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In the 1950s, the UK was home to some 30 million hedgehogs. Now it's estimated that there are just one million, according to a recent report published by the People’s Trust for Endangered Species (PTES). It’s not known exactly why hedgehogs

most of our countryside is now a series of monocultures which represent few opportunities for wildlife to forage, shelter and breed. By contrast, Jan claims, brownfield sites have become unlikely areas of high insect biodiversity, some of which are now

sited under a hedge and dutifully packed with fallen leaves and hay.Attracting wildlife to your garden can be a bit hit and miss. Bumblebees and butterflies, for example, will happily come to our gardens to forage for food, but often choose to breed

grow for the sole purpose of attracting the speckled wood, which breeds in long grass.When the news broke that sales of artificial grass are soaring, it struck me that a fake lawn might have been a better option for my small patch (roughly 4m²). I

appeared in my garden soon after I converted it from a paved courtyard last year. It's not large enough and doesn't get enough sun to sustain breeding butterflies (most of which require large swathes of nettles in full sun to lay eggs), so I can munch away

, you find your breeding ground has gone.Can these jobs not be done in late-summer, when the birds have fledged, before creatures settle down to hibernate?The pond in the park has been drained again this year, only this time I phoned the council. It didn

to make the bee hotel, without bamboo, sunflower and teasel stems. I think the combination of branches, twigs and chopped trunk will make a varied insect habitat – one which I hope will be used by leafcutter bees to breed in as well as providing ladybirds

was there to encourage people to take part in its ladybird surveys and help map the spread of the harlequin ladybird over the UK.The harlequin first came over to the UK in 2003. It was an inevitable invasion: a native of Asia, it was being used for biological control

the National Bat Helpline first for advice on 0845 1300 228.

startled in Dorset was probably a slow worm or grass snake (pictured above). These benign species often turn up in gardens, mostly in the south of England, and very rarely in the north. They bask in rockeries, feed in ponds and breed in compost heaps