What garden wildlife is doing now

It feels good, doesn’t it? Continue keeping an eye out for hedgehogs and leave food out for them as well as hungry birds. It’s still a few weeks to breeding season and natural sources of food are dangerously low.

How to help wildlife in your garden

• 10 plants for butterflies
• Wildlife-friendly plants for shade
• Alan Titchmarsh's tips on creating a wildlife-friendly garden
• How to create a mini wildlife pond

Look out for hoverflies on sunny days

Hoverflies, such as the tapered drone fly Eristalis pertinax, is on the wing on sunny days. Look out for it on sunny spots such as fence panels and large stones. Discover the best flowers for attracting more hoverflies into your garden.

Toads are laying their spawn

Toads spawn a couple of weeks later than frogs, typically in large ‘ancestral’ ponds they have been using for many years. Unlike frogs, toads lay their spawn in ribbons, which they wrap around submerged stems of pond plants.

Butterflies are emerging

On fine days you may spot your first butterfly of the year – this could be a butter-yellow brimstone butterfly, which hibernates as an adult beneath plant material such as ivy, or the more colourful red admiral or peacock. Remember that, as well as nectar-rich flowers, butterflies need plants to lay eggs on – in this case buckthorns for the brimstone and nettles for the red admiral and peacock. Find out more with our guides to the best seeds to sow for summer nectar and nectar-rich plants to grow.

Great tits and blue tits are nesting

Great tits and blue tits should have chosen their nest sites by now and may be roosting in them at night – however, it’s not too late to put up a bird box if you haven’t already. Some birds will relocate at the last minute and could take up residence with you. Find out more in our guide to the best bird nesting boxes and nest box cameras.