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of satisfaction. I'm always keen to attract wildlife, and I'm pleased that this time it worked. Old nesting material can harbour diseases, pests and parasites, which can carry over from one season to the next if it's not removed. So I need to get the ladder out

The foxes have been busy in my garden again. I haven’t seen them recently, but they leave their tell-tale signs. Occasionally I have cause to curse them, notably when I move the kids’ climbing frame to mow the lawn and find a putrescent latrine in the damp grass. Other times they...

For Christmas this year, all my friends and relatives will be receiving bird boxes. I’ve developed something of an obsession with DIY bird boxes, and currently have a pile of them in my front room, waiting to be wrapped in festive paper. I feel like Santa.It all started when the ...

, such as 'John Downie' and 'Red Sentinel', which seem to also have good wildlife value. They’re all hardy and do well in most soils, and are now usually grown on dwarfing rootstocks so they reach an eventual height of just 4m. But they do like a bit of sun

I saw a lot of lizards on my trip around South America. There were brown lizards, green lizards, bright blue ones, and some that blend in perfectly with the red and black volcanic environment they inhabit.I was lucky enough to see a pair of lizards mating in Colombia. The male li...

It’s been fascinating to follow the tweets of butterfly enthusiasts as they marked the arrival of warm weather during the last fortnight, by discoveries of green hairstreaks, Duke of Burgundy Fritillaries and even some large tortoiseshells in the Isle of Wight. I can’t match any ...

While many plants have been late to flourish this year, I’m pleased to report that the blue and great tits that forage in my garden every spring are bang on schedule.Regular readers of this blog will know that every year my tiny courtyard garden is host to a pair of blue tits and...

Find out how to identify the six species of bumblebee likely to visit gardens, by using our easy-to-follow guide.In recent years, bumblebeeshave suffered massive declines, leaving two of the UK's 27 native species extinct. Loss of habitat is to blame, with wild areas of farmland ...

again, I’ve been dreaming about a big, leafy, watery garden. But why three ponds? Well, they would be of different sizes and depths, and therefore attract a wide range of wildlife. I would dig a large, deep pond, a medium-sized pond and a small, shallow

A friend of mine recently found a juvenile hedgehog. It was curled in a ball in the middle of the road, with cars whizzing past. Had my friend not been in the right place at the right time, this young hoglet would almost certainly have met a sticky end.In addition to dicing with ...