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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

overfed garden spiders, Araneus diadematus, are sitting in stately plumpness in the centres.Several of the webs already have dead wasps stored in them, all spun around with silk. I am always slightly amazed that spiders are able to subdue such large

In the Horniman Museum Gardens earlier today and a brightly coloured butterfly caught my eye as it visited a low dandelion flower. I skulk up to it and discover a painted lady, Cynthia cardui. This is only the third I have seen this year.A native

It's two years now since the ring-necked parakeets started screeching over the garden. The tallest trees around here are the Lombardy poplars a few doors down. I don't think they are nesting in them though, they don't look old enough to have

earlier.We regularly get a pair in the garden, or sitting on the fence. There were four earlier this year, and I’m guessing this represented two generations. We don’t have large enough trees in our garden, so the nest must be in one of the Lombardy poplars

Going for walks in Dulwich and Sydenham Hill Woods, Peckham Rye or Nunhead Cemetery, I often hear the tap-tap-tapping of great spotted woodpeckers from high up in the trees as they test the dead boughs for tasty insect morsels. We have no large

the tiny chequerboard mosaic of London gardens spread out below me. There are just so many wild corners down there, it's no surprise the area is full of wildlife.The recently published results of the RSPB's Homes for Wildlife scheme are a good measure

are vanishing. Not only do they disappear under front drives, but many of the original 'backland' plots, extra large gardens and paddocks harking back to an era of horse-drawn carts and local orchards, are being developed under blocks of flats and tight mews

annuals is one largely invented by Bunny Guinness and friends”. (Bunny can be heard talking about guerrilla gardening in the Radio 4 programme mentioned earlier.) Richard may have proved that not all guerrilla gardeners plant wildlife-poor bedding annuals

The south-facing fence of our garden is covered all over with ivy, and the leaves are prime basking territory for all manner of insects. This last week, the solitary bees have started to reappear in droves. There are very many species all looking a