I know we love to talk about the weather, but what was all that about in January?! All those low pressure systems rolling in with such astonishing force and tipping out so much water on their way through? It's a winter we won’t forget in a hurry – and I know it has been far worse for many of you than for me down in soft Sussex.

Who knows - February might still decide to throw in a dose of proper winter…

Back in the early 19th century, the squire of Walton Hall in Yorkshire was called Charles Waterton, a man for whom the term 'eccentric' might have been invented.

For example, it is said that he would crawl around on the floor pretending to be dog, biting people's calves. And he apparently rode on top of a cayman (a type of crocodile) on a trip to South America. I think he sounds great fun!

However, this…

I attended a talk at my local bird club this week, the Shoreham & District Ornithological Society. It was a lovely evening among 80 or so people, where we were whisked off by the speaker (the ever-popular Bernie Forbes) for a tour of the beautiful island of Lesvos, so much in the news these days because of the human migrant crisis.

As slide after slide came up of all manner of gorgeous and colourful birds, from Bee…

So here we are, just over the threshold into 2016, and my thoughts turned to what I need to do in my new garden this year to help save nature.

In fact I made a list, and it got longer and longer until it all became rather daunting. After all, I have a day job to do, too!

I know, I thought, I'll just look back over some of the things I achieved in 2015.

It started with two solid weeks of me directing a team of tree…

While the country was singing Auld Lang Syne, you'll have found me doing my New Year's Jig. The corner has been turned! Happy New Year! Ahead of us there is the anticipation of a natural world getting set to unfurl (or having already done so in the case of many daffodils and catkins).

Of course, there's that one key date on the immediate horizon - Big Garden Birdwatch - which this year falls on 30 & 31 January…

I've almost finished my new pond, and some of the water is in, but it seems that the birds just can't wait for me any longer.

So today I'm going to let the birds do the talking, with these photos I took this morning.

First a Jay appeared on what will be the pond edge. Was it thirsty?

No! The prospect of a quick dip was too enticing, so in it hopped, tail spread, crest erect.

And if you're up to your…

At this time of year, with the rest of the garden rather quiet and drab, that I turn to the bird feeders for my splash of colour and action. Only this year even they are all rather subdued. I'm currently only having to refill the sunflower hearts once a week, and the peanuts and fat-balls less than that.

I'm not worried. Not yet, anyway. Given that here in the south of England the November temperature was 3 degrees…

Dropping onto my doormat this week came something the wildlife world has waited a long time for. A very long time for. One hundred and nineteen years, to be precise. The first comprehensive field guide to British bees since the Victorian era.

Written by the great entomologist, Steven Falk, and illustrated by that absolute master, Richard Lewington, the Field Guide to the Bees of Great Britain and Ireland is a magnificent…

Those people with amazing memories (that's me out, then!) will remember from my last monthly round-up that November isn't my favourite month in the garden. I've had several people voice their empathy with that.

Fortunately, I'm far more sanguine about December. Barely do we seem to have we entered winter than we soon reach the shortest day and the evenings begin - albeit very slowly - to get lighter again…

I had my first mince pie of the season this week. Yes, it seems that I can no longer deny that Christmas is coming, so it was timely when this RSPB/Aldi video came dropping into my inbox with something you might like to try this weekend. It won't get the goose fat, but it might allow your garden birds to pile on the ounces!

https://youtu.be/aTSmRMBFRbw

You see, apparently, this weekend it is Stir-up Sunday, when…

I'd hate this blog to be confined to tales from south-coast softie land! So my huge thanks to Jenny Tweedie from the RSPB's Glasgow Office for getting in touch and sharing some of her experiences in her garden north of the border this summer:

It’s been a dreadful summer for gardeners in Scotland. We had one really nice week back in April (I remember it well; I had the flu…) but apart from that and a few sporadic…

The Aldi competition for schools to win one of 25 mini gardens for wildlife had excellent take-up, and I understand Aldi are announcing the winning schools very shortly.

Each of the successful schools will get a quality raised bed made from timber from sustainable sources that they can then fill with a giant bag of peat-free compost and plant up with wildlife-friendly plants (grown peat-free, of course!).

