Marram grass
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…
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…
The Common banded hoverfly has a fitting name: it is not only one of our most common species, its black body is also covered in yellow bands! It can be seen in many habitats from gardens to…
Badgers are the UK’s largest land predator and are one of the most well-known British species. They are famed for their black and white stripes and sturdy body, using their strong front paws to…
Horseradish is used as a well-loved condiment. This member of the cabbage family is actually an introduced species in the UK, but causes no harm in the wild.
The streamlined black-throated diver is a superb swimmer and diver, but not so graceful on land! During the summer, the distinctive black patch on its throat appears, heralding the breeding season…
The garden tiger is an attractive, brown-and-white moth of sand dunes, woodland edges, meadows and hedgerows; it will also visit gardens. In decline, it is suffering from the 'tidying up…
This large burrowing bivalve is found on sandy seabeds around much of the UK. It is the longest-lived animal known to man, with one individual found to be 507 years old!
A funny little fellow in his glossy black dinner jacket and crisp white bib, the puffin is instantly recognisable from its brightly coloured parrot-like bill. Puffins use their colourful bill to…
Hi, I am Arun, a volunteer and marine champion for the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust. Since I was 11, I have been completing Shoresearch surveys with the Trust to monitor the species…
These grasslands, occupying much of the UK's heavily-grazed upland landscape, are of greater cultural than wildlife interest, but remain a habitat to some scarce and declining species.
Ask any child – and most adults, come to that – to draw a spider in its home, and you’ll get a circular or polygonal web. Those orb-web spiders may well be the most obvious kind around our houses…