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. Meadow brown (Maniola jurtina) and speckled wood (Pararge aegeria) were first, and this past weekend saw the arrival of several pairs of gatekeepers (Pyronia tithonus). Even as I write, there are some fluttering around the marjoram, globe thistle

On holiday in northern France last week I was struck by the similarities in the landscape, but very subtle differences in the wildlife.With its gently rolling hills, hedges, grazing meadows, small woods, narrow lanes and winding streams, I could

When the swifts first returned on May 2nd there were only three or four of them. Last year we had a huge gang of about 15, wheeling in the sky and screaming down the street at top speed, just above the lamp-posts. I always take these wonderfully

across the dark meadows towards Lower Halstow and the North Kent Swale marshes. My uncle was trying out his new gadget, a portable reel-to-reel tape recorder and he was hanging out of the window with the microphone as these eerie noises drifted over

stercoraria. It's scientific name means, rather unsurprisingly 'dung-eating dung-inhabiter' and it's one of those insects that is very easy to overlook in the garden. In a grazing meadow they are obvious and multitudinous insects, speckling the fresh cow pats

rump, dark tail, thrush size. Ah! Fieldfare. I don’t remember when I last saw one of these — 35 years ago? I always associate them with large flocks settling in the grazing meadows of my uncle’s farm near Sittingbourne, Kent. As their name suggests

and widespread, but more an insect of rough flowery grassland, verges, meadows and commons than of domestic gardens. The larvae burrow in plant stems, but only wild flowers so it's never a pest. It's easy to see how this noble-looking beetle got its scientific

. And it's very common, occurring throughout the country in parks, gardens, meadows, woods and forests. It parasitizes a huge range of moth caterpillars, including common garden species like yellow underwing, Noctua pronuba, and lime hawkmoth, Mimas tiliae

is the most pleasant to work with. It was eminent English physician George Cheyne (1671-1742) who said something along the lines that the Creator had deliberately made horse dung smell so sweet, because he knew that mankind would oft be in its presence. Cow

To Soicherons, Villars-Dompierre, in the Cote d'Or region of France for two weeks and the wildlife here is subtly different to that in East Dulwich. For one thing we are surrounded by large flowery meadows, hedges dripping with Mirabelle plums