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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

and Their Haunts by the Rev. C.A. Johns, was published in 1862 by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, on the back of his success with Flowers of the Field (1851). Both books were in print for over a century, and it's easy to see why.To start, Johns

oblivious of the loud whizzes and bangs that keep the cats huddled in a dark corner indoors somewhere. But the cats have cottoned on to this and the moment the explosions stopped, 10.13 in East Dulwich, the black one was out of the cat flap like a shot

design I know, but just humour me. If it is 1 cm along each side, it will have a body volume of 1 cubic centimetre (cm³) and a surface area of 6 square centimetres (cm²). A larger bird, 2 cm along each side, now has a volume 8 cm³, that's eight times

, they are field birds. The RSPB website is on hand with the answer — they readily come into the suburbs to visit gardens when the weather is snowy. The white is gone from my garden now, and so too, apparently, are the fieldfares, gone back to the fields. But as I

Big news from the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch survey results just out: the long-tailed tit has made it, for the first time in the survey's 30-year history, into the top 10. I hardly ever saw these gregarious little birds until I moved to East Dulwich

all cavorting together.I sometimes feel a bit uneasy when I see small birds fluttering about in the garden...you know...the cats... But I needn't worry now. It's much too inclement for my two to bother getting up out of their basket, let alone venture

Several foxes, or the same one several times, have trotted up through the garden during the last week. As I sit tapping on the laptop on the kitchen table I get a good view out through the French windows, but I'm all but invisible to them

Monday morning and a jay visited the kitchen window. I always think these are incredibly handsome birds and the small blue wing feathers still give me a childish thrill when I find one dropped. I can't resist picking it up to stick in my hat

trees in our garden, but a few days ago I was convinced I could hear one in the gardens a few doors down, which have sycamores, limes and Lombardy poplars. But no matter how hard I listened, I could not pinpoint exactly where the sound was coming from