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The woodpigeons are back. Not that they had gone away, just that I’ve noticed them a lot over the last week. I love the way they strut their plump bodies about on the lawn, peering intently into the wet grass as if looking for something they lost

of this will be laced with old lime mortar.This isn't the first time I've seen pyramidals hereabouts. Three years ago I found a lone spire growing from the lawn of the local church, St Clement with St Peter. The present church was built in the early 1950s. The original

, and certainly there have been some moth-eaten examples limping through South London streets. But now I wonder whether all the recent garden make-overs in my area have seen them off.When we moved here 10 years ago, a pleasing number of neighbouring gardens

at first look unappealing and unattractive, they are nevertheless home to 12–14 per cent of all our red data book and nationally scarce insect species; that’s more than you find in ancient woodlands or on chalk downs.The reason they are so important

At 11 o'clock in the morning, the bowl of Bob-the-Builder pasta shapes was either a late second breakfast, or an early first lunch - whatever, it was interrupted by the announcement from nearly-three-year-old: "Look, there's a magpie". Sure enough

, the feather or flower balls swung on strings by Polynesian dancers. For nearly three minutes, they circled round and round each other, always keeping about 10-15 cm apart, as if they were connected by some invisible, but unbreakable, thread.It's difficult

the washing. Whatever, suddenly there it was, hopping sedately up the lawn.Frogs always cause a hullabaloo in our garden and this one was soon surrounded by curious children, wondering where it had come from, and what they were to do about it. Leave it alone

of wildlife. The back garden is just 30 square metres of close-mown lawn and the front garden has just a few neat beds of geraniums and some small decorative cypresses. It's a holiday bungalow, so the garden is kept to a maintenance-free minimum

it. Consequently, it's just as brazen as they get. Twice, I've had to shoo it away from the guinea-pig cowering its run on the lawn. And, of course, it defecates just as much as any tailed fox.We regularly see foxes in the garden, and over the years I

-up views of an often regal and handsome beast. In other East Dulwich streets they are less welcome, playing havoc with lawns, and digging holes with seemingly malicious abandon, presumably to get at worms, one of their major food items at this time of year