Bittersweet
Bittersweet is a nightshade, so is toxic; its bright red berries may be tempting, but can cause serious illness. Found in hedgerows and gardens, it has purple flowers with yellow stamens.
Water vole by Terry Whittaker/2020VISION
Bittersweet is a nightshade, so is toxic; its bright red berries may be tempting, but can cause serious illness. Found in hedgerows and gardens, it has purple flowers with yellow stamens.
The Coppery click beetle is a large, coppery-purple beetle with straw-brown wing cases. It can be found on grassland and farmland, and its larvae are known to feed on roots and damage crops.
Eyebright has small, white flowers with purple veins and yellow centres. It likes short grasslands, from clifftops to heaths, and is one of a number of species and hybrids that are hard to tell…
A common thistle of roadside verges, rough grassland and waste ground, the Musk thistle has large, purple, nodding flower heads that appear in summer. It is attractive to a wide range of insects…
After undergoing brain surgery, Simone suffered from severe headaches and was worried that she would find volunteering with Durham Wildlife Trust too strenuous; in fact, she has found that the…
Jamie fell in love with wildlife taking his dog for walks at Attenborough Nature Reserve as a young boy to keep him occupied. Now he is inspiring the next generation working with the Keeping It…
A tall orchid of woodland and scrub, the broad-leaved helleborine has greenish, purple-tinged flowers that look a little 'drooping'. Strongly veined, oval leaves spiral around its stem…
Growing up and living in the countryside for much of her life, Helen is used to big wide open spaces and loves being outside. She enjoys coming to the Centre for Wildlife Gardening, as it’s like…
Found in ponds and marshes, the fragile look of the Common water-measurer belies its fierce nature. A predator of small insects, it uses the vibrations of the water's surface to locate its…
The river lamprey is a primitive, jawless fish, with a round, sucker-mouth which it uses to attach to other fish to feed from them. Adults live in the sea and return to freshwater to spawn.