Garden wildlife UNCOVERED

For many of us, garden wildlife was a welcome tonic to global events last year. Being at home more meant we had time to see (and hear) wild species in our gardens. Many of us used the time to learn bird song or finally dig a long-awaited pond – congratulations if you did, and thank you for being a champion for wildlife.

Our 2020 wildlife review – run annually since 2008 – was always going to be different. There has been an 11 per cent rise in wildlife sightings, due, I’m sure, to us spending more time at home, and a record 2,596 readers recording what they spotted. This might not be startling, but what did surprise me was how we all seem a little kinder than we were in 2019 – more of us are willing to clean our bird feeders to protect birds from disease, more of us are cutting holes in our fences to let hed gehogs in, and more of us want