrels enjoy but I will get something suitable for hedgehogs too. Never seen any in my garden, and we do have several foxes in the area so there’s probably not that many, but just in case!

Agree that people seem to be out of touch with their environment. We did have to take up a small amount of turf and hedge to create a driveway but have retained as much as we can. One neighbour has a huge mature mixed hedgerow and a wild garden, and although it means my lawn, patio and car never look neat and tidy and are always covered with bits and leaves, I do dread someone else moving in and ripping it all out.

I read a saying that went along the lines of 'If nothing is eating the plants in your garden, you have planted the wrong things'. It was about the need to put in plants that provide food and pollen sources for native animals. Plastic grass, concrete, heavily landscaped gardens with plants that don't provide pollen or food sources, are such a disaster for wildlife. Fruit trees have beautiful blossom and you get kilos of fruit after a few years, which is not full of pesticides and some will get eaten by birds. A patch of wildflowers will be humming with bumblebees. Sunflowers look so cheerful and will be full of birds when the seeds are ripe.

I’m glad you added the bit about making a little ramp in the water bowl with stones etc. Before I knew better a tiny field mouse fell into the one in my garden and died as it couldn’t get back out. 😢

This is a lovely post OP, thank you. I completely agree. I've got a small garden but it's devoted to wildlfe; a pond with a shallow area ( I watched a wren looking for insects around the margin as it was getting dark last night) , a birch tree with feeders for the birds, we had hedgehogs in the front garden last summer, I put out saucers of water for them, and I've just bought a box of wildflower seed to sprinkle everywhere. Our front garden is south facing and gets very hot in the summer, so I'm planning more wildlife friendly shrubs and plants for cover. I hate seeing the trend for concrete and plastic grass in gardens!

Our local council are ripping out all the hedges in the housing stock and replacing them with gravel and fencing.

my mums hedge was a haven for sparrows and now it’s silent.

im so angry about it

Living in a village surrounded by miles of countryside we, contrary to what you'd think, tend not to get foxes and hedgehogs through the gardens much. I assume because they stick to the open countryside where there's more food/natural habitat/peace and quiet.

Saw many more foxes and hedgehogs when i lived in London!

The birds however come in droves to the garden for their nuts and water! (We have a couple of deer who like a mooch about - lazily biting whole flower heads off the plants in summer! )

I keep water bowls defrozen as much as poss in deep winter for anything which wants it, and top up in hot weather.

The milk and bread for hedgehogs OP. Should be mentioned that it's not recommended now is it? Dog or cat food better.

Had a rat problem around here so not sure about leaving out actual food. Will make sure to leave out trays of water for the hedgehogs and get a bug hotel though. It’s such a shame that so many people now have astroturf in their gardens and rip out their hedges and stuff. It looks so bare and drab and wildlife will die out. Humans will regret that one day and it’ll be too late.

Despite our area being quite wildlifey for a urban area (gardens are long and back into train lines which run past nature areas, golf courses etc so it’s a bit of a wildlife corridor), we’ve never had hedgehogs and I suppose it’s because of our fencing (concrete at bottom). We didn’t install it and can’t afford to replace sadly. We do though get foxes, badgers, squirrels, owls, rats, mice, frogs etc, even a few herons. It still baffles me as were a 45 minute walk from the city centre but I love checking the wildlife cams and seeing what’s about.

I’d love to create a hedgehog hole but right now we can’t and I think we do enough for the other wildlife. We have wild areas, bug hotels, water, feeders, baths, huge big hedge and lots of lavender which humms in the summer with the bees.

I was very upset when the nobhead bought next door, ripped out all the plants, cut down 4 trees including a plum and apple tree, then sold the fucking house straight away. Thankfully he was a cowboy and the trees seem to be frowning back, the people there now are renting and don’t seem to have an affinity for gardening but I’d rather a wild garden for the animals than the stark landscape he created.

If you’ve got rats they’ll be enjoying the water sadly, they need like 10 x their body weight in water a day.

Our neighbours have reported there are hedgehogs around, though we've never seen one. They leave food and water out for it (though I suspect my cat might quite enjoy the food too!).

We have water out in our garden year round though I confess it's mostly because there is a small bowl we'd left out for a visiting dog one year and it's just stayed. It seems the cats prefer rain water than tap water to drink.

I'd be glad if it had a hand in helping our little spiky friends too.

I can't promise too many bugs are available in our garden though - they're our cats' favourite things to chase and eat too!

They do also say to make a gap under one or more of your fences so that a hedgehog can travel too.

I am certain the current obsession with fake grass is having a massive impact on wildlife.