Famed for its super-fast fishing dives into the sea, the northern gannet (or gannet) is a distinctive white bird with a yellow head and black wingtips. It nests in large, noisy, smelly colonies on…

The azure damselfly is a pale blue, small damselfly that is commonly found around most waterbodies from May to September. Try digging a wildlife pond in your garden to attract damselflies and…

As the only crow with a red bill and red legs, the all-black chough is easy to identify. But it's harder to spot: there are only small, coastal populations in Scotland, Ireland, Wales,…

A fluffy-looking grass of rough grassland, roadside verges and disturbed ground, False oat-grass is very familiar and often overlooked; in fact, it can help to stabilise dunes and shelter small…

The UK hosts a small, but important, breeding population of ruff. The ruff is a large sandpiper that is so-called due to the large ruff of feathers around the males' neck. This is used in a…

A spindly tree of heathland and moorlands, and damp soils, the downy birch is well known for its paper-thin, white bark. It is so-called for the hairy stalks from which its leaves grow; the silver…

One of our commonest willows, the goat willow is a small tree that is found in ditches, reedbeds and wet woodland. It is well-known for its silver, fluffy catkins that give it another name, '…

A medium-sized diving duck, the goldeneye can mainly be spotted in winter when birds fly in from Northern Europe. Conservation efforts have helped small numbers of these birds to nest in Scotland…

One of our commonest willows, the grey willow is a small tree that is found in ditches, reedbeds and wet woodland. It is well-known for its silver, fluffy catkins that give it another name, '…

One of our largest ducks, the shelduck is a handsome creature with a dark green head, red bill and chestnut-brown band across its white body. Look out for it around most of our coastline,…

The small, brown Dartford warbler is most easily spotted when warbling its scratchy song from the top of a gorse stem. It lives on lowland heathland in the south of England, where it nests on the…

Shag' is a very old name that means 'tufted' and refers to the small crest that this bird sports. Look out for it in spring and summer either diving for fish from the surface of the…