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as they flick their way along the fence. Then there is the fox again.Our garden, it seems, is as much a thoroughfare as ever. I've a house full of coughing and wheezing children at the moment, so none of us has gone out to disturb the snow. But there are tracks

.Unfortunately, the foxes that frequented the many out-of-the-way wildlife havens along the tracks could not read the danger signs and it was not uncommon to come across the remains of one picked clean beside the rails. At one time we had a good half dozen fox skulls around

, as it takes to the wing, hearing it buzz off far into the deepening dusk.For the squeamish out there, all I can do is reiterate the proposal made by the 17th century physician, Cheyne, who said something along the lines of: God made horse dung smell so sweet

for all to watch.Another time we learned that foxes liked to play with the drying weed left on the pond edges. Early one morning there were three or four young cubs out there frolicking with the stuff. Apart from snatching it from each other and playing

I'm just back from a weekend visiting an old friend in Banwell, near Weston-Super-Mare. Always envious of his rambling house and large walled garden, we got to talking over garden wildlife and the troubles of traipsing fox dung through the kitchen

-exuberant with his cuddles, but a rascal who fights with his sister, and the neighbours' moggies and who is not one bit daunted by the local foxes. He has a collar with warning bell, but he manages to lose it occasionally. I buy another and its keeps the children

the increasing number of rats; that's four in a month now. I guess I'll just have to accept that we live in a city, so they'll be everywhere.Last week a fox was regularly walking through the garden between 6 and 6.30am. I used to wonder why I would see them

There is a delicate balance between wanting to see nature in the garden, and suffering the consequences of its visits. I am decidedly at the easy end of the spectrum, and all I have to worry about are a few dollops of fox faeces in return for close

Spot the odd one out from these four: 1) Quincy Jones (Music Producer who worked with Michael Jackson and Frank Sinatra). 2) Thomas de Quincey (ferociously clever writer and drug addict). 3)Quincy ME (1970s television series starring Jack Klugman

tasty had somehow got wedged in it. I've cleared out plenty of chicken bones from our gutters over the years, dropped there, I think, by crows who have raided gardens where titbits have been left out for cats or foxes.Then it was the jays, three of them