The Night Patrol: Bats, Toads and Hedgehogs

There’s an awful lot going on in gardens while we’re inside tucked up in bed. With humans safely out of the way, other creatures arrive for night duty.

Almost 70% of animals around the world are most active at night. It means they avoid competition for food with daytime operators and darkness provides a level of safety from predators, who find it more difficult to see their prey. Nature being what it is, however, the opposition has evolved ways of fighting back. So nocturnal animals’ hearing and smell is often better than their sight, or they may even, like foxes, have developed night vision enhancement, in their case a reflective layer of cells behind the retina.

Although we’re not always aware of them, hedgehogs, bats, toads and frogs are out there after dark eating the pests that attack plants and can bother us too. And by creating the conditions that they like we can help them to help us. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship.

Hedgehogs

Who doesn’t love a hedgehog? If you’re awake in the wee small hours you may hear strange grunting, snorting and snuffling noises, sometimes almost like the puffing of a steam train. If you do, it probably means there’s at least one hedgehog in the garden. And like many animals, they’re able to hear sounds at a much higher frequency than humans, so may also be communicating at levels inaudible to us.

Another sign of them having visited is medium-sized, dark droppings containing the remains of insects. Enthusiastic consumers of slugs, worms, caterpillars and earwigs as well as small amphibians and fallen birds’ eggs, they have a powerful sense of smell and can sniff out a beetle hiding three inches below ground. Hibernating from around November to April, hedgehogs construct nests of leaves and other material known as hibernaculums. Sadly though, they’re now listed as vulnerable to extinction in Britain and Europe. Contributory factors include pesticides, a decline in food sources and the loss of nesting habitats and access to hunting territory. Traffic and garden machinery are also hazards. In 2020 the death toll on UK roads was estimated to be around 335,000 hedgehogs per year. This was a threefold increase from 2016, so it seems likely that the numbers are even higher now. But we can help them by driving more carefully and putting other measures into place which may divert them away from roads.

Hedgehog facts:

· Adults have a home territory of around 10-20 hectares and can wander around 1-2km per night on the hunt for food or a mate.

· More agile than they look, they can move surprisingly swiftly in short bursts and are proficient climbers. They’re also able to swim.

· Their spines are actually modified hairs; each hedgehog has about 7,000 of them.

· Around 58% of the hedgehogs on the island of Alderney are blond, with golden spines, creamy white fur and dark brown eyes.

Lending a helping hand:

Hibernaculums are built in sheltered, hidden spots. The bases of hedges, shrubs and log piles are ideal. Rake leaves into piles in autumn or leave them on beds and borders. Provide an area of long grass for insects to shelter in; not only will it act as a hedgehog larder, it offers another secluded spot for them to nest in. Build a hedgehog house, or if this is a step too far, buy one.

Barriers restricting access to a large enough hunting area are a major problem. Why not talk to neighbours and see if you can create a series of hedgehog runs, holes cut in fences to allow them to roam freely between gardens?

Always check bonfire piles as well as areas of long grass before mowing or using strimmers.

Hedgehogs can be fed wet dog or cat food, but this risks encouraging those unwelcome garden visitors, rats. So it’s perhaps wiser to provide a healthy environment with abundant natural food sources and a saucer, or other source, of water. But never put out bread or milk – these make them ill. https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/actions/how-build-hedgehog-home

Bats

Perhaps less universally loved than hedgehogs, it’s nonetheless exhilarating for many of us to see the dark silhouettes of bats darting and flitting silently over gardens on summer evenings. But blink and you’ll miss them. It’s thought that some species, such as the tiny common pipistrelle, can reach speeds of up to 60mph. Voracious munchers of invertebrates like spiders, beetles and moths, they also eat flies, midges and mosquitoes. The common pipistrelle can consume up to 3,000 insects each night. And as well as lessening the potential nuisance of insect bites during a relaxing evening in the garden, bats consume plant pests like codling moths, whose caterpillars bore into fruit on apple, pear and quince trees. A 2024 study of Italian orchards demonstrated that the presence of bats reduced damage to fruit by 50%.

Several species of bat are endangered in the UK although the picture is complex and can vary regionally. The greater mouse-eared bat, having been declared extinct in 1990, is now thought to have a population of three across Sussex. Fortunately, one is a female but the chances of her actually meeting a male, and perhaps the possibility of him being considered a suitable mate, are obviously slim. They’re now classed as critically endangered. Other species are listed nationally as endangered, vulnerable or near threatened. Threats include loss of roosting sites and other habitats and reduced availability of food, as well as disturbance by street and security lighting.

