What to do now to help wildlife in the garden?

[Gladysthesphinx]

Can anyone recommend the best things that can be done at this time of year to help birds & wildlife in the garden? What is the most effective thing? Feeding, planting, shelters?

And easy win for wildlife is not doing loads of tidying and trimming.

Stock up on bird feeders/ food.

Hedgehog house - but NOT the horrible dangerous style aldi are selling.

Shallow water dishes and bird bath.

Leave bushes don’t cut them too much.

Wildlife gardening jobs listed here

www.gardenersworld.com/how-to/grow-plants/wildlife-gardening-jobs-for-october/

Insect larva survive over winter by settling in those tall spent flower stems or under fallen leaves, so rather than pull them/sweep them up, leave it all. There's a an approach to gardening called something like untidy method, where you leave a lot of it to go brown, fall, and pile up as it would do on natural uncultivated land to help the insects.

Birds need to build up their fat reserves in a cold spell so bird feeders/fat balls are good. Position them near where the birds would be naturally, not e.g. too close to your front door/driveway.

I've tried bird feeders here but unfortunately we have so many squirrels it's a wasted effort, no idea how the birds make it through to be honest!

Peanuts out each evening for badgers and foxes.

Round here just use your food waste bins and the badgers show up in force
But seriously bird feeders ( ones rats can't get to ) filled with various food for different kinds of birds
What other wildlife do you want to encourage ?

We put out a small bowl of meal worms. We get everything from sparrows and robins to squirrels and magpies eating them. We use bird feeders and a squirrel feeder too and have to refill them daily.

Fat balls. Cheap and effective. Most birds in my garden seem to eat these whereas not all birds eat nuts. Mind you, even the damn squirrels like fat balls!

I'm no expert, but Robins find it hard to balance on some feeders, so I put food where they can access it easily (lower to the ground). If they can beat the pigeons to it...

A few logs piled together make a great home for insects.

www.gardenwildlifedirect.co.uk/tom-chambers-squirrel-baffle.html?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIl5G4ofyg7AIVUuvtCh3M3gSVEAQYBCABEgKR8vD_BwE
Those of you who want to deter squirrels from your bird feeders, try something like this. It's called a squirrel baffle and it stops squirrels and rats from reaching your bird feeders.

In addition to all the information above about feeding birds, I’ve found that many birds really appreciate it if you have a bird bath. It doesn’t have to be fancy. I use a shallow seed tray, with a big rock in it to give the birds somewhere to sit. It gets just as many visitors as the expensive bird bath I got from the garden centre 🙈

If you have the space, it can be useful to have a few feeders in different places. Some birds can be a bit bossy, but even the most aggressive bird can only really defend one feeder at a time!

I definitely agree with the recommendation to be a messy gardener, or at least to have a messy corner or two.

Thinking ahead, I’d also recommend planting some early Spring bulbs now. When the first bees emerge in Spring they’ll be very happy to see some crocuses or daffodils, especially as there’s not usually much else in flower at that time of the year.

Think about planting bulbs, and other early flowering plants ,trees and bushes with blossom, to produce early nectar for those daft bees who think one sunny day in February or March means Spring is here. Similarly think ahead to next year so there are late nectar options, ivy and sedum are good. Bug hotels provide shelter for solitary bees.

Bird baths if they are low can provide water for other creatures, squirrels and foxes (spit!) use mine, and bees were constantly there during the hot weather.

I have stopped providing sunflower seeds, suet sticks and fatballs because the sparrows and the starlings were trashing the feeders and making such a mess that it was encouraging rats. I now put out soaked meal worms twice a day which go in seconds and nothing gets left. I miss my goldfinches but I am sure they are feeding elsewhere, and comfort myself with the thought that I am providing a high protein diet for my remaining birds!

Fat balls for the birds. The birds here love them! They are a great source of energy all year round, especially winter. I order mine in packis of 100 from an online pet store. I usually squash them & take them out of the nets & scatter the broken bits on the grass.

I agree about not tidying up too much, piling leaves up and some piles of rotting wood.
The bees love my forget-me-nots in the spring.

If you have the space, it can be useful to have a few feeders in different places. Some birds can be a bit bossy, but even the most aggressive bird can only really defend one feeder at a time!

My Robin thinks it owns the garden!

These are all such useful suggestions. Thank you. One more question - I'd really like to put in some plants now which will supply birds and squirrels with food in autumn/winter in years to come (this is a mid term to long term project as I'm assuming they will take a while to develop). Are there any bushes and shrubs which bear berries etc in autumn and winter that anyone would recommend for this?