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over the hedgehog to make it feel secure. Offer your orphan some water and meat-based dog or cat food (not bread and milk, as this can make them ill). If the hedgehog doesn’t take the food or is injured, call the British Hedgehog Preservation Society

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

Birds bring gardens alive, and in so many ways they make gardening worthwhile. It's lovely having them as companions, delving into newly dug soil for worms and pests, but better still when they take up residence and make a nest.What better accolade

disorientated, but then they found their feet and swam around investigating their new home.Already the frogs have their own routines - at dawn they make their way to the trug and hang out on the upturned flowerpot catching flies, before jumping out at dusk. They

. Just make sure the creatures in your garden can access it. But do make yourself a log pile or two - they make fantastic wildlife habitats.Have you taken the wildlife audit? How did you score?

, 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

over and remove it once a layer of ice has formed. If the pond has already frozen, make a hole by leaving a pan of hot water on the surface, allowing the base of the pan to melt the ice. Froglife also warns against smashing or pouring hot water

, 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

by fences and hedges – things that make it easy to travel between them. It backs on to a cycle path, has walls on either side and is surrounded by concrete. Yet here it is, a mouse, living in my compost bin.The great thing about mice is that they have