How to help wildlife at school
Whether feeding the birds, or sowing a wildflower patch, setting up wildlife areas in your school makes for happier, healthier and more creative children.
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Chwilio
Yew
The yew is a well-known tree of churchyards, but also grows wild on chalky soils. Yew trees can live for hundreds of years, turning into a maze of hollow wood and fallen trunks beneath dense…
Woodland
Woodlands are magical places, full of wildlife and full of history. Great spotted woodpeckers, nuthatches and jays flit between trees as butterflies dance in sunny glades. Badgers forage through…
Violet sea slug
Despite its dazzling colouration, this fabulous nudibranch can be easily missed, due to its small size!
English oak
The English oak is, perhaps, our most iconic tree: the one that almost every child and adult alike could draw the lobed leaf of, or describe the acorn fruits of. A widespread tree, it is prized…
My back-to-school
As a child growing up in Ghana, Patience never took an interest in what was going on in the garden. Now, she’s growing her own flowers and vegetables every week, both at the Centre for Wildlife…
Himalayan balsam
As its name suggests, Himalayan balsam is from the Himalayas and was introduced here in 1839. It now an invasive weed of riverbanks and ditches, where it prevents native species from growing.
Pepper saxifrage
Pepper saxifrage is a classic plant of unimproved hay meadows and roadside verges. It's upright, branching stems carry umbrella-like clusters of creamy-yellow, flowers in summer.
Reddish buff
A very rare species, this moth is now limited to one site in the UK. Males can be a striking reddish buff in colour.
Giant hogweed
As its name suggests, giant hogweed it a large umbellifer with distinctively ridged, hollow stems. An introduced species, it is an invasive weed of riverbanks, where it prevents native species…
My city break
The hustle and bustle of city life melts away when Kathryn visits Camley Street Natural Park. Without leaving central London, she can go from man-made soaring skyscrapers to an oasis-like…
Common eyelash fungus
The diminutive common eyelash fungus can be found on wet wood and humous-rich damp soil, often by streams or in wet places. Its orange cup is fringed with tiny, black hairs, providing its common…