SELECTIVE WILDLIFE WATCHING
There are just some wild visitors to your garden that you really welcome, others, well you just wish that they will go and visit someone else's.

Hedgehogs are one such visitor that I'm sure nearly everyone would like to see snuffling across the lawn or flowerbed. Harmless and helpful to the gardener, we put out food and drink to encourage them, build them little boxes to hibernate in and carefully check the bottom of bonfires to make sure they aren't incinerated on Guy Fawkes night. Turn them into moles however, and all sorts of medieval instruments of torture are devised to discourage and at worst, kill them. What do they do wrong? They have a similar diet to hedgehogs so are just as useful, but the fact that they make dirt piles on our lawns turn them into public enemy number one. If hedgehogs made a mess would our attitude to them change?

Bees we like, or at least tolerate, while wasps send us into bouts of apoplexy, but both deliver a nasty sting. Bees make honey, wasps, well they just make themselves a nuisance, but in fact they can be very good for the garden as they feed on some pest species.

One of the great pleasures in life is to sit out in the garden of a summers evening and hearing the frogs croaking from some hidden, dank corner, but my neighbour can't bear to be anywhere near them. Horrible, slimy things that jump out at you while you are pottering, so I'm sure that he would be very happy to see a grass snake slither into the pond and take a frog for lunch, whereas for most people this would be the signal to run indoors and not emerge for at least a week.

A glimpse of a brown rat will have us reaching instantaneously for the phone to call the rodent operatives, as they are known these days, but a badger lumbering up the path at dusk can elicit real delight, until that is they start digging up the lawn in search of earthworms and grubs, then our attitude changes somewhat. I have a long time memory of many years ago when someone rang the Trust to ask what was the Trust going to do about "its" badgers digging up my lawn?!

Wildlife needs our gardens. We have systematically and continuously eaten into their habitats making their world smaller and smaller. Some adapt better than others, taking advantage of new opportunities that man-made environment has to offer, but the majority of species find eking out a living more and more difficult. Generally people welcome animals, insects and birds visiting their garden, it can enhance and enrich the view from their window, and the interest in 'Gardening for Wildlife' has mushroomed over recent years.

But we can be a bit selective in what we set out to encourage and worry when the "wrong" species turns up. So really, when you see something is not quite to your liking, take a deep breath and just remember that it is just trying to find a little niche for life in an increasingly hostile world.                                                                      Mike Russell, Sussex Wildlife Trust,