Bat-winged phasia
This colourful fly can be found on flowers in wooded areas.
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Chwilio
Carline thistle
The Carline thistle produces distinctive brown-and-golden flower heads that look like a seeded thistle. These flowers are attractive to a wide range of butterflies, including the very rare Large…
Lesser stitchwort
Look for the pretty, star-shaped, white flowers of Lesser stitchwort in woodlands and meadows, and along hedgerows and roadside verges in spring. Its flowers are smaller than those of Greater…
Small-spotted catshark
Small-spotted catsharks used to be called lesser-spotted dogfish - which might be what you know them best as. It's the same shark, just a different name!
Wood melick
Wood melick is a slender, drooping grass that grows in dense patches in ancient woodlands and along shady banks. It has nodding flower heads, with brown, egg-shaped spikelets that contain the…
Save the Wye
Life in the River Wye is silently slipping away. The crisis can be seen in the death of fish and insects, the unrelenting loss of aquatic flowers, and the huge algal blooms that turn the river green and stinking during long, hot spells. Phosphate, the chemical that creates these algal blooms and the resulting loss of oxygen in the water, is invisible. But you can see, and often smell, the main cause of the problem. Manure from chicken farms making its way into the Wye.
Rock dove
The wild rock dove is the ancestor to what is probably our most familiar bird - the feral pigeon, which is often found in large numbers in our towns and cities.
Purple-loosestrife
A tall plant, purple-loosestrife can form dense stands of bright purple flower spikes in wet habitats like reedbeds, fens and marshes.
Water dock
As its name suggests, Water dock likes damp places, such as the egdes of canals, ponds and rivers. It is a tall plant with large, greenish flower spikes.
Lords-and-ladies
Look for the unusual flowers of lords-and-ladies in spring woodlands: a pale green sheath surrounds a spike of tiny, yellow flowers. This spike eventually forms a familiar, short stalk of striking…
Spiked water-milfoil
Look out for the feathery leaves of Spiked water-milfoil just below the surface of streams, ditches, lakes and ponds; its red flowers emerge from the water in summer. It provides shelter for a…
Bugle
Often found carpeting damp grassland and woodland clearings, the blue flower spikes of bugle are very recognisable. A short, creeping plant, it spreads using runners.