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 bright green ring-necked parakeet is an escapee and our only naturalised parrot; its success is likely due to warmer winters.
Pellitory-of-the-wall is a small to medium-sized herb that frequently grows from cracks in old stone walls, pavements, cliffs and banks, and churches and ruins.
A summer visitor, the wheatear is a handsome chat, with black cheeks, white eyestripes, a blue back and a pale orange chest. Look for it on upland heaths and moors.
One of our largest and most impressive solitary wasps, the bee wolf digs a nest in sandy spots and hunts honey bees.
The dark-blue flowers of Common milkwort pepper our grasslands from May to September. It can also appear in pink and white forms.
This slender and elegant shark species is often found close to shore all around our coasts and can grow up to 6 feet long.
One of our most familiar spring flowers, the cowslip brightens up ancient meadows and woodlands with its egg-yolk-yellow, nodding blooms.
Wild carrot does, indeed, smell of carrots, but the roots are not like our cultivated, dinnertime favourite. Look for this umbellifer on chalk grasslands and coasts.
The secretive woodlark can be hard to spot. It nests on the ground on our southern heathlands and uses scattered trees and woodland edges for lookout posts.
The moon jelly is the most common jellyfish in UK seas, often washing up on our beaches. No need to worry though - it doesn't sting humans.