Creature Comforts ; from Hedgehog Hotels to Bumblebee Boxes: How to Turn Your Backyard into a Wildlife Haven. by Emma Townshend. Portraits by Sharon Pearson

Townshend, Emma, The Independent on Sunday (London, England)

We love wildlife. We're British. We love frogs, hedgehogs, ladybirds, and dragonflies; we spend [pound]180m a year just on wild birdseed. My friend Lucy actually decided who to sell her house to, by working out who'd be guaranteed to keep on looking after the frog pond. Having said all that, as a nation we can also be pretty useless. One recent statistic suggested that at any one time a startling 80 per cent of our garden bird feeders are totally empty. So what's going on with us and nature?

We all generally start off enthusiastic about encouraging wildlife. There's nothing quite as nice as going to clean up your bird box in winter and finding a neat little woven nest …

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Publication information: Article title: Creature Comforts ; from Hedgehog Hotels to Bumblebee Boxes: How to Turn Your Backyard into a Wildlife Haven. by Emma Townshend. Portraits by Sharon Pearson. Contributors: Townshend, Emma - Author. Newspaper title: The Independent on Sunday (London, England). Publication date: May 27, 2007. Page number: Not available. © 2009 The Independent on Sunday. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All Rights Reserved.

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