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It's been a very good year for codling moths in our garden. I can't say I've seen many of the moths themselves, but it's obvious there are plenty of them. Each time I cut into one of the windfall apples I am met with a crumbling mouldy brown mass of caterpillar droppings in the c...

There is a delicate balance between wanting to see nature in the garden, and suffering the consequences of its visits. I am decidedly at the easy end of the spectrum, and all I have to worry about are a few dollops of fox faeces in return for close-up views of an often regal and ...

Saturday, at last, this is when the weather finally broke; in south-east London, at least. Clear blue sky met me when I traipsed downstairs at half past seven, and as I stepped out through the Kitchen door I felt something I had almost forgotten about — the stuff of legend, warm ...

When the swifts first returned on May 2nd there were only three or four of them. Last year we had a huge gang of about 15, wheeling in the sky and screaming down the street at top speed, just above the lamp-posts. I always take these wonderfully streamlined birds as the perfect h...

Moving some bricks around the shed yesterday revealed one of my favourite spiders. With a narrow reddish-pink body 25 mm long and long rather slender legs, there is no mistaking the 'woodlouse' spider, Dysdera crocata. It makes no web, but hunts under logs and stones after woodli...

The orb webs of the garden spider, Araneus diadematus are much in evidence as the nights get cooler, especially in the morning when their dew- or rain-covered tracery is revealed all over the bushes.It's fascinating to watch them being created first thing in the day, particularly...

Following my find of a dead swift in the flower bed, there have been a lot of blog comments on cats, and how welcome or unwelcome they are in the garden. So I just had to share the following, because I found it so comical. It is taken from a fascinating, but very obscure book cal...

Sunday has been warm enough to sit outside, in a tee-shirt, so it's not surprising that there are still insects flying about. Today it was flies that caught my eye.Episyrphus balteatus is perhaps the commonest and most distinctive hoverfly in Britain. Although there are about 250...

I don't really do birds. I'm usually too busy peering down at insects on flowers or running across leaves. Or I'm on hands and knees, bum in the air, turning stones over looking for ground beetles or grubbing at plant roots for weevils. Such is the downward-looking microcosm-cent...

I used to see foxes all the time. Whenever I looked out of the window there was almost certainly one sniffing about in the garden or strolling nonchalantly down the street. Winter nights were alive with the unearthly yelps and screams of the males, hot in pursuit of a vixen. A co...