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My lawn is bone dry. I keep putting off watering it because it's autumn for goodness sake and it should rain soon. It's looking a bit brown, but I know it will recover fine with the first precipitation. The clouds, however, tenaciously hang

, where birds such as sparrows can hunt for caterpillars and garden pests. A clean bird bath provides them with water to drink and clean their feathers (which enables them to insulate themselves against the cold).There’s nothing like that in my garden

, the dodgy walnuts, the last of the Christmas pudding… in fact, most food scraps (except turkey, goose or chicken remains, or anything too salty or sugary). Every little really does help. And, finally, don’t forget to provide a regular supply of fresh water.  

actually), which presumably climbed back into the water after a dry, under-log hibernation, during that brief sunny spell at the beginning of the month.The seasonal cycling of weather, day length, and temperature, may seem pretty extreme to modern humans

corticale. The disease is particularly prevalent in small to medium-sized trees during times of water stress, and this summer has been dry enough to see a resurgence in south-east London. There has been speculation that grey squirrels may have something

over trees and soil in search of overwintering pests around the garden. Welcome them in with food and water, provide them with hedges and shrubs for shelter, and they'll reward you by helping control unwanted pests. What's a pest to you is food for them

cannot burrow into the soil beneath. Instead, they just sit there until some unfortunate child wheels a bicycle through the noisome mess.So I took my broom and a bucket of water and shlooshed them away. Such a waste. Oh well, I can always go and see what

For anyone who thought the cold winter might have been a bit harsh for wildlife, I hope the recent heatwave has been an eye-opener. I’ve certainly never seen so much insect life in April before. The garden has been awash with orange-tips, holly

at the edge of the water in total darkness with bats swirling around me.Like so much of our wildlife, bats are having a hard time. This is mostly due to the widespread use of pesticides in agriculture. British bats feed exclusively on insects, so spraying

, and they are the flecks of white that litter a rather water-logged Dulwich Park and Peckham Rye as I take a year-end cycle round my local manor.Today, no-one bats an eye at them, but things were not always so. Black-headed gulls only started to appear in urban