Broad centurion
The Broad centurion, or 'Green soldier fly', is one of our most common soldier flies, and is often found in gardens. It has hairy eyes and a metallic blue or bronze body. It is an…
The Broad centurion, or 'Green soldier fly', is one of our most common soldier flies, and is often found in gardens. It has hairy eyes and a metallic blue or bronze body. It is an…
Great reedmace is familiar to many of us as the archetypal 'bulrush'. Look for its tall stems, sausage-like, brown flower heads and green, flat leaves at the water's edge in our…
In summer, the sedge warbler can be spotted singing from a reed or willow perch in wetlands across the UK. Males never sing the same song twice, adding new phrases to impress the females.
The brimstone moth is a yellow, night-flying moth with distinctive brown-and-white spots on its angular forewings. It frequently visits gardens, but also likes woods, scrub and grasslands.
Parsley fern lives up to its name - the pale green fronds form in clusters among rocks and look just like parsley. Look out for it in upland areas, particularly in Wales and Cumbria.
Turn over large stones or paving slabs in the garden and you are likely to find a Red ant colony. This medium-sized ant can deliver a painful sting, so be careful! In summer, winged adults swarm…
The vast, green mats that sometimes cover the surface of still water, such as ponds, flooded gravel pits and old canals, are actually Common duckweed. A tiny, single plant, it groups together to…
Despite its name, Spurge laurel is not a laurel - it just looks like one! It has glossy, dark green leaves and black, poisonous berries, and can be found in woodlands in southern England, in…
The pyramidal orchid lives up to its name - look for a bright pinky-purple, densely packed pyramid of flowers atop a green stem. It likes chalk grassland, sand dunes, roadside verges and quarries…
The striking red crown, golden back, and bright yellow wings of the goldfinch make it one of our prettiest garden birds. It happily visits birdtables and feeders across the UK.
The once-common pochard is now under threat because its populations are declining rapidly. The UK is an important winter destination for the pochard, with 48,000 birds visiting our wetlands and…
The hart's-tongue fern is a hardy fern of damp, shady places in woodlands. It also makes a good garden fern. It has simple, tongue-shaped, glossy, green leaves that have orange spores on…