Guelder-rose
The guelder-rose is a small tree of hedgerows, woods, scrub and wetlands. It displays large, white flowers in summer and red berries in autumn, which feed all kinds of birds, including Bullfinches…
The guelder-rose is a small tree of hedgerows, woods, scrub and wetlands. It displays large, white flowers in summer and red berries in autumn, which feed all kinds of birds, including Bullfinches…
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…
Sprinkled with diminutive, short-living flowers in spring and parched dry by July, this is a habitat of heathlands, coastal grasslands and ancient parkland.
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 male black grouse, or 'blackcock', is famed for its display behaviour, known as 'lekking'. A sight to behold, it fans out its tail and struts its stuff to show its…
The metallic-green Musk beetle lives up to its name: it releases a musky-smelling secretion when it defends itself. It is a longhorn beetle, so has lengthy antennae. Look for it near wetlands in…
The distinctive rounded wings of the lapwing are displayed beautifully when it wheels around a winter sky in a massive flock. In spring, these flocks disperse and some birds breed in the UK.…
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…
The St Mark's fly is small, black and shiny. It is so-called because it emerges around St Mark's Day, April 25th. Large numbers of adults can be found in woodland edges, hedgerows,…
Heathlands form some of the wildest landscapes in the lowlands, where agriculture and development jostle for space, containing and limiting natural processes. Once considered as waste land of…
This month's blog on bracken and the need for control by Jonathan Stone, Reserves Officer