Turkeytail
The turkeytail is a very colourful bracket fungus that grows throughout the year, but is at its best in the autumn. Its circular caps can be seen growing in tiers on trees and dead wood.
The turkeytail is a very colourful bracket fungus that grows throughout the year, but is at its best in the autumn. Its circular caps can be seen growing in tiers on trees and dead wood.
Chicken of the woods is a sulphur-yellow bracket fungus of trees in woods, parks and gardens. It can often be found in tiered clusters on oak, but also likes beech, chestnut, cherry and even yew…
The birch polypore only grows on Birch trees. This leathery bracket fungus has a rounded, coffee-coloured cap that was once used for sharpening tools, hence its other name: the 'Razorstrop…
The song thrush is a familiar garden visitor that has a beautiful and loud song. The broken shells of their blue, spotty eggs can often be found under a hedge in spring.
The fluffy, white seed heads of Traveller's-joy give it the evocative, alternative names of 'Old Man's Beard' and 'Father Christmas'. A clematis-like climber, it can…
The adder's-tongue fern is so-named because the tall stalk that bears its spores is thought to resemble a snake's tongue. An indicator of ancient meadows, it can be found mainly in…
Tormentil can be found growing on acid grassland, heathland and moorland, but even pops up alongside roads. It bears yellow, buttercup-like flowers, but with only four petals (buttercups have five…
Annual meadow-grass is a coarse, vigorous grass that can be found on waste ground, bare grassland and in lawns. In some situations, it can be considered a weed.
Chinese water deer are easily distinguished from other deer by their strange teddy bear like appearance and the huge canine tusks displayed by the stags.
Sometimes called 'Wild spinach', Sea beet can be cooked and eaten. It grows wild on shingle beaches, cliffs and bare ground near to the sea, as well as in saltmarshes.
The Black-tailed skimmer is a narrow-bodied dragonfly that can be seen flying low over the bare gravel and mud around flooded gravel pits and reservoirs. It is on the wing from May to August.