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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

on the sills for the half-tame squirrel. We duly obliged.On their return we got to chatting about gardens and wildlife, what the swifts were up to, how many stag beetles had come flying over. When talk turned to the half-tame squirrel I was told, very

must be the swift snatching up a flying insect. The last few evenings have been very good for insects bumping up against the lighted windows of the kitchen. Monday saw a female stag beetle, upturned, legs in the air, as she bumped into the wall

It's cold, there's snow on the ground, and all is quiet in the garden. But I've just been outside feeding the wildlife. In my case that does not mean putting up nut-filled bird feeders or hanging fat balls, it means tipping the kitchen waste

-footed bee hovered briefly outside the kitchen.I've just been wandering about the garden in my shirtsleeves, feeling the real warmth of the sun catch me, and it seems that all the wildlife has just been queuing up ready for this sunshine. The trouble is, I

The Friday before last was hot and humid, and as the sun fell the evening crept in sultry and still. Sitting in the kitchen I was aware that there was an inordinate number of moths fluttering about outside. This wasn't much of a surprise, the last

I have cats. Every so often I have to live with the guilt that they kill the local wildlife. It's usually one of the mice breeding in the compost heaps or a blue-tit fledgling. The main hunter is the black and white one; lovely and soft and over

Our first barbecue of the season was Sunday 3 May, so much pottering about in the garden sunshine. It's all happening out there now. Last week there were 13 newts in the pond, we couldn't move for holly blues and then the swifts were back. It

there, chattering loudly in the apple tree, was old black and white, cocking its head first one way, then the other.I was really chuffed. Not about having the bird in the garden, but about the boy correctly identifying it. I congratulated him on his

zigzagging about in the gloom.A stream of small and medium-sized moths are attracted to the kitchen lights. A few come indoors to bat gently against the lights, but most seem to pass or settle on the nearby herbage. I wonder if my amphibious friend is taking