Lady fern
One of the prettiest hardy ferns, the lady fern is delicate and lacy, with ladder-like foliage. It makes a good garden fern, providing attractive cover for wildlife.
One of the prettiest hardy ferns, the lady fern is delicate and lacy, with ladder-like foliage. It makes a good garden fern, providing attractive cover for wildlife.
A familiar 'weed' of gardens, roadsides, meadows and parks, red clover has trefoil leaves and red, rounded flower heads. It is often used as fodder for livestock.
As its name suggests, Sea spurge is found at the coast. It is an attractive plant that displays cup-shaped, greeny-yellow flowers and fleshy, grey-green leaves.
A delicate, small plant of woodlands and hedgerows, wood-sorrel has distinctive, trefoil leaves and white flowers with purple veins; both fold up at night.
Our largest and most common bee-fly, the dark-edged bee-fly looks just like a bumblebee, and buzzes like one too! It feeds on flowers like primroses and violets in gardens, parks and woodlands.…
The gadwall is a dabbling duck, feeding at the surface of shallow water by 'upending' - putting its head down and its bottom up! Only a small number of gadwall nest in the UK, but large…
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…
Our most common hoverfly, the marmalade fly is orange with black bands across its body. It feeds on flowers like tansy, ragwort and cow parsley in gardens, hedgerows, parks and woodlands.
The orange ladybird is pale orange with up to 16 cream spots on its wing cases. It feeds on mildew on trees like sycamore and ash, and hibernates in the leaf litter. It often turns up in moth…
The defensive mechanism of the pill woodlouse is very recognisable - it curls itself into a tight ball, only showing its plated armour to its attacker. It is an important recycler of nutrients,…
Sea potatoes may have a funny name, but they are perfectly adapted for life in the sand. They are a type of sea urchin that live in a burrow in the sand, feeding on dead animals and plants using…
A visit to a traditional orchard reveals gnarled old trunks of fruit and nut trees bursting with blossoms and young leaves in springtime, with wildflowers and insects populating summer’s long…