How to start a nature journal
As we approach 30 Days Wild, wildlife illustrator Jamey Douglas explains how you can get closer to nature by starting a nature journal!
Speckled wood butterfly - Vicky Nall
As we approach 30 Days Wild, wildlife illustrator Jamey Douglas explains how you can get closer to nature by starting a nature journal!
Unsurprisingly, the garden bumblebee can be found in the garden, buzzing around flowers like foxgloves, cowslips and red clover. It is quite a large, scruffy-looking bee, with a white tail. It…
The guelder-rose is a small tree of hedgerows, woods, scrub and wetlands. It displays large, white flowers in summer and red berries in autumn, which feed all kinds of birds, including Bullfinches…
So-named for its spear-like leaves, Lesser spearwort can be found along the edges of ponds, lakes and streams, and in marshes and wet meadows. As a buttercup, it displays familiar, butter-yellow…
The red admiral is an unmistakable garden visitor. This black-and-red beauty may be seen feeding on flowers on warm days all year-round. Adults are mostly migrants, but some do hibernate here.
Also known as 'Scorpion-grass' because of the curved 'tail' at the end of its stems, Water forget-me-not is a distinctive plant of damp habitats. Over summer, it produces…
Cotoneaster was introduced to the UK in 1879 from Eastern Asia as an ornamental plant. It is now an invasive non-native species which is taking over valuable habitats including limestone…
Our most common hoverfly, the marmalade fly is orange with black bands across its body. It feeds on flowers like tansy, ragwort and cow parsley in gardens, hedgerows, parks and woodlands.
The mottled grasshopper can be found in dry grasslands, such as railway cuttings, and heathlands throughout summer. Males can be seen rubbing their legs against their wings to create a 'song…
The common spotted-orchid is the easiest of all our orchids to see: sometimes, so many flowers appear together that they create a pale pink carpet in our woodlands, old quarries, dunes and marshes…
Water-soldier grows submerged in ponds and open water, and pops up over summer, looking like the top of a pineapple! This rare plant displays white flowers and shelters many aquatic insects.
The grass snake is our longest snake, but don't worry if you find one in the compost heap - it's harmless! Look out for this green and yellow beauty in grasslands and wetlands, too.