Sometimes in making a garden better for wildlife, you have to challenge yourself, and for me that comes whenever the DIY toolkit is called for. After all, I'm the kind of person who gets confused when instructions say to use Phillip's screwdriver, because I don't know a Phillip.

In case you are the same, today's blog is all about fitting a water butt, and I'm hoping that by seeing a complete amateur in action…

Glancing out of the kitchen window yesterday, I saw a little bird flick across from my Cornus tree across the pond into the apple, with a swish and a dash the pricked my interest.

On getting a better view, I found myself looking at this:

If you haven't seen one of these before, it's perhaps no surprise, because this is a fresh-from-the-nest youngster of one of our most declined breeding birds, the Spotted Flycatcher…

As I wander around the garden, no matter how quietly and gently I go, I'm always aware that certain wildlife is nipping off at my approach, disappearing into cover, sneaking quietly away.

So using a TrailCam with night vision is a fascinating way of seeing who gets up to what in my absence.

In the last month, I've had it set up looking down a path through my bed of annual flowers, in part because I wanted to see…

I don't inflict graphs on you very often, but this one I thought tells today's story very nicely:

Across the bottom axis are weeks of the year, from 1 March to December. And up the vertical axis are the average number of butterflies I've seen in my garden in each of those weeks.

You'll notice the graph bumbles along, on average under five butterflies a week, all the way right through to the end of June…

I wrote last week about the need for birdbaths, and what then happens? The heavens open! From the forecast, it looks like pretty much all of your gardens will have got a soaking in the wake that heatwave earlier in the month.

But there is every chance that hot, dry weather will return, so putting in (and looking after) a birdbath remains up there as our July Giving Nature a Home activity of the month.

I'm sure many…

I don't know about you, but I've been wilting in the heat lately. After just short sessions of gardening, I've been crying out for a paddling pool in which to dip my feet and wash away some of that clamminess and dust.

It seems like my garden birds have been feeling the same, but they are able to take full advantage of their own bathing facilities, like these House Sparrows...

So, with at least two more…

My transition into being an adult took many years (and some would say has yet to conclude). Imagine, then, what it is like to make the transition from youngster to maturity in an hour.

That is what has been happening all over my pond, as revealed by some very interesting evidence left behind.

The story begins 18 months ago when I filled my new pond for the first time. By summer 2016, the pond plants I had added were…

The other evening was my best Stag Night ever, and I've had a few in my time, I can tell you.

I should explain. I haven't been married many times; I'm not the male equivalent of Joan Collins (despite what some might say). No, this is about what I like to do on warm evenings when I take ten minutes out at dusk just to go and watch my night-time garden wildlife.

And right now, as well as the bats skimming…

Let me guess what you'll be doing in the garden this month!

Weeding? Unless you have been very diligent, there are likely to be young weeds that germinated in April, that still looked small and innocent in May, but are now turning into robust brutes, anchoring themselves in for the battle with you ahead. 

Weeds are typically described as 'a plant in the wrong place' but for me it is those pernicious weeds that are…

There is one place in my garden that I'm itching to look every day but I have to be really disciplined. "No, Adrian - once a week and once a week only!"

That thing that lures me so much is my Wildlife Sunbeds. These are my sheets of black, corrugated roofing material, laid in a number of different places, and they are one of the wildlife wonders of the garden.

What makes them so good are five big reasons…

I always say that the garden can throw up some of the most powerful encounters with wildlife you can have.

So it was last Thursday, when I peered out of the bedroom window to see something writhing on the edge of the pond, attracting the attention of a Crow.

Going down to investigate, I found this - a Grass Snake swallowing a full-grown Frog.

I admit I had mixed emotions. I work hard to make my garden a home for…

As I walked through the garden on Wednesday, I heard the 'syrupy' calls of Long-tailed Tits from among some bushes. They are daily visitors to my pond, one of their rare forays to ground level where they enjoy a quick wash and scrub up, so it was no surprise to hear them.

However, when I went up the garden a couple of hours later, I heard their calls again from the same bush. My little antennae pricked - for…

Following my blog last week about forsaking the mower for a while and letting the lawn live a little prompted some people to get in touch to ask how could they then add some colour.

