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the weather here in London.The garden is still looking remarkably green, even after we cut down the now wilting and blackened dahlias. In fact we already have a perfect bird-feeder growing out there - the apple tree. And the bird that best takes advantage

. At each scale an ant would stop, tickle it with its antennae, and suck up the small droplet of honeydew that was presented.Neither of these insects has ever reached pest proportions in my garden, so I've never had need to regard them as pests. On the other

-tailed tits in my garden next year.It's no surprise that Britain's smallest bird should suffer in the cold. It's all to do with body mass and surface area ratios. I wonder whether I can get away with a bit of maths on this blog. Imagine a cubic bird — strange

first found it at Crystal Palace in 2005, and now, there it is. Just the singleton was in the garden, but later the same day there were dozens visiting the raspberry flowers up at the allotment.B. hypnorum is handsome and unmistakable. The thorax is all

We didn't have a pond when I was growing up. I always wanted one, but blew it after trying to walk on water once at Notcutts. I was hauled out and sent home wearing a bin bag, which put paid to any attempts at having a pond at home until many years later.My mum finally let me dig...

into the depths of the garden. But a couple of days later we spotted them. We'd just driven the car through the gate and had stopped to close it before setting off for the day. Suddenly there were yells of a mixture of horror and fascination from the children. I

through the fresh blanket sniffing for whatever it is in our garden that foxes sniff for. The squirrel did not see the fox, snow in its eye perhaps, but the fox saw his quarry immediately. He lowered his profile and spread his weight, tensing his back

, solid bright apple green thorax and broad strong tail stripes (green in female, blue in male). This is a bit early for one of the large hawker dragonflies, which normally start to fly from mid-June onwards. I'm guessing it came from a small garden pond

. Much more likely it fell off the back of a lorry, or a family hatchback, or a saloon. It is now widespread in southern England.And there was one waiting for me in the front garden when I returned from Italy. I thought I found one a couple of years ago

If you have been struck by the sad plight of the battery hen recently and wish to do something about it then remember one important fact: chickens are rubbish gardeners. Forget the fanciful notion you had of having fluffy feathered folk strutting