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Although autumn hangs heavier in the air with each day, it only takes a brief break in the clouds to bring shy wildlife back out into the open. So it was on Friday last week when I headed for the horticultural delights of North Woolwich. Here

habit of clustering together in small knots over the winter; the photograph here shows four I found snuggling down on a carved stone angel in Nunhead Cemetery a few years ago. The early arrivers give off a 'safety' pheromone (chemical scent) which

salvage for the crumble.We don't have the most regimented of gardens, in fact it's a bit wild sometimes. But wildlife is, by definition, wild. As I said in the magazine, it has no time for straight lines, clipped edges, smart displays, or level lawns. We

After the wet and dismal weekend, I take a tentative stroll in the garden on a clear and bright Tuesday morning, and discover the first newt of the year sitting motionless at the bottom of the pond. I know it has been down there all winter

go through this behaviour in autumn, and only the fertilised queens (females) survive through winter. In the 'solitary' species, the bees develop in their mainly subterranean nests, and although the grubs may finish feeding on the stored stocks

-worshipers, and the last few warm weeks have seemed perfect for them. As in bumblebees, it is only the mated queen wasps that survive the winter. When they emerge, they must each found a new nest from scratch. For several weeks, the queen must chew wood pulp to make

and suburban London about 100 years ago. It was something of an exciting wildlife spectacle. Writing in 1909, Charles Dixon describes the rapidly increasing gull expansion into the capital in his popular book Birdlife of London. He is rather bemused

against winter and hard times in the honeybees’ wax comb, and which gives a honeybee colony virtual immortality.]The pupils also knew a lot about climate change — ocean acidification, changes in ocean salinity, water level changes, ice sheet retreat