Tinner Tinsky’s ‘enchanted’ cottage in his garden (Image: Tinner Tinsky / SWNS)
Tinner Tinsky’s charming wooden ‘wonderland’, complete with a door and living roof, has become a popular spot for local animals.
Photos reveal deer and squirrels exploring the home, with a family of rabbits even taking up residence underneath. Tinner, from Brean, Somerset, constructed the stump as part of a project to re-wild his garden four years ago.
He said: “I created Wonderland Cottage out of an old tree stump and put a living roof of ivy on the top. The wildlife seem to like it and I’m hoping birds will nest in the ivy in the spring.”
He added that it brings him great joy to help wildlife thrive and encouraged others to leave a small part of their garden untouched.
The nature lover described the re-wilding process he put his garden through, which began with not mowing the grass, planting native shrubs and trees, creating a bug habitat, and even making trips to the beach to collect driftwood.
He said: “I started by not mowing the grass and then planting many trees and native shrubs and hedging, next I made many trips to the beach to collect driftwood and made several large piles in the garden and planted lots of dead branches and tree trunks to encourage woodpeckers, after that I dug a pond.”
Speaking excitedly about the variety of wildlife that has made his garden a home, Tinner said: “I now have quite a mix of wildlife visiting and living in the garden, fox, badger, deer, rabbits, weasels, kestrels, buzzards, sparrowhawks, owls, jays, kingfishers, grass snakes, marbled white butterflies and many more.”
The cottage draws a host of critters to the garden (Image: Tinner Tinsky / SWNS)
He then painted a whimsical picture of these wild visitors, adding humorously: “As you can see from the smoke coming out of the chimney all of the wildlife are all inside tucked up asleep by the fireplace although the deer was a bit disappointed that he was too big to fit through the doorway! “.