My vocation
Elaine has spent her life surrounded by wild places; when she started to volunteer with BBOWT she realised that nature conservation was the job of her dreams. As well as looking after nine nature…
Elaine has spent her life surrounded by wild places; when she started to volunteer with BBOWT she realised that nature conservation was the job of her dreams. As well as looking after nine nature…
Butterfly expert Alan Sumnall offers a thorough guide to one of our most enchanting groups of butterflies – the blues.
Fir clubmoss is a primitive plant found in rocky, moorland and mountain habitats. The stems of this tufted, upright fern look like tiny conifers.
The turnstone can be spotted fluttering around large stones on rocky and gravelly shores, flipping them over to look for prey. It can even lift rocks as big as its own body! Although a migrant to…
The angel's wings fungus grows in overlapping clusters in the coniferous woods of Scotland and north England. Its funnel-like, white caps have no stems.
The Marsh helleborine is a beautiful orchid of fens, wet grassland and dune slacks. Growing in profusion in places, look for reddish stems and white-and-pink flowers.
As its name suggests, Meadowsweet is a sweet-smelling flower of damp meadows, ditches and riverbanks. Look for frothy clusters of cream flowers on tall stems.
Hedge mustard is a tall plant with small, yellow flowers atop tough stems. It likes disturbed ground and grows in hedgerows and roadside verges, and on waste ground.
Often found basking on tall grasses, or buzzing between stems, the small skipper is a small, orange butterfly. It prefers rough grassland, verges and woodland edges.
Introduced from Japan in the 19th century, Japanese knotweed is now an invasive non-native plant of many riverbanks, waste grounds and roadside verges, where it prevents native species from…
In spring and summer, look out for 'cuckoo-spit' - the frothy mass of bubbles that appears on plant stems everywhere. This is actually the protective covering for the nymphs of the tiny…
Dyer's greenweed is a classic plant of hay meadows, heaths and open woodlands. It has upright stems with loose clusters of bright yellow, pea-like flowers in summer.