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The bright Sunday morning sees me and nearly six-year-old scootering around Crystal Palace Park looking at dinosaur statues. We make a right pair — he clattering on the blue plastic three-wheeler, me skidding on the chrome micro. In order to avoid

. They are in desperate need of some good PR. Having spent the last four or five months diligently, but rather secretively, helping the gardener by eating caterpillars, aphids, flies and other insects, now is the time they start making a nuisance of themselves around

Within days, two scientific reports on Britain’s wildlife have made national news headlines because of their dire prognoses. The State of the UK’s Birds 2012, produced by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, British Trust for Ornithology

Moving some bricks around the shed yesterday revealed one of my favourite spiders. With a narrow reddish-pink body 25 mm long and long rather slender legs, there is no mistaking the 'woodlouse' spider, Dysdera crocata. It makes no web, but hunts

, 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

. And yet it is precisely this shelter which is most in danger of being tidied away, cut down, mulched, shredded, composted or otherwise removed to make way for next year's grand displays.If you want wildlife to feel at home in your garden, let it make a

, but the combination of dry day (getting me out), clear water and the slanting rays of the sun, have all conspired to make this an exciting event.There is something much more primordial about a newt than, say, a frog or a toad. Perhaps it’s the dragging crocodilian

marble or polished granite.But, as ever, it is the wasps that are making more than their fair share of the humming. And it is also they that are being killed. There are several spider webs amongst the ivy flowers, and some rather fat-looking and obviously

-headed gull that you are most likely to see far inland. Indeed, many books make the point that it cannot really be called a ‘sea’ gull. These are the raucous white spots attentively following the tractor as it ploughs the dark lowland soil

the right sized holes in which the birds nest, but they're probably using them as vantage points. I first saw them in Beckenham, about 10 years ago, when a large gang of upwards of 20 were making a rowdy display near a children's playground. They