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estimate of numbers. Each of five or six bands contained about 1000 ants for each 10cm; so that's over 50,000 per metre, extending at least 1km  in each direction. My conservative estimate gives 100 million insects in our short stretch of beach alone. Now

of the leaves when I spotted a ruddy brown bundle next to the ivy thicket. There was a fox asleep on the roof of the shed.It turned its head towards me as I cracked open the casement to take a picture. Not a very good one, I have to admit, I need a telephoto

stacked layers of old railway sleepers. It's not large, only 3.5 by 1.5 metres. And although it is over a metre deep in one corner, it shelves to nothing in another. Oh well, I'll just use the rest on the shed roof, where the roofing felt has ripped

of flies emerges.Fruit flies (at least two Drosophila species) feature strongly, which is no surprise given the amount of apple cores, banana skins, melon shells and potato peelings we chuck in each week. Although the adult flies are only 2.5mm long

the garden, but our resident south London foxes liked to play with them and many have been damaged or gone missing. Those that remain are nailed to the shed and the flagpole. The sheep jawbone eventually also fell apart because of their meddling, but the cat

- spiders are a thuggish bunch and there is always the danger of cannibalism. Although, in this case I don’t think he had too much to worry about. I think she’d probably already eaten too many wasps.

around 2001, and about that time I was shown the end-of-season remains of a nest in a small hollow tree in Sydenham Hill Wood. I had heard of them being spotted in Dulwich Park, but had never been fortunate enough to see them myself.There has been a