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the garden. It was very low, only just clearing the apple tree. This may have had something to do with the large pigeon it was clutching in its talons. It flew, rather laboriously I thought, down over the gardens to the short row of tall trees that bound

's not large, and is very typical of suburban gardens with its lawn, flowery borders and hedged boundaries. I'm fascinated that such a rare insect should turn up there, but not really surprised. It's actually one of a series of strange and peculiar things

was rather amused to find me wearing a very large woolly jumper, two chunky scarves and a hot water bottle strapped around my middle (I've been suffering from an extremely sore lower back, as well as from the cold, and this really does help to relieve

couple of weeks had been moth heaven in East Dulwich. During the day the Jersey tigers had competed with the butterflies in colours and numbers and it was almost impossible to walk in the garden, or up the street, without being batted by one on its mad

of the reasons cited for such declines is a lack of insect food. While sparrows and starlings have adapted to use garden bird feeders, insects form a large part of their diet and their young are almost exclusively fed on insects. And you'll never find swifts

is there for a gardener than the reward of having wildlife use the habitat created for them? Two pairs of blackbirds regularly dart about my lawn feeding, chasing and protecting their territory. I'm not sure where their boundaries lie or whether they're happy

streamlined birds as the perfect herald of summer and I wondered why there were fewer this year. But on Wednesday there they were, a large group of maybe 20 swooping way up high.There must be a huge volume of aerial plankton up there. Every sudden dart aside

, solid bright apple green thorax and broad strong tail stripes (green in female, blue in male). This is a bit early for one of the large hawker dragonflies, which normally start to fly from mid-June onwards. I'm guessing it came from a small garden pond

.We are not the only ones on the road, but even 100 kilometres from Calais, it seems that we are the only nationality on large stretches of the French motorway system. With the leisurely ease of Le Shuttle, and endless ferries plying the Channel, it is no surprise

around your garden grazing on aphids and slugs. If you let full-sized hens into your borders then they will kick soil all over the shop and peck large holes in the emerging shoots of your most precious plants. Bantams are less destructive, but if the main