Garden bumblebee
Unsurprisingly, the garden bumblebee can be found in the garden, buzzing around flowers like foxgloves, cowslips and red clover. It is quite a large, scruffy-looking bee, with a white tail. It…
Unsurprisingly, the garden bumblebee can be found in the garden, buzzing around flowers like foxgloves, cowslips and red clover. It is quite a large, scruffy-looking bee, with a white tail. It…
Found around our coasts during the breeding season, the little tern is a diminutive seabird. Despite its size, it performs remarkable aerial courtship displays.
One of our most common ladybirds, the black-on-red markings of the 7-spot ladybird are very familiar. Ladybirds are a gardeners best friend as they eat insects that love to nibble on garden plants…
Barnacles are so common on our rocky shores that you've probably never really noticed them. They're the little grey bumps covering the rocks that hurt your feet when you're…
Famed for its tapping in the middle of the night, supposedly heralding tragedy, the Deathwatch beetle is a serious wood-boring pest. In houses, their tunnelling can cause major damage.
The hawfinch is the UK's largest finch, with an enormous bill powerful enough to crush a cherry stone. Despite their size, they are typically elusive, especially during the summer nesting…
A ferocious and fast predator, the Devil's coach horse beetle hunts invertebrates after dark in gardens and on grasslands. It is well-known for curling up its abdomen like the tail of a…
The grizzled skipper has a striking brown-and-white checked wing pattern. It is a fast flier, so is best observed in the morning as it basks in the sun to warm up. It favours chalk grassland and…
Goose barnacles often wash up on our shores attached to flotsam after big storms.
The streamlined black-throated diver is a superb swimmer and diver, but not so graceful on land! During the summer, the distinctive black patch on its throat appears, heralding the breeding season…
In May, our hedgerows and woodland edges burst into life as Midland hawthorn erupts with masses of pinky-white blossom. During the autumn, red fruits known as 'haws' appear.