A hibernaculum is a 'Winter home for wildlife'. Make a special home called a hibernaculum or ‘ Bug Hotel’ for amphibians. Frogs, toads and newts will use this to help them survive a cold Winter. Other reptiles and insects could use it too.
Build a hibernaculum (Bug House) in a sheltered, quiet corner of the garden:
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- log pile in an area near a pond
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- Pallet Wildlife House for over Wintering wildlife
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- detail of Pallet Wildlife House
Make a quick & easy Bug Hotel:
- Use one or more pallets for a simple overwintering home for amphibians.
- Re-use an old pallet and stuff it with cut logs, twigs, leaves, moss, soil, earth, old tiles, drainpipes, fir cones or pieces of wood with different sized holes drilled into it.
- Find anything that amphibians can bury themselves in or crawl in between.
- As an extra bonus add a green roof too.
- The simplest and quickest way to protect wildlife from predators & the cold of Winter is an undisturbed pile of logs and twigs. Use different sizes and leave plenty of nooks and crannies to hide in.
- Stuff some spaces with fallen leaves, fir cones or grass cuttings for them to burrow into.
Or build a more elaborate underground hibernaculum for them:
- Dig a hole 60cm (2ft) deep and a metre (4ft) across and fill with loosely laid twigs, branches or logs so it looks like a natural log pile.
- Add extra tunnels using pieces of drainpipe from ground level pointing into different areas of the hole.
- Cover with old turfs or soil and fallen leaves to make a mound about half a metre high.
- Top with fallen logs to look like any other pile of logs.
- All you can see then are the tunnel (drainpipe) entrances on the outside of the mound.