Case Study: Providing food and shelter for invertebrates in Autumn
Author: Catherine Jones, Buglife
As the days continue to shorten, temperatures drop and the morning frosts start to appear, the value of autumnal vegetation for wildlife should not be underestimated.
In addition to creating the striking frost-bitten scenery in autumn and winter, allowing tussocky grass and wildflower seed heads to remain uncut through winter, in field margins, along tracks and roadside verges, and in gardens, will provide food and shelter for invertebrates and other wildlife.
© Gethin Davies
The remaining seed heads of the summer flushes of wildflowers such as willow herbs, thistles and even dandelions supply food for goldfinches, linnets and other seed eating birds and shelter for invertebrates. Ladybirds and earwigs may shelter in large wildflowers seed heads.
© Guy Sharrock
© Jodie Randall
Tall tussocky grass provides shelter for many overwintering invertebrates, and spiders construct their webs between long fronds that collect water droplets in the early morning mists. Grass tussocks may also hide ‘runs’ where mice and voles move from place to place protected by the dense vegetation above. Carder bee queens, emerging from hibernation, will search for nesting sites at the base of grass tussocks in spring.
Autumn is a great time to cut areas of long grass, including wildflowers meadows, and to remove the cuttings to help wildflowers to thrive the following year which in turn produce nectar and pollen to feed our valuable pollinators. But leaving leaving some patches of long tussocky grass and tall wildflower seed heads back then has now provided food and shelter in hardest months and nesting opportunities next spring.
© Gethin Davies
Additional information on managing farmland for pollinators is available from: