How do I know which rodents are living in my garden?

Watch their movement – mice are more likely to travel with bounding jumps, whereas voles will scuttle along the ground. If you don’t see the mammal itself, there are still ways to decipher who your visitor might have been. If you have hazel or cob-nut trees in your garden, you will sometimes find chewed nuts. Wood mice leave tooth marks on the surface of the nut and across the edge of the hole. The hole may be either circular or ragged in shape. Bank voles create a round hole with tooth marks across the edge, but not on the surface of the nut.

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Foxes will usually jump over a secure gate. Badgers could break their way through, but if there is soil they can also dig under. There are commercially available badger ‘gates’, but they are best installed by a professional and would need to be used in conjunction with fencing buried deep into the ground – otherwise the badgers, which are one of the UK’s strongest animals, will simply dig an alternative route. CLM

1. CREATE A WILD CORNER

Add a tussocky patch to your garden as a perfect daytime nesting area for hedgehogs. Allow a corner of your lawn to grow long, or sow a mix of native grasses and wildflowers, such as meadow foxtail, cock’s-foot, lesser knapweed, yarrow and oxeye daisy. Leave this vegetation over winter, as it provides a crucial habitat for many invertebrates to complete their life-cycle – a garden buzzing with insects is a great garden for hedgehogs.

2. PLANT A TREE

If space allows, plant an oak, beech, hornbeam or lime tree. These have the ideal leaf size for hedgehogs to make their winter hibernation nests. If you buy trees from a nursery, check they haven’t been

ST ST ST ST When attaching bat boxes to buildings or trees, be sure to place them as high as possible. ST CLM 49

Nicola Milligan, Hertfordshire Though widespread across the UK, hedgehogs are in decline in rural and urban areas.