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ONE of my garden jobs at the moment is pruning any trees and woody shrubs at a time of year when there are no leaves in the way. Instead of throwing away the branches, I will be creating a few small log piles to help make my plot a more tempting site for the local wildlife.

As dead wood rots, it becomes a food source or home to thousands of species, including mosses, lichens, fungi, beetles, flies, hoverflies, spiders, moths, wasps and bees. In turn, these will be food for larger animals like birds, lizards, frogs, toads and small mammals such as hedgehogs.

If your own garden lacks any trees that need pruning, don’t be tempted to collect branches from the wild, as the animals living there need them too. Instead, you could source free logs through online sites like Freecycle or by contacting local tree surgeons. Aim for a variety of log sizes, but it is good to get some thicker ones in the mix.

Once you have your wood, the question is where to put it. In full sun, the log pile will quickly dry out and support less life. In deep shade, the wood will become cold and wet – good for fungi, but not so much for insects. Ideally aim for sites in dappled shade or that are shaded for part of the day.

Another way to make a mix of habitats is to bury some of the wood, for instance by standing a few of the logs upright, up to half a metre deep if possible. This will help the wood rot faster and will be appreciated by those creatures living underground. If you have had a tree cut down, then leaving the stump in place would do the same job.

In my part of the world, underground rotting wood should attract stag beetles, which are a threatened species. They are found in parts of central and southern Europe, including southern England and Wales. They have even occasionally been sighted as far north as the Lake District, according to at the People’s Trust for Endangered Species, a UK charity that is asking people to make .

Reaching up to 8 centimetres long, with the males having oversized antler-like jaws, stag beetles are the UK’s biggest beetle. They spend several years as larvae, which live underground and eat rotting wood. These grubs can reach an alarming 11cm in length. In May to July, they emerge as adults, ready to mate. The males don’t even use their iconic jaws for eating – just fighting.

Thanks to my new log piles, I might be seeing some stag beetles in action in my own garden in a few years, as the females usually stay close to where they emerge from the ground. So while I might currently be shivering in the depths of a UK winter, I am dreaming of warm summer evenings spotting stag beetles taking flight and slowly whirring around my garden.

Clare Wilson is a reporter at New Scientist and writes about everything life-science related. Her favourite place is her gardening allotment @ClareWilsonMed

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