The star piece…

I'll be honest - November isn't always my favourite month in the garden. To me it sometimes feels like a shop where the shutters are starting to come down and where the stock is starting to look a bit tatty, the choice more limited.

Interestingly, it is not that the shelves are bare. Not a bit of it! We always get calls at this time of year from people concerned as to why their generously stocked feeders, full…

A couple of weeks ago I had a little break up in Norfolk.

After a morning with the amazing Grey Seals at Horsey...

...I then spent the afternoon at the equally entrancing East Ruston Vicarage Garden.

Some of you may have visited, or at least would recognise it from the TV, for it is famed for growing all sorts of tender plants outdoors such as cacti, despite being only about a mile from the North Sea.

Of course…

I do love it when I can bring you a story from someone else, rather than me wittering on each week. I know I get very excited about garden wildlife, so to find others getting similarly gripped is always comforting!

This time it was my colleague Jenny, who is one of the RSPB's Volunteer Officers (helping to look after the 13,000 of you that provide the RSPB with its incredible army of support).

Here's her email:…

A couple of weekends ago, when staying with my mum in the Midlands, I offered her the chance to be chauffeured to places she couldn't otherwise get.

She chose to visit a cousin she hadn't seen for four years, near Warwick, a rather fine choice for me given that Margaret has a gorgeous garden heaving with wildlife. For starters, any garden that has Nuthatches visiting the feeders is going to get me excited.

I'm convinced that the time to engage people with nature is from the very start. Kids have a natural love of wildlife, and even if they wave it goodbye when the hormones kick in, most will come back to it.

So I was delighted to be asked to play a part in a competition that Aldi has set up with the RSPB in which 25 schools will be able to win a mini wildlife-friendly garden.

"Adrian, would you like to help design…

This week we had the autumn equinox on 23 September, the day when there are 12 hours of daylight and 12 of night.

While the prospect of longer nights is sobering, at least it is the prelude to Michaelmas on 29 September. As well as being a Christian festival, it was the date in Medieval England that marked the end of harvest, while for me it is a big, brightly-coloured flag that it must be time for Michaelmas daisies…

In my new garden, I have a whole list of wildlife targets, creatures I'd like to see moving in in droves under my watch.

Up there on the list of new tenants that would be very welcome are bats.

During this first year, I've been able to head out at dusk most evenings since spring to check whether I am already being visited. Sure enough, on most warm evenings I get to see a bat, and on a very few evenings I see two…

A friend of mine has just bought a moth trap. They're quite simple wooden boxes, which come either with a blue, rather ethereal light that looks a bit spooky, or a whopping bulb capable of illuminating a whole city. For him - and me - we use the spooky one so as not to keep the neighbours awake!

He is going through what the theorists would call the 'change curve'. After the first burst of excitement of having a new…

Here is something I got very excited about in my garden this week. Any idea what this is?

To give you some sense of scale, it is a mound about the size of a half grapefruit, made of little fragments of grass.

It sits between three dried stems of nettles on a rough, grassy bank.

It’s a nest. And here is one of the residents just emerging.

Yes, it is the nest of a colony of Common Carder Bumblebees. Ten points…

I'm heavy with cold at the moment (it's probably better than being heavy with child, I guess), but that's not stopping me taking my 'morning constitutional' - a leisurely walk around the garden.

In fact, with the sun shining this morning after seemingly days of heavy rain, it was probably the best therapy going - and I need to get better because there's a large pond that needs digging before the ground…

Back in April, I had the huge pleasure of visiting Alessandra and Steven Towell and their plant-stuffed (and wildlife-filled) garden in Hemel Hempstead.

I hope you enjoyed the photos (and maybe even the text!) in the recent issue of Nature's Home.

While I was there, enjoying traditional Italian Easter cake, Alessandra and Steven asked me about whether I felt they should make another pond. Well, it's a huge weight…

Sometimes my aim of getting a blog out every Friday goes for a burton - life just gets in the way. It's that time of year when I get home from work, rush a meal through, and then get into the garden until the last vestiges of light force me in to flop.

Never mind - what there is at this time of year is just no end of stories to be told from the garden. And I don't just mean from MY garden.

For example, I…

Sometimes there are too many words, don't you think? Once in a while, it's just nice to let nature speak for itself. Here is nature doing the talking in my garden this week...