The Penguin Beach, the Gir Lion Lodge, the Tiger Territory; ZSL London Zoo has some big hitters, but the attraction’s newest addition is all about the humble hedgehogs. The Zoo's Wildlife Garden is an outdoor horticultural space filled with mini-beast hotels, lilypad-hanging frogs and even a tiny highway for the little pickly creatures.
The garden focuses on the work of Garden Wildlife Health project, an initiative coordinated by ZSL vets to help monitor and identify threats to British wildlife. Green-fingered visitors to the garden can pick up ideas on how to protect the butterflies, blue tits and other creatures that hang out in their own backyard (or, as it’s known in many teensy London flats, ‘the window sill’).
But if you are lucky enough to have a Brazilian strip’s worth of grass outside your home, the Wildlife Garden might just help you turn it into a ‘haven for native species’. You'll be the Dr Dolittle of stag beetles in no time.