Lesser water-parsnip
Look out for the white, umbrella-like flower heads of lesser water-parsnip along the shallow margins of ditches, ponds, lakes and rivers. When crushed, it does, indeed, smell like parsnip!
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Chwilio
Musk mallow
Musk mallow has pretty pink flowers that can be seen along roadside verges, hedgerows and field margins in summer. It lives up to its name, producing a delicate, musky smell that increases indoors…
Reedbed
Found between water and land, reedbeds are transitional habitats. They can form extensive swamps in lowland floodplains or fringe streams, rivers, ditches, ponds and lakes with a thin feathery…
Green Sandpiper
The green sandpiper is a very rare breeding bird in the UK, and is mainly seen on migration in autumn. Look out for it feeding around marshes, flooded gravel pits and rivers. It even likes sewage…
Yellow iris
The large, sunshine-yellow flowers of the yellow iris brighten up the margins of our waterways, ponds, wet woods, fens and marshes. Also called the 'flag iris', its outer petals have a…
Farmland
Farmland can conjure up rural images of brown hares zig-zagging across fields, chattering flocks of finches and yellowhammers singing from thick, bushy hedges and field margins studded with…
Long-snouted seahorse
One of 2 seahorses found in UK seas, long snouted seahorses are recognisable by their longer snout and fleshy "mane".
Act swiftly! Public asked to help endangered high-flying birds
The Wildlife Trusts & RHS call on gardeners to help swifts, swallows, and martins
My routine
Martin volunteers with Herefordshire Wildlife Trust’s Orchard Origins every Friday come rain or shine. His commitment has contributed to conserving many of Herefordshire’s traditional orchards.…
Blue jellyfish
Often confused with the larger but similarly shaped lion’s mane jellyfish, the blue jellyfish can be colourless when young and develop a striking blue-purple bell as it matures.
Death's-head hawk-moth
This unmistakeable moth, famous for its skull-shaped marking, is a rare visitor to the UK.
How to make a woodland edge garden for wildlife
Few of us can contemplate having a wood in our back gardens, but just a few metres is enough to establish this mini-habitat!