My family
Rutland Water has been a part of Becky's life since she was 16. She has grown up with the staff and volunteers as her extended family and closest friends. At the age of 16, she met her…
Rutland Water has been a part of Becky's life since she was 16. She has grown up with the staff and volunteers as her extended family and closest friends. At the age of 16, she met her…
The secretive woodlark can be hard to spot. It nests on the ground on our southern heathlands and uses scattered trees and woodland edges for lookout posts.
The black garden ant is the familiar and abundant small ant that lives in gardens, but also turns up indoors searching for sugary food. In summer, winged adults, or 'flying ants', swarm…
Healthy wetlands store carbon and slow the flow of water, cleaning it naturally and reducing flood risk downstream. They support an abundance of plant life, which in turn provide perfect shelter,…
30 years ago, if Jeremy had fallen in the river then he’d have been more worried about being poisoned than drowned! A 1980s trawl survey found just one fish in the Billingham reach of the Tees,…
There's another world waiting beneath the waves. Seals weave in and out of sunlit kelp forests, cuttlefish flash all the colours of the rainbow, starfish graze along the muddy seabed and…
Frogbit looks like a mini water-lily as it floats on the surface of ponds, lakes and still waterways. It offers shelter to tadpoles, fish and dragonfly larve.
The shiny, translucent porcelain fungus certainly lives up to its name in appearance. It can be seen growing on beech trees and dead wood in summer and autumn.
The Purple hairstreak is an elusive butterfly with a brilliant purple sheen. It is entirely reliant on oak trees and can be spotted chasing around the treetops in woodlands and parks.
An underwater predator, the Saucer bug uses its front pincer-like legs to catch its prey. It can be found at the bottom of muddy, weedy ponds; but handle with care - it can inflict a painful bite…
Gnarled veteran oaks are interspersed with groves of pale, elegant birches, while swathes of bracken and soft tussocks of wavy hair-grass cover ground from which autumn fungi sprout.…
Look for the unusual flowers of lords-and-ladies in spring woodlands: a pale green sheath surrounds a spike of tiny, yellow flowers. This spike eventually forms a familiar, short stalk of striking…