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As the Chat Moss Project Officer for Lancashire Wildlife Trust, Elspeth is helping to restore the wild peatland landscape that has been drained for over 200 years. The area lies within five miles…
As the Chat Moss Project Officer for Lancashire Wildlife Trust, Elspeth is helping to restore the wild peatland landscape that has been drained for over 200 years. The area lies within five miles…
As the name suggests, this tall, white heron is considerably larger than the similar little egret. Once a rare visitor to the UK, sightings have become more common over the last few decades, with…
Darren Fawr is the largest and most spectacular of the Trust’s reserves. It consists of a steep hill-side, covered with loose, grey limestone scree, cliffs and an undulating hill-top with good…
The defensive mechanism of the pill woodlouse is very recognisable - it curls itself into a tight ball, only showing its plated armour to its attacker. It is an important recycler of nutrients,…
The Yellow slug lives up to its name - its yellow body is mottled with grey patches. Often found in gardens and damp places in houses, it can be considered a pest, but is an important nutrient…
If you were to pick up a rock in the garden, you’d hopefully find a few common woodlouse. These hardy minibeasts have in-built armour and like to hide in warm, moist places like compost heaps.
The all-black rook is a sociable bird, so can be spotted in flocks or nesting colonies, known as 'rookeries'. Unlike the similar carrion crow, it has a grey bill and 'baggy trouser…
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…
A low-growing plant of sand dunes, heaths and grassy places, Common centaury is in bloom over summer. Look for clusters of pretty, pink, five-petalled flowers.
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,…
Bladder campion is so-called for the bladder-like bulge that sites just behind the five-petalled flower - this is actually the fused sepals. Look for it on grasslands, farmland and along hedgerows…