How to make a woodland edge garden for wildlife
Few of us can contemplate having a wood in our back gardens, but just a few metres is enough to establish this mini-habitat!
Few of us can contemplate having a wood in our back gardens, but just a few metres is enough to establish this mini-habitat!
The shy dunnock can be seen hopping about under hedges as its other name, 'hedge sparrow', suggests. It inhabits gardens, woodlands, hedgerows and parks.
A small and delicate plant of chalk grasslands, Fairy flax can be seen in bloom from May to September - look out for its nodding, white flowers.
The Foxglove is a familiar, tall plant, with pink flower spikes and a deadly nature. In summer, it can be spotted in woodlands and gardens, and on moorlands, roadside verges and waste grounds.
One of our most common butterflies, the meadow brown can be spotted on grasslands, and in gardens and parks, often in large numbers. There are four subspecies of meadow brown.
The stonechat is named for its call, which sounds just like two small stones being hit together! It can be seen on heathland and boggy habitats.
The linnet can be seen on farmland and heathland across the UK. But, like so many other farmland birds, linnets are declining rapidly, mainly due to agricultural intensification.
The song of the Roesel's bush-cricket is very characteristic: long, monotonous and mechanical. It can be heard in rough grassland, scrub and damp meadows in the south of the UK, but it is…
Their empty, delicate pink or yellow shells can often be found washed up on beaches, but the animals themselves live buried in the sand all around the coasts of the UK.
The delightful fragrance of wild thyme can punctuate a summer walk over a chalk grassland. It forms low-growing mats with dense clusters of purple-pink flowers.
A common tree, ash is familiar to many of us for its autumnal bunches of winged seeds, called 'keys'. It can be found in woodlands and prefers damp and fertile soils.
Often confused with the larger but similarly shaped lion’s mane jellyfish, the blue jellyfish can be colourless when young and develop a striking blue-purple bell as it matures.