There’s an amazing amount of wildlife in a garden. In a famous 30-year study, the naturalist Jennifer Owen noted everything she could identify in her garden in Leicester.

The garden was a fifth of an acre but she counted nearly 3000 different species, more than are recorded for most nature reserves.

There were 54 different birds, nearly 500 plant species and just under 2000 insects! Follow this link to learn more about the study.

So when you start looking, you will be surprised. Start with the obvious things.

Birds are probably the easiest: they move, they sing and they’re quite big.

Plants are an obvious group too and provide a home for lots of different creatures. Many of them will have been planted of course, but there could easily be 100 different species of wild plants even in a small garden.

Look among the weeds in a veg patch, flower bed or a lawn (especially if it’s not mown too often) Hidden corners that have not received too much of the gardeners attention are even better.

I find that it’s difficult to look for everything all at once. If you’re on the lookout for birds, you won’t notice the insects - so if I’m trying to record everything I go round two or three times. First looking for the obvious things, then focussing on plants, and finally hunting for small things, mainly insects and other invertebrates. 

There are the obvious places to look, such as under logs and stones, where you will find the classic creepie-crawlies such as woodlice and centipedes, but scrutinise plants closely and you will find a wealth of other creatures, including aphids, shield bugs and caterpillars. 

A great technique is just to sit still for a while and watch a patch of flowers to see the creatures that come to visit. 

I have a pond in my garden and water figwort grows round it. It has rather dull-looking brownish flowers but they are one of the very few flowers pollinated by wasps, and not just the common wasps that we are so familiar with.  Sit still on a sunny day and quite soon something will turn up. 

Most animals have evolved ways of not being eaten. They either move about a lot (so easy to spot if not to identify), or are unpleasant to eat (in which case they’re often brightly coloured and again easy to spot), or they hide.  The last group are the trickiest but there is the advantage that they tend to sit still since moving gives them away. Often they hide under leaves.

Of course it’s all very well finding things, but how do you put a name to them?

There are some wonderful identification guides out there, especially for the more obvious wildlife such as birds, plants and butterflies and moths.

There are now also some really effective apps, including several that will identify birds from their song such as Merlin Bird ID. For plants I find one called Flora Incognita is good, but there are several others; and for insects I like ObsIdentify.

I used that to identify what I thought was a wasp pollinating the water figwort flowers, and it turned out to be a quite different sort of insect, figwort sawfly, which is a brilliant wasp mimic. 

Be careful though: if it’s not 100% sure (it tells you the percentage) treat the result with caution.

So all you have to do is walk round your garden or park or any other green space nearby, but do it several times and be alert to small movements and you’ll be amazed what you see!