Common spotted-orchid
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…
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…
The green sandpiper is a very rare breeding bird in the UK, and is mainly seen on migration in autumn. Look out for it feeding around marshes, flooded gravel pits and rivers. It even likes sewage…
As its name suggests, the smooth stems of soft rush are thinner and more flexible than those of hard rush. It forms tufts in wetland habitats like wet woodlands, marshes, ditches and grasslands.…
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…
The Carline thistle produces distinctive brown-and-golden flower heads that look like a seeded thistle. These flowers are attractive to a wide range of butterflies, including the very rare Large…
Sphagnum mosses carpet the ground with colour on our marshes, heaths and moors. They play a vital role in the creation of peat bogs: by storing water in their spongy forms, they prevent the decay…
The stiff, spiky and upright leaves and brown flowers of hard rush are a familiar sight of wetlands, riversides, dune slacks and marshes across England and Wales.
The greenshank breeds on the boggy moors and ancient peatlands of Scotland. But it can be spotted elsewhere in the UK as it passes through on migration - look around lakes, marshes and the coast…
The yellow wagtail can be spotted running about, chasing insects on lowland damp marshes and meadows during summer. As its name suggests, it does wag its tail!
The rare Norfolk hawker is a pale brown dragonfly, with a distinctive yellow triangle on its body. It is only found in unpolluted fens, marshes and ditches of the Broads National Park in Norfolk…
The UK's smallest hawker, the Hairy dragonfly is mostly black in colour, but has a distinctively hairy thorax. It can be found in grazing marshes and flooded gravel pits, and along canals…