91Èȱ¬

I got home to find my nearly-two year old daughter not only delighted to see me, but keen to take me out into our little urban wildlife garden so she could show me her new friends - the many frogs and damselflies that seem to be popping up everywhere at the moment. How gorgeous to see the pure joy on her face when the frogs were still there to show her dad. Our garden is my daughter's little green space - her wildlife oasis - and the wildlife, having had a helping hand from me, was putting on a great show ... as it does for most of the year.

We then went up to our allotment (organic, of course), just a short walk away, to give a little TLC to the plants that are going to feed us (with excellent flavour and healthiness, and with out food miles) throughout the summer and autumn. Here a male blackcap was singing his little heart out from inside a blackberry bush. It's no wonder blackcaps are sometimes called "the poor man's nightingale" - this guy was putting on a virtuoso performance that gave the whole scene a magical atmosphere.

We were soon joined by our "cliché" robin, who quite literally follows me around and perches on a fork or spade handle like somebody scripted him. This time he was not alone. He had a mate with him and both of them were shuttling the tiny worms I was unearthing from a pile of manure back to a nest that's buried in the nearby hedge. My daughter squealed with delight every time one of the robins came back for more - they were so bold and so close that she could almost touch them.

To me, such experiences are priceless and will hopefully have a lasting, positive effect on my growing family. It certainly went a long way to de-stress me from a full-on few weeks doing Springwatch. How appropriate that it had been nature that had, three times in an afternoon, given me a sense of hope, of joy and a sense of connection with the earth that makes me feel as calm as an infant in his mother's arms.

But it wasn't just my daughter and I who were out getting the most out of Mother nature. I saw a group of kids, pre-teen aged, looking for "roly-poly caterpillars", as they called them, in a nearby hazel bush. They were fascinated by the fact that a little caterpillar knew how to make itself a little silk tent in a rolled up leaf. There were no teachers or adults around telling them to do this - they were just fascinated by it themselves.

On the way home I bumped into another father and daughter (both a little older than us) and I was interested to see that the girl had a 91Èȱ¬ Breathing Places "Do One Thing" T-shirt on. They were telling me how much they were looking forward to going to the Bristol Festival Of Nature (one of the family of Springwatch / Breathing Places Festivals) this weekend. Dad was remarking how much he enjoyed last year's and how it had turned a rather family rather unconnected and disinterested in nature into one that now actively sought out that connection. (By the way, they had no idea of my association with Springwatch and Breathing Places - I kept that to myself, glowing with satisfaction that the ethos of Springwatch seems to be working, and spreading).

This made me very proud of what we are all trying to achieve together through Springwatch, Breathing Places and all the wildlife organisations we work so closely with. I thought of all the festivals going on around the country this weekend, and the 50 Springwatch Action Teams transforming areas into wildlife havens - and making new friends - all over the country. Simply fantastic.

My thoughts came full circle. Those blue and great tit families at the motorway service station proved to me that, as the great man of UK wildlife conservation, Sir Peter Scott, famously said, "if you build it, they will come". What he meant, and what rings true on any scale - from a window box, to row of trees and bushes at a motorway service station, to a big, highly managed nature reserve like Pensthorpe - is that if you give nature a bit of a helping hand by providing her with the basics, she will then do the rest ... and in turn will repay the favour by giving you the pleasure of new and fascinating wildlife neighbours in your life.

"My" frogs, damselflies, blackcaps and robins are providing powerful, magical experiences in my tiny daughter's early childhood - simply because I took a little time to provide them with what they needed, and then left them alone to do what, quite literally, comes naturally. Meanwhile, all over the country, people have been getting together to do their bit to give nature that same chance in run-down or neglected corners of local communities. What an amazing thought.

So, to all of you nursing sore backs, blistered fingers and dirty fingernails after a weekend at a festival, with a Springwatch Action Team, or just "Doing One Thing" in your window boxes, gardens, parks or allotments, a big THANK YOU from me, and from Mother Nature.

Rest assured she'll repay all your hard work in spades, for years to come.