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'm not sure if I have any pictures of the momentous day itself, but I have plenty of images of insects taken near the house during the build-up.In the early 1990s land was cheap in central Florida, after severe frosts killed thousands of acres of orange groves

on the roof of one of the shop buildings, or over the library itself. Then the air cleared and it was apparent that they had settled on top of a traffic light.Having just stopped off for some milk on my way back from Dulwich Park with the 4-year-old, I

in some nurseries. It also causes a nuisance by congregating in large numbers in buildings. Early arrivers give off an aggregation pheromone recruiting others to join the throng, until sometimes many thousands are knotted together.As can be seen from

. It was a hoverfly. Myathropa florea is a handsome and distinctive fly, both wasp-like in its colours, and honeybee-like in its size, build and vuvuzela buzz.What was it doing in the drain? It was probably egg laying. This is one of the hoverflies

a short flight to the raspberries, comfrey and clover he grows.If you want wildlife nesting in your garden, then build log and leaf piles, start a compost heap, leave a messy area, plant nectar-rich flowers and dig a pond. You could also use an old

of bumblebee now have few nesting options in the wild. It's great news for gardeners, as it means we can build on what we already have to make our gardens even better for bees.If you cater for bumblebees in your garden then honeybees and solitary bees

, but inevitable. In London alone we are losing the equivalent of 2.5 Hyde Parks of green space each year, as landlords and homeowners pave over their gardens to build sheds, park their cars and reduce 'maintenance'. Butterflies are precious in their own right

. Architects, it seems, aspire to build tidy well-groomed, low-maintenance houses. And we, presumably, aspire to live in them. Notice how green it all is. Not brown. Green. But this is a wildlife desert. The wild life has been erased.The greenwashing

fences or negotiate building sites. They are creatures of a forgotten time, when habitats remained unchanged and wild spaces were ‘wild’.Luckily, gardens can be fantastic reptile habitats. Like many garden creatures, snakes and slow worms favour log piles

and hoverflies are still on the wing, foraging for food. Nectar provides insects with energy to fly and builds them up for winter hibernation. By growing just one source of nectar-rich food, you can improve these insects' chances of surviving the cold months