Lockdown boost for wildlife gardeners

BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine readers have been putting enforced time at home due to the pandemic to good use by turning their gardens into wildlife havens, according to results from our latest GW Mag wildlife questionnaire.

27 per cent of readers questioned saw more wildlife in their garden in 2020 than in 2019. However, there was a worrying drop in sightings of some birds, with fewer of you seeing chaffinches, fieldfares or dunnocks.

Three-quarters of readers have installed wildlife-friendly features, including hedgehog houses, insect hotels and bat boxes. But only 17 per cent have cut holes in their fences to let hedgehogs travel between gardens. Our Wildlife Editor Kate Bradbury says that linking gardens together creates a network of habitats that’s much bigger than individual gardens.

Read the full details on p76.