The small heath is the smallest of our brown butterflies and has a fluttering flight. It favours heathlands, as its name suggests, as well as other sunny habitats.

The appearance of semi-circular holes in the leaves of your garden plants is a sure sign that the patchwork leaf-cutter bee has been at work. It is one of a number of leaf-cutter bee species…

Buddleia is a familiar shrub, well-known for its attractiveness to butterflies. It is actually an introduced species, however, that has become naturalised on waste ground, railway cuttings and in…

The pincushion-like, lilac-blue flower heads of Devil's-bit scabious attract a wide variety of butterflies and bees. Look for this pretty plant in damp meadows and marshes, and on riverbanks…

One of our most common butterflies, the meadow brown can be spotted on grasslands, and in gardens and parks, often in large numbers. There are four subspecies of meadow brown.

The vast, green mats that sometimes cover the surface of still water, such as ponds, flooded gravel pits and old canals, are actually Common duckweed. A tiny, single plant, it groups together to…

The lesser stag beetle may be smaller than its famous cousin, but it is still a large beetle with large jaws. It can be seen in woods, parks and hedgerows during summer, and depends on dead wood…

The Carline thistle produces distinctive brown-and-golden flower heads that look like a seeded thistle. These flowers are attractive to a wide range of butterflies, including the very rare Large…

The tightly packed, thistle-like purple flower heads of common knapweed bloom on all kinds of grasslands. Also regularly called black knapweed, this plant attracts clouds of butterflies.

A scarce but distinctive brown seaweed with curved, funnel-shaped fronds. It is a warmer water species at the northern edge of its range on the south coast of England.