Bat facts:

· There are18 species in the UK.

· The high frequency sound waves they emit to locate their prey can be heard by some young children but adults need a bat detector.

· Long-eared bats have evolved to use their sense of smell as well as echolocation to detect moths. (And in return, tiger moths in the U.S. are fighting back against their predators, big brown bats, and now use their own ultrasound clicks to jam the bats’ signals.)

· Bats roost in tree hollows and caves, in the gaps under eaves and behind hanging tiles and may move from place to place. Female bats will come together in summer, living in maternity roosts where they give birth to and rear pups. In winter, both males and females move to hibernation roosts.

· Some species are very long-lived – Brandt’s bats have a lifespan of up to 40 years.

Lending a helping hand:

An insect-friendly garden is also a bat-friendly garden. As well as plants for pollinators, long grass, trees, compost heaps and areas of general untidiness are all good! Avoid too much artificial lighting as it disorientates both bats and their prey, and as bats often hunt over water, ponds are helpful too. Chelsea 2026 featured The Bat Conservation Trust’s Nocturnal Garden which provides some useful pointers. As holes are stopped up in old buildings and new ones have tighter building controls, artificial bat boxes, purchased or homemade, are worth a try as well.

https://www.bats.org.uk/our-work/buildings-planning-and-development/bat-boxes/wooden-bat-boxes

Toads and frogs

The common toad, unfortunately, is no longer common. Like so many other creatures, it’s in steep decline, with population numbers plummeting by 68% in the last 30 years. And frog populations, while not as drastically affected as those of toads, are down too. An RSPB survey of gardens showed sightings were reduced by 17% between 2014 and 2018.

Toads are most active at night, eating slugs, spiders, worms, aphids and ants, shooting out long, sticky tongues to snaffle their prey.

Two species are native to the UK but numbers are falling because loss of habitat including breeding ponds, particularly where wet woodland has been drained. Toads instinctively return to the pond in which they were spawned to breed themselves. New roads, buildings and property boundaries disrupt traditional migration routes, and many are killed crossing roads to get to breeding areas.

Toad facts:

· Females produce around 1,500 eggs in one go.

· It’s a myth that they live in water. Most of the time toads inhabit shallow burrows or other sheltered places in gardens, hedgerows and woodland. It’s only really in spring, the breeding season, that they move to ponds.

· When threatened, the warts on their skin secrete a nasty-tasting substance as a defence against unwary predators.

Frogs eat a variety of invertebrates including slugs and snails. They too are suffering from loss of habitat as well as two new diseases. We have two native species in the UK, the common frog and the rare pond frog. The latter became extinct here during the 1990s but has been reintroduced to a small number of sites in Norfolk. Fond of damp, shaded areas with a pond nearby, they do move around during the day in wet conditions but are generally most active at dusk and in the evenings. Like toads, they’re usually only found in water during the spring breeding season. Otherwise, frogs live in damp, rough areas of gardens, woodland, meadows and hedgerows.

Frog facts:

· Females lay clusters of up to 4000 eggs.

· They can absorb moisture through their skin, allowing them to retain vital levels of hydration.

· Their skin can secrete low doses of toxins a useful mechanism to deter predators.

In winter frogs and toads burrow into mud and compost heaps or sometimes under log piles. Mostly inactive, they may emerge to eat if the weather is mild enough.

Lending a helping hand:

Leave areas of rough grass and other vegetation and construct small piles of logs, leaves and rocks. They’re all hiding places for invertebrates as well as offering shelter for toads and frogs themselves. Compost heaps will be brimful of invertebrates too and ponds encourage breeding frogs. Avoid pesticides if at all possible. An invertebrate-rich environment will encourage toads and frogs (as well as hedgehogs and bats) and having visiting wildlife reduces the need for them anyway.

Nocturnal creatures are naturally wary, shy of humans, and it’s easy to understand why. But if you have the patience to sit very, very quietly and wait, it’s sometimes possible to catch the night patrol in the act. If patience isn’t one of your virtues, trail cameras will do the sitting for you. Many of our garden helpers are in decline. So it’s in our interests to give them some assistance. Plant a hedge, dig a pond, ditch the pesticides or just relax and embrace a little messiness. Not only is it good for the soul, it’s good for the garden too.

https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/what-do-if-you-find-wild-animal/help-hedgehog https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/ways-to-help-frogs-and-toads.html