Marram grass
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…
Speckled wood butterfly - Vicky Nall
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…
For Issy, wildlife is all about learning. It’s her enormous outdoor classroom.
For Lucy, the wind and salty spray of the Atlantic Ocean is more relaxing than any spa treatment and being surrounded by amazing wildlife, like Common Dolphins, Minke Whales and Harbour Porpoise…
Holly spends as much time as she can outdoors. She finds after a busy day, nature works as a reset button – it helps her to focus, always teaches her something new, and inspires her to work as…
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,…
Shepherd's purse is often considered a 'weed'. It produces a lot of seeds and can be found on cultivated and disturbed land, such as arable fields, tracks and gardens.
The collared dove is a pretty little pigeon that is a regular sight in our gardens, woodlands and parks. Listen out for its familiar cooing call, which you may hear before you see the bird itself…
The common banded hoverfly has a fitting name: it is not only one of our most common species, its black body is also covered in yellow bands! It can be seen in many habitats from gardens to…
Our most diminutive falcon, the merlin is a pretty bird of prey. It chases small birds, flying low to the ground or hovering in the breeze because of its small size. Resident merlins are joined in…
There are several species of spider that live in our wetlands, but the water spider is the only one that spends its life under the water. In its pond habitats, it looks silvery because of the air…