The Advanced Level technique is to strip off the turf and topsoil to get rid of the nutrient-rich level and sow wildflower meadow seed.

But I know that many people just don't have the time, energy or funds to try this. So this blog ISN'T…

Of all the things we suggest you do to make your garden more of a haven for wildlife, surely those that involve actually stopping doing something are the most attractive. After all, in this age where time is such a precious commodity, we could all benefit from doing a little less.

But I do realise that for some people, the following idea will cause a little sharp intake of breath, for it is all about letting the lawnmower…

I know how to pick my challenges! Yes, I'm going to attempt to blow the trumpet of a plant that is the sworn enemy for some people who strive for the perfect lawn - the dandelion. Those rosettes of tooth-edged leaves that evade the mower's blades; that deep tap root that refuses to be eradicated - some of you may be shuddering at the very thought.

But I love them, and last weekend I grabbed some photos which…

Apparently, Easter weekend is the busiest of the year in garden centres across the land. Given the generally mild and dry spring most of us have been enjoying, Easter 2017 could turn out to be even busier than ever.

Along with all the ready-to-plant plants flying off the shelves, there will also be tonne after tonne of compost and grow-bags humped into car boots ready to fill several million pots and seed trays.

I’m…

My RSPB day job has been so busy this spring that I thought I'd treat myself to a few days away enjoying the natural wonders of Spain.

(For those that don't know, I'm an RSPB Project Manager, and I timed my holiday to be just after the public Consultation had closed in which we are trying to convince Medway Council not to build 5,000 houses on the UK's best site for Nightingales. I know, it's unbelievable! Little…

I was in garden centre at the weekend and had a look at the 'wildlife gardening accoutrements'. There was shelf after shelf of it all - bird boxes, bird food, hedgehog houses, bee boxes...

It then struck me how far things have come, in particular regarding pollinating insects. Back in 1982, the RSPB produced a book called 'Gardening for Wildlife' in which there is no mention of solitary bees or what you can do…

Three cheers for April! There are likely to be days this month when the sun's warmth seeps under your skin and when the birds just can't stop themselves from singing.

Then again, there might be other days when it feels like winter all over again. As Ogden Nash, the poet, said:

"April soft in flowered languor,
April cold with sudden anger"

But none of that can stop the lengthening days, and key activities…

Sometimes it's healthy, I think, just to look, rather than to think too hard.

So here are the results of me looking around my garden this week, not thinking, just enjoying.

And then you chance upon something you've never noticed before...

Know what it is? It's the flowers of a male Yew tree, ready to drop their pollen into the breeze, without which we wouldn't have the red 'drupes' (Yew berries) in autumn…

I often bang on about the difference between a wildlife meadow (mainly perennial plants; on poor soil; includes grasses; once started, never cultivated; cut with a mower or scythe) and annual plantings (can be on good soil; using annual flowers; that gets cultivated anew each year). Don't be fooled by seed packets and magazines that talk about meadows and show you fields of poppies - two VERY different things!

We…

It was a bad day when you arrived at the school dinner hall to find that pudding of the day was tapioca. "Eeeuuurrrgghh - frogspawn!"

However, it is a good day when you peer into your pond and find that it has filled with tapioca overnight.

And this week turned out to include some very good days indeed in my pond. My Chiffchaffs have yet to arrive, it is still about five weeks until the first Swallows return…

I love those wildlife gardening activities that take almost no effort at all - and here's one that after an initial oomph is followed by an absolute riot - of colour!

It all comes from scattering some annual flower seed, which will turn into a bed of colour for you and for pollinating insects.

The result can be this...

or this...

...or this (only without me in it!).

It is incredibly cheap, too. Whereas…

Yesterday, a series of little things happened.

To start with, I noticed for the first time this year that the sky was no longer pitch black when it was time to get up.

At lunchtime I was lured out from my desk by sunshine, and felt its warmth through my clothes.

The crocuses were open; indeed, some of them were wide open, which they only do when they're really relaxed.

Honeybees, bumblebees and even a couple…

With my pond totally ice-bound earlier this week, my visiting Sparrowhawks no longer had their gravelly shallows in which to bathe.

However, clearly desperate for a bathe, this female spotted that the solar fountain in the middle of the frozen pond had spring into life.

Well, this was far too tempting!

I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

Rather her than me!