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I seem to have created the perfect habitat for my frogs. It's not a large garden, marsh or meadow, but a tatty grow bag from last year, screened by willow edging and topped with dead foliage. It's an absolute eyesore and I hate it, but to my frogs

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

for Ornithology (BTO) research suggests it could be related to the changing nesting behaviour of its hosts, plus a decline of available food (caterpillars). Cuckoos usually lay their eggs in the nests of dunnocks, meadow pipits, pied wagtails and reed warblers

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

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

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

was prompted by Butterfly Conservation's Big Butterfly Count.From 16-31 July, Butterfly Conservation hopes thousands will spend just 15 minutes counting butterflies in their garden, local park, field, forest or school. This will help the charity monitor

the gardener, but is a desert for insects. So in front of the Bar we laid a strip of wildlife turf, which is enriched with dozens of wildflowers and nine different types of grass. We'll grow it long, then cut it, as we do the wildflower meadow, just twice a

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