Reed warbler
Listen out for the 'chattering' song of the reed warbler, while wandering the UK's lowland wetlands in summer. A small, brown bird, they are quite hard to see.
Listen out for the 'chattering' song of the reed warbler, while wandering the UK's lowland wetlands in summer. A small, brown bird, they are quite hard to see.
The hart's-tongue fern is a hardy fern of damp, shady places in woodlands. It also makes a good garden fern. It has simple, tongue-shaped, glossy, green leaves that have orange spores on…
This secretive bird is a member of the rail family, related to coots and moorhens. The breeding call, a rasping rattle, is given mostly at night, sometimes for hours on end.
The melodious song of the nightingale is the most likely sign of this bird being about. Shy and secretive, it sings from dense scrub and woodland, day and night.
A common and stocky bird of our rocky coasts, the rock pipit can nearly always be seen close to the sea. It is a bit smaller than a starling.
A plain-looking warbler, the garden warbler is a summer visitor to the UK. It is a shy bird and is most likely to be heard, rather than seen, in woodland and scrub habitats.
The turtle dove is the UK's fastest declining bird species and is on the brink of extinction. A small and pretty pigeon, it breeds in lowland England and winters in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Our most diminutive falcon, the merlin is a pretty bird of prey. It chases small birds, flying low to the ground or hovering in the breeze because of its small size. Resident merlins are joined in…
The tiny firecrest vies with the goldcrest for the title of the UK's smallest bird. Once just a visitor, the firecrest can now be found breeding in woodlands in the south of England.
Duncan helps to manage the pockets of peatland at Bell Crag Flow, near Newcastle. The ancient landscapes that he works on are around 10,000 years old. These sites are great for wildlife but they…
Niamh loves to feed the birds, so makes natural feeders out of pinecones and berries, to help them through the winter. She’ll tie this to a branch so that the birds can feast from it safely.
Like many of our farmland birds, the corn bunting has declined in number in recent years. Spot this streaky brown, thick-billed bird singing from a wire or post - it sounds just like a set of…