My wild job
Hi! I’m Gemma and I am the Campaigns Assistant for Essex Wildlife Trust. In my job, I try to share my passion for nature with others, while encouraging people to love, care and take action for…
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Chwilio
Autumn gentian
A late-flowering plant, Autumn gentian displays pretty, mauve, tube-like flowers atop its reddish stems. It favours dry, chalk grassland and sand dune habitats.
Coppery click beetle
The Coppery click beetle is a large, coppery-purple beetle with straw-brown wing cases. It can be found on grassland and farmland, and its larvae are known to feed on roots and damage crops.
Sheep's-bit
With its fluffy-looking, light blue flower heads, sheep's-bit is a pretty plant of dry grassland, heaths and clifftops. Sometimes carpeting an area, it is popular with nectar-loving insects…
Small pearl-bordered fritillary
The small pearl-bordered fritillary is a pretty orange-and-brown butterfly of damp grassland, moorland, and open woodland. It gets its name from the row of 'pearls' on the underside of…
Deptford pink
The pretty Deptford pink is a very rare flower that is very vulnerable to the loss of our traditional grassland and farmland habitats. It can only be found in a few places in England and Wales.…
Small blue
The small blue's name is a little misleading: it is our smallest butterfly, but only shows a dusting of blue on brown wings. It is scarce, occurring on chalk grassland, mostly in southern…
Notch-horned cleg-fly (horse fly)
The Notch-horned cleg-fly isa horse fly dark grey in colour, with grey-brown mottled wings and intricately striped, iridescent eyes. There are 30 species of horse-fly in the UK; this is one of the…
Grey long-eared bat
The grey long-eared bat certainly lives up to its name - its ears are nearly as long as its body! It mainly forages over grassland and meadows, but is very rare in the UK.
Chalkhill blue
Unsurprisingly, the chalkhill blue can be found on sunny, chalk grassland sites in southern England. Clouds of this beautiful blue butterfly may be seen fluttering around low-growing flowers.
Meadow pipit
The meadow pipit favours moorland and grassland. It is an unfortunate victim of cuckolding behaviour - their own young being pushed out of the nest, so they can look after the 'parasitic…
Vervain
An introduced plant, vervain is widely naturalised in the UK. It is a great source of nectar for all kinds of insects and can be seen on rough grassland, waste ground, coastal cliffs and roadside…