Little egret
The elegant little egret was once a rare visitor to our shores, but can now regularly be spotted around the coastline of England and Wales. Look out for its beautiful neck plumes that herald the…
The elegant little egret was once a rare visitor to our shores, but can now regularly be spotted around the coastline of England and Wales. Look out for its beautiful neck plumes that herald the…
Greater burdock is familiar to us as the sticky plant that children delight in, frequently throwing the burs at each other. It actually uses these hooked seed heads to help disperse its seeds.
A winter visitor, the well-travelled Bewick's swan is the smallest of our swans. It has more black on its yellow-and-black bill than the whooper swan. Look out for it around Eastern England…
Our most familiar wild violet, the Common dog-violet can be spotted in a range of habitats from woodland to grassland, hedgerows to pastures. Its pansy-like, purple flowers appear from April to…
One of our prettiest and smallest bumble bees, the early bumblebee has a bright orange tail and lemon-yellow bands on its body. It is very common and can be found in all kinds of habitats in early…
The eider is a large seaduck, famed for its soft, downy feathers that are not only used by the bird to line and insulate its nest, but also by humans to stuff our quilts and pillows. It nests…
The dense, spiky tufts of Marram grass are a familiar sight on our windswept coasts. In fact, its matted roots help to stabilise sand dunes, allowing them to grow up and become colonised by other…
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 starling is a familiar garden visitor that has a beautiful purple-and-green sheen to its black feathers. It is famous for its wintry aerial displays - massive flocks can be seen wheeling over…
Philip has been helping to restore Manchester Mosslands for twenty years, helping these rare wetlands to recover. He works in front of a computer most of the time, so he has always enjoyed the…
Mae'r siarc main yma’n cael ei enw o'r pigau o flaen ei asgell ddorsal. Gall ddefnyddio'r pigau yma i amddiffyn ei hun drwy gyrlio mewn bwa a tharo ysglyfaethwr.
The giant house spider is one of our fastest invertebrates, running up to half a metre per second. This large, brown spider spins sheet-like cobwebs and pops up in the dark corners of houses,…