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…
Speckled wood butterfly - Vicky Nall
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…
Dark and brooding from a distance, the strong geometric lines and monotonous rows of uniformly sized trees can jar the eye and seem devoid of wildlife. But venture within and open ride edges,…
A delicate wader, Red-necked phalaropes are as comfortable swimming as they are on land. Unusually for birds, the females are more brightly coloured than the males.
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…
The large, sunshine-yellow flowers of the yellow iris brighten up the margins of our waterways, ponds, wet woods, fens and marshes. Also called the 'flag iris', its outer petals have a…
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…
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,…