Sanderling
The sanderling scampers about the waves looking for marine crustaceans, fish and even jellyfish to eat. It visits the UK in winter from its Arctic breeding grounds, but can also be seen as it…
The sanderling scampers about the waves looking for marine crustaceans, fish and even jellyfish to eat. It visits the UK in winter from its Arctic breeding grounds, but can also be seen as it…
Even a small pond can be home to an interesting range of wildlife, including damsel and dragonflies, frogs and newts.
Stephen walks around his local patch once or twice a week throughout the year. He looks and listens carefully to discover the wild creatures hidden in the reedbed and surrounding woods.
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By Felicity Evans, Political editor, Wales
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.
This large starfish looks just like the sun, with 10-12 arms spreading outwards like rays.
The variable damselfly looks a lot like the azure damselfly, but is much less common throughout most of the UK.
As its name suggests, Himalayan balsam is from the Himalayas and was introduced here in 1839. It now an invasive weed of riverbanks and ditches, where it prevents native species from growing.
The Marsh helleborine is a beautiful orchid of fens, wet grassland and dune slacks. Growing in profusion in places, look for reddish stems and white-and-pink flowers.
As its name suggests, giant hogweed it a large umbellifer with distinctively ridged, hollow stems. An introduced species, it is an invasive weed of riverbanks, where it prevents native species…
This colonial creature looks like an old-fashioned quill - that's where the name sea pen comes from.
Introduced from Japan in the 19th century, Japanese knotweed is now an invasive weed of many riverbanks, waste grounds and roadside verges, where it prevents native species from growing.