Gazing out of the glass doors at the back of our house, I spot a flicker of black and white near the bird feeder. Despite the intensely urban location of our tiny garden, it’s incredible how often something new shows up, especially at this time of year. The air is alive with the sounds of spring – the thrum of Sparrow wings, a Wood Pigeon’s comforting coo, the drone of an over-enthusiastic lawnmower – accompanied by sirens, engines, drilling, the faint hum of the Eurostar hurtling into St Pancras Station – background noises I’ve learnt to almost tune out after years of living in the city.  

The Long-Tailed Tit, which is now still enough for me to identify, seems equally unfazed. Perched amid the tangle of jasmine that winds up our fence, it throws me a quick glance, its round fuzzy face framed by thick black eyebrows. I make a mental note of our new visitor, who I hope will join a growing cast of regulars, including the host of squabbling House Sparrows, the Great Tits that nest in my neighbour’s gutter (perhaps it’s a good thing he never clears it out after all), and the noisy Magpies, whose rattle I’ve become so accustomed to that it sounds like home. 

Another recent addition to this lineup is a little Wren, recognisable by its perky tail, which creeps along the fence in the corner of the garden by our tub pond. Since we introduced the pond, fashioned out of a recycled half wine barrel, there’s been a notable increase in the number of species frequenting our garden. Dragonflies zip across its surface, solitary bees cling to the sides, while dipping their straw-like proboscises into the water, and birds – like the Wren – perch on the edge, taking delicate sips.

While autumn or winter is often seen as the best time of year to build a pond, spring is fine too, and building one now means that you’ll have a water source ready for the hotter, dryer months, when it’s so badly needed. If you have a decent amount of space, a sunken pond is best, especially for amphibians. But anything from a washing up bowl to an old sink can make a huge difference to urban wildlife. We’ve used plastic baskets filled with aquatic compost and weighted with pebbles to add plants, including my favourite – Water Forget-me-nots – delicate clusters of sky-blue flowers with lemon-yellow centres. Plants like these help to keep the water clear, as well as ensuring that any creatures that fall in can climb back out again.  

Spring is also the most popular time of year for planting, and some thoughtful choices can make a big difference for wildlife too. For instance, in our front garden, we have a Pyracantha (which I must admit is a rather aggressive plant with incredibly sharp thorns, often used to deter human intruders). It climbs high, creating a shady refuge up the wall of our house, and its glossy red berries provide a great food source for Sparrows, finches, Starlings and Wood Pigeons throughout the winter. We’ve planted dwarf apple and pear trees, too, which take up very little space, and attract pollinators in the spring with their blossom, while the fruit feeds birds, invertebrates and even Foxes in late summer and early autumn.

We’ve maximised our planting space by ‘de-paving’ a section of path alongside our house that we’re responsible for maintaining, as well as installing a green roof on top of our single-story extension. As I learnt from green roof pioneer Dusty Gedge, who I interviewed for my book, Wild City, the urban environment offers so much untapped potential when we consider planting on different planes. Our green roof, with its wildflowers, attracts pollinators in spring and summer, and in late summer and autumn offers an additional food source for birds when the plants begin to disperse their seeds. My neighbour even spotted a Fox taking a nap up there early one morning!

This is fine by me – when it comes to the garden as a whole, I’m sporadic in my efforts at the best of times, and with a two-year-old and plenty of work to keep me busy, the final thing I’ll be doing to support wildlife this spring is letting things be – ‘No Mow May’ and then some.  

It’s an approach I learnt from French botanist Sophie Leguil, who I interviewed about her ‘More than Weeds’ campaign for my book. A ‘weed’ by definition is a plant out of place, and who decides what a plant’s place is? We do! So now, when a new plant pops up in my garden, I leave it, and wait to see what it becomes when given the chance to flower. Things appear, as if by magic – Herb Robert, Oxeye Daisies, Poppies – I revel in our messy flowerbeds, which, after a period of dormancy, spill out in a burst of life at this time of year.