Stinging nettle
The stinging nettle is a familiar and common plant, often firmly rooted in our memories after our first, hands-on experience - a prickling irritation that's not forgotten easily!
The stinging nettle is a familiar and common plant, often firmly rooted in our memories after our first, hands-on experience - a prickling irritation that's not forgotten easily!
In spring and summer, look out for 'cuckoo-spit' - the frothy mass of bubbles that appears on plant stems everywhere. This is actually the protective covering for the nymphs of the tiny…
A spring delight, the wood anemone grows in dappled shade in ancient woodlands. Traditional management, such as coppicing, can help such flowers by opening up the woodland floor to sunlight.
A scrambling 'weed' of waste ground, fields and gardens, Common fumitory can be found on dry and disturbed soils. Its pink flowers appear over spring and summer.
A sure sign that spring has arrived, the Cuckooflower blooms from April. Look out for its delicate, pale pink flowers in damp meadows and ditches, and on riverbanks.
The wayfaring-tree is a small tree of hedgerows, woods, scrub and downland. It displays creamy-white flowers in spring and red berries in autumn, which ripen to black and are very poisonous.
This brilliant red and white sea slug would make the perfect nudibranch for a Christmas card image or perhaps a football team mascot!
As its name suggests, the birch shieldbug can be found feeding on silver birch, and sometimes hazel, in mixed woodland. Adults hibernate over winter, emerging in spring to lay their eggs.
Looking like a short Dandelion, but with a much rounder middle, Colt's-foot is a 'weed' of waste ground and field edges that brightens up early spring with its sunshine-yellow…
Brush through a wildflower meadow at the height of summer and you'll hear the tiny seeds of yellow-rattle rattling in their brown pods, hence its name.
Whether feeding the birds, or sowing a wildflower patch, setting up wildlife areas in your school makes for happier, healthier and more creative children.
Shag' is a very old name that means 'tufted' and refers to the small crest that this bird sports. Look out for it in spring and summer either diving for fish from the surface of the…