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of how interested in wildlife the owners of these myriad plots actually are. I, and 54,450 others, registered with the scheme, and 26,197 actively participated in it by surveying wildlife or reporting changing garden activities.It turns out I am not a

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?

Yesterday I discovered cuckoo spit on my red valerian (Centranthus ruber). It's considered a pest by many gardeners, but, for me, it's a symbol of great achievement: I've successfully converted a barren, paved courtyard into a lush, green (albeit

, 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

.Another ladybird that is regularly found overwintering in gardens is the 16-spot, Tytthaspis sedimpunctata, another mildew feeder. A couple of years ago these were very common clustered at the bottom of the featheredge fence slats, but this year there don't seem

at first look unappealing and unattractive, they are nevertheless home to 12–14 per cent of all our red data book and nationally scarce insect species; that’s more than you find in ancient woodlands or on chalk downs.The reason they are so important

in May. Would they have checked for nesting birds?As gardeners we're conditioned to work with wildlife. We avoid tidying borders in winter, trimming hedges in nesting season, and are frequently reminded of the benefits of having a pond. But this message