Dark-edged bee-fly
Our largest and most common bee-fly, the dark-edged bee-fly looks just like a bumblebee, and buzzes like one too! It feeds on flowers like primroses and violets in gardens, parks and woodlands.…
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Chwilio
Selfheal
Selfheal is a low-growing, creeping plant that likes the short turf of grasslands, roadside verges or even lawns. Its clusters of violet flowers appear in summer.
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Where to see wildlife in the summer
Summer is a time of colour. By day, colours zip and dart along the waterside as kingfishers and dragonflies go about their business of hunting. Butterflies flit between flowers, reptiles bask in the sun, and seabirds clamour on the cliffsides. The activity goes on under cover of darkness - bats sweep swiftly through the air, natterjacks chatter and nightjars churr, while glow-worms adorn the night with pinpricks of light.
Foxglove
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.
Golden-bloomed grey longhorn beetle
This beautiful beetle is fond of damp meadows and woodland rides, where it's often found on umbellifers or thistles.
Adder
Our only venomous snake, the shy adder can be spotted basking in the sunshine in woodland glades and on heathlands.
How to attract bumblebees to your garden
The best plants for bumblebees! Bees are important pollinating insects, but they are under threat. You can help them by planting bumblebee-friendly flowers.
Meadowsweet
As its name suggests, Meadowsweet is a sweet-smelling flower of damp meadows, ditches and riverbanks. Look for frothy clusters of cream flowers on tall stems.
Cross-leaved heath
Cross-leaved heath is a type of heather that likes bogs, heathland and moorland. It has distinctive pink, bell-shaped flowers that attract all kinds of nectar-loving insects.
Honey buzzard
Rare summer visitors, honey buzzards breed in open woodland where they feed on the nests and larvae of bees and wasps.
Cleavers
Familiar as the bristly plant that easily hooks on to our clothing as we walk through the countryside or do the gardening, cleavers uses its hooks to help it climb and to disperse its seeds.