Common butterwort
The carnivorous lifestyle of common butterwort makes this heathland plant a fascinating species. Its leaves excrete a sticky fluid that tempts unsuspecting insects to land and become its prey.
The carnivorous lifestyle of common butterwort makes this heathland plant a fascinating species. Its leaves excrete a sticky fluid that tempts unsuspecting insects to land and become its prey.
Cushions of clover-like, pink Thrift are a familiar sight of cliffs, shingle beaches and sand dunes around the UK. Also known as 'Cliff Clover', it makes a good garden plant.
The common polypody is a hardy fern of damp, shady places in woodlands. It also makes a good garden fern. It has ladder-like, leathery foliage with pimply undersides - these spots are the spores…
The Atlantic salmon spends most of its life at sea, but makes an epic journey back to the river or stream in which it hatched to spawn. Look out for it in freshwater rivers in the north and west…
There's another world waiting beneath the waves. Seals weave in and out of sunlit kelp forests, cuttlefish flash all the colours of the rainbow, starfish graze along the muddy seabed and…
Golden banks of common rock-rose make a spectacular sight on our chalk and limestone grasslands in summer. A creeping shrub, it is good for bees, moths and butterflies.
Herb-Paris has four oval leaves set in a cross, with an understated crown of yellow-green flowers rising from the middle. This makes it quite a distinctive plant of ancient and damp woodlands on…
The nodding, blue bells of the harebell are a summer delight of grasslands, sand dunes, hedgerows and cliffs. They are attractive to all kinds of insects, too.
The hart's-tongue fern is a hardy fern of damp, shady places in woodlands. It also makes a good garden fern. It has simple, tongue-shaped, glossy, green leaves that have orange spores on…
Beautiful demoiselle’s are, well, beautiful! Often confused for a dragonfly, these giants of the damselfly world are hard to miss with their metallic blue and green colours.
Look out for the swallow performing great aerial feats as it catches its insect-prey on the wing. You may also see it perching on a wire, or roosting in a reedbed, as it makes its way back to…