A RECENT report by the World Wildlife Fund claiming that the world has lost 52 per cent of its animal species in the last 40 years has left me really worried.

We all know about elephant and rhino poaching, shark fin soup, the destruction of the rainforest and the tiger’s demise. But here in the UK, on our very own doorsteps, species that were once considered commonplace, such as sparrows and hedgehogs, are now actually endangered.

On Saturday, my annual Christmas exhibition opens to the public at my gallery in Thixendale and this year I am making the importance of saving nature the theme of the three-week long event.

I hope my paintings will show people how wonderful wildlife is and inspire them to do what they can to help endangered species.

I will also be offering advice on what people can do in their own gardens that can make a real difference to UK species.

Wildlife is my life. I spend most of my waking hours either painting animals in my studio or photographing them out in the field.

I also work hard to conserve nature. I am a patron of the World Owl Trust and care for barn owls here on the Yorkshire Wolds, putting up nest boxes for them as well as feeding and caring for my local population through harsh winters.

A method I developed of rehabilitating owls back into the wild has been so successful it was filmed by BBC1’s The One Show.

But you can also make a real difference in your own back garden, as I have done. When I moved to Fotherdale Farm in 1998 the site had been cleared by a JCB and the only plants here were a red hot poker and a solitary fuchsia.

There was virtually no bird life because there was no habitat, food or water here. I set about transforming the plot. I dug a pond and built a stream. Birds need water to drink and bathe in.

I then filled the site with shrubs and trees. I planted different species, choosing some for flowers, some for the seeds that they would yield and others for the berries they would yield such as: pyracantha, crab apple, contoneaster, alder and yew.

I also put up lots of nest boxes of different sizes to attract different species: wrens, blue tits, tree sparrows, house martins, swallows – even larger ones for barn owls, kestrels and tawny owls. I also left a wild patch of rough grassland for owls to hunt over where plants are allowed to go to seed to feed the birds over the winter – the bullfinches love it.

Recently I’ve also added a wildflower meadow to the site to encourage butterflies and bees. The soil here is chalk and I get ox-eyed daisies, thyme, knapweed, scabious, marjoram and clover.

The results have been spectacular. When I moved here there was just one resident pair of tree sparrows. Now there are at least 30 resident pairs and at the end of the breeding season I have counted up to 300 in the garden. Most of these disperse later in the year to nearby farms, which means that the work I have put in to improve the habitat here has helped this seriously threatened species flourish.

Not everybody has the space to do quite as much for wildlife, but if we all left just one corner of our garden to go wild, or resisted the urge to cut down grass verges near our homes, together we could achieve quite a lot.

Find out how you could help save nature at Robert Fuller’s exhibition. Open daily from 9.30am to 4.30pm (and from 10.30am on weekends) from November 7 to 29 the event is at Fotherdale Farm, Thixendale, near Malton.

For details of accompanying nature events, including wildlife safaris and falconry classes, see his website robertefuller.com