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I dug a hole in the garden on Sunday, not for any gardening purpose; the hamster had died and we were having a short funeral ceremony. Digging deep holes in my East Dulwich garden is always a problem. About 25 cm down I usually meet rubble where

The first bumblebee of the year flies past like an animated boot brush. It's a huge queen of the buff-tailed bumblebee, Bombus terrestris, looking as big as a mouse as it drones about the allotment. It comes and goes several times as we're digging

served their purpose (neatness, rather than anything else), but the subterranean portions have started rotting away to mulch. Armed with some heftier-than-normal pallet planks donated by a neighbour, I started digging.As usual, there were plenty

-up views of an often regal and handsome beast. In other East Dulwich streets they are less welcome, playing havoc with lawns, and digging holes with seemingly malicious abandon, presumably to get at worms, one of their major food items at this time of year

.So there I am digging up at the allotment last week and there are worms all over the place, much to the amusement of nearly 3-year-old who examines them all. We find the biggest and the smallest, the fattest and the thinnest, the reddest and the darkest. It

an equal giant brought to me by a small child. 'These don't bite' I announced, as it bit me. Unlike the woodlouse spider, Dysdera crocata, it didn't hurt. We could clearly see the fangs digging into the skin of my finger tips, but either they were not long

I'm not overly fond of grey squirrels. Compared to the reds, which the greys have replaced, they are great lumbering brutes. But I suppose I'm lucky that they do little damage in my garden other than digging up a few tulip bulbs, so I can appreciate

the bathroom light on each night.The notion of bug boxes came back to me recently when I had a quick look through the 'my garden' section of the RSPB's Homes for Wildlife web pages. Under 'homes for insects' it suggests installing or building one. Well, I

to the electricity sub-station building. Digging up the hard-standing was never a possibility: too much effort, too much time, too much money, too much noise, and too many pipes and cables running who knows where. So we opted for above-ground construction instead

themselves here. They are smaller and tubbier than the bees, and have a distinct long straight pointed proboscis for sipping nectar while hovering in mid air. It's no coincidence that they are here too. When the bees start to dig their nest burrows