Pochard
The once-common pochard is now under threat because its populations are declining rapidly. The UK is an important winter destination for the pochard, with 48,000 birds visiting our wetlands and…
The once-common pochard is now under threat because its populations are declining rapidly. The UK is an important winter destination for the pochard, with 48,000 birds visiting our wetlands and…
Plaice is a common sight all around our coasts - if you can spot it! They are extremely well camouflaged against the seabed and can even change colour to better match their surroundings.
The stock dove looks very much like the woodpigeon, but without the white neck and wing patches. It can be spotted in woodlands and parks, and on farmland in winter, but rarely visits our gardens…
The whooper swan is a very rare breeding bird in the UK, but has much larger populations that spend winter here after a long journey from Iceland. It has more yellow on its yellow-and-black bill…
This beautiful pink fungus appears in late summer and autumn.
Common sea-lavender can be found around our coasts on mudflats, creek banks and saltmarshes. Despite its name, its not a lavender at all, so doesn’t smell like one.
Heathlands form some of the wildest landscapes in the lowlands, where agriculture and development jostle for space, containing and limiting natural processes. Once considered as waste land of…
With a torpedo-shaped body and long, narrow wings, the privet hawk-moth is a striking garden visitor. But the caterpillars really stand out: lime-green, with purple streaks and a black hook at the…
Hedgerows are one of our most easily encountered wildlife habitats, found lining roads, railways and footpaths, bordering fields and gardens and on the coast.
Meadows of seagrass spread across the seabed, their dense green leaves sheltering a wealth of wildlife including our two native species of seahorse.
Escaped or intentionally freed from fur farms in the 1960s, the American mink is now well established in the UK. Its carnivorous nature is a threat to our native water vole and seabird populations…
Forming mats of straight, bright green stems, Common spike-rush does, indeed, look like lots of tightly clustered 'spikes' near the water's edge of our wetland habitats.