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Although, yes, technically it is a spider, I’m almost positive that nobody could really be scared of the zebra spider, Salticus scenicus. It lacks all those sinister characteristics that can cause unease among some people — it isn’t black and hairy, it doesn’t have long legs, it ...

the tiny chequerboard mosaic of London gardens spread out below me. There are just so many wild corners down there, it's no surprise the area is full of wildlife.The recently published results of the RSPB's Homes for Wildlife scheme are a good measure

Several foxes, or the same one several times, have trotted up through the garden during the last week. As I sit tapping on the laptop on the kitchen table I get a good view out through the French windows, but I'm all but invisible to them

, but the sudden short shower had thrown up a double rainbow.I well remember my first urban fox. We'd just moved to a little house in Nunhead and there was one trotting up and down the back wall, in broad daylight, examining the gardens, looking for a nice place

've lost track of who is who. I’ll have no trouble identifying this one in the future.How do you identify the wildlife in your garden? Do some visiting creatures have any distinguishing features?

I think we have foxes living under our garden shed. I first noticed the scratching in the soil a week or so ago. It didn't look like very much excavation had occured and the hole didn't appear to go very far. But now we have more earth-moving going

A bit of garden clearance in the rain is always therapeutic. Working off a good lunch and feeling the drip of water down my neck, I feel my endeavours are all the more noble. Actually all I'm doing is ripping the vine out of the apple tree it's been

I’m afraid I’ve been rather disparaging about fat balls and landscape gardeners again. It all came out at the Kent Wildlife Conference, held on Saturday at the University of Greenwich’s swanky new Medway Campus, down in Chatham.The theme

I’ve just come back from visiting my parents, who live in Newhaven, on the Sussex coast, between Brighton and Eastbourne; there were lots of gulls in their garden. As they live only about a mile from the pebble beaches of Seaford Bay, this is hardly

to degrade and dilute the wider countryside, urban gardens take on a greater and greater importance in maintaining our biodiversity, be it birds or beetles.Nowadays, Christopher Robin might not even be able find Alexander Beetle in the first place.