Hornet mimic hoverfly
With black-and-yellow markings, the hornet mimic hoverfly looks like its namesake, but is harmless to us. This mimicry helps to protect it from predators while it searches for nectar.
With black-and-yellow markings, the hornet mimic hoverfly looks like its namesake, but is harmless to us. This mimicry helps to protect it from predators while it searches for nectar.
Erin has spent 25 years connecting people and wildlife as part of Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust’s team that delivers events and open days at sites across the county including the annual Skylarks…
Elise has been coming to Potted Histories for four years. The activities help her overcome the pain that arthritis causes her, and to cope better with her diabetes because being outside makes her…
In the drama of the open spaces around her, Emily can play the role of a lifetime. She knows the wildlife of the nature reserve as intimately as Yorick knew Hamlet, and with an audience of birds,…
Found around our coasts during the breeding season, the little tern is a diminutive seabird. Despite its size, it performs remarkable aerial courtship displays.
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.
This large burrowing bivalve, also known as the Icelandic cyprine, is found on sandy seabeds around much of the UK. It is the longest-lived animal known to man, with one individual found to be 507…
A climbing plant of hedgerows and woodlands, Black bryony produces greenish flowers in summer and red, shiny berries in autumn. It is a poisonous plant.
A sprawling, spiny evergreen, Common juniper is famous for its traditional role in gin-making. Once common on downland, moorland and coastal heathland, it is now much rarer due to habitat loss.…
The scorpionfly, as its name suggests, has a curved 'tail' that looks like a sting. It is, in fact, the males' claspers for mating. It is yellow and black, with a long 'beak…
The male whitethroat does, indeed, have a white throat! Arriving from Sub-Saharan Africa in April, it can be spotted on grassland and scrub, and along hedgerows. It is bigger than the lesser…