Why our wildlife needs you!

The results of our annual garden wildlife review are in – Kate Bradbury, our Wildlife Editor, reveals what’s thriving, the species in decline, and what we can all do to help our wildlife

Readers of BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine have always loved garden wildlife. In 2020, more of you were at home to enjoy it and spent much of your lockdown time creating more habitats, such as bird boxes and hedgehog homes, for a variety of species. In 2021, wildlife sightings were down slightly on the previous year, presumably because many of you returned to work and simply weren’t home as often to see who was living in your garden. However, your love for wildlife continues to increase, which is very good news indeed. A whopping 78 per cent of you* (an increase of two per cent on last year) tell us you’ve taken steps to help the wildlife on your doorstep. On behalf of the bees, birds, butterflies, hedgehogs, amphibians and myriad invertebrates that call our gardens home, thank you. You are true wildlife heroes.

Garden birds

consistent with the previous year, apart from a few notable exceptions. Happily, numbers of house sparrow and starling appear to be levelling off – this is consistent