GARDEN WILDLIFE: Revealing Your Garden's Secrets

Put yourself in the paws of the wildlife visiting your garden and soak up the sunshine with the plants. This colourful, intelligent book reveals the secrets of the garden and, by sharing its insights, allows people to provide places for wild animals and plants to flourish in their own spaces, whether they are rural, suburban or urban settings. The book is split into seven sections: mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, invertebrates and plants. In the event of a visiting hedgehog, rather than feeding it milk, the guide suggests cat or dog food as an offering because it is more similar to the invertebrates such as molluscs, worms, spiders and insects which are the animal's normal food source. If wanting to provide somewhere cosy for a greater spotted woodpecker, the book advises providing a nest box which is filled with soft material mimicking decayed wood, such as expanded polystyrene foam so they can excavate a cavity to their exact specifications. Readers can learn that the common grass snake and the barred grass snake are no longer treated as one species but are both attracted to sheets of corrugated iron as they enjoy the warmth that builds up below so they can bask without feeling vulnerable. To accompany the wisdom, the book includes fantastic colour photographs such as a shot of the barking deer, which is a small and 'pig-like' animal adapted to life in thick undergrowth, an image of a common frog, which is extremely variable in its patterns and colours that range from greens to reds, and a photo of the tawny owl, which is a successful garden bird because it will prey on a variety of animals including small mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and insects. Admire an array of moths and butterflies, use the photos to go bird spotting and keep an eye out for eels which return to rivers during their adulthood after spending several years in the sea. Paperback, colour photographs, 136pp.