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I have cats. Every so often I have to live with the guilt that they kill the local wildlife. It's usually one of the mice breeding in the compost heaps or a blue-tit fledgling. The main hunter is the black and white one; lovely and soft and over

of North Africa and Southern Europe, it migrates north each year with the good weather, establishes new breeding colonies and the local offspring move north again. It reaches the UK most years, and sometimes in spectacular numbers; 2005 and 2006 were good

in future plant breeding projects.However, it's best the assumption that old varieties are necessarily better than new ones. Yes, some are unusual and create a good talking point, while others have lovely stories attached to them. But if you are primarily

providing them with safe places to roost and raise their young, as well as a year-round supply of food.But I'm worried. I know that feeding birds is a good thing, it helps many survive the miserable winter to live and breed the following spring. But as I

and put them on the bird table.Slug eggs are usually laid in heaps, but may also be found singly. We’ve had a few warm days recently and these, combined with recent wet weather, have provided slugs with perfect breeding conditions.As you clear plants from

of the nearby roof - grace and elegance is something an owl obviously takes many weeks to learn! A fantastic sight and I feel really honoured that they have decided to breed here. Smaller birds have been here in abundance too - the house sparrow numbers seem

feed on pollen from the open flowers, and hopefully breed and lay eggs. Developing larvae then feed on aphids, acting as a form of natural pest control.When I experimented with the 'square foot vegetable plot' planting technique a couple of years ago, I

its part, but when I fill my garden with so many tempting plants for them to feed and breed on it's such a shame they don't visit. What else can I do to attract wildlife into my garden?

're probably breeding in the jungle-like ivy growth that threatens to engulf our shed further up the garden.A couple of hours later, the first speckled wood, Pararge aegeria, appears, looking velvety fresh. The likelihood is that it has just emerged from

in Dulwich Woods, Beckenham Place Park, and a few other woodland places, but the ones flying past my back door are breeding in long-lost and forgotten subterranean root systems, buried logs and stumps no longer visible on the surface. But every year gardens