How to make a gravel garden for wildlife
Surfaced spaces needn't exclude wildlife! Gravel can often be the most wildlife-friendly solution for a particular area.
Surfaced spaces needn't exclude wildlife! Gravel can often be the most wildlife-friendly solution for a particular area.
The common spotted-orchid is the easiest of all our orchids to see: sometimes, so many flowers appear together that they create a pale pink carpet in our woodlands, old quarries, dunes and marshes…
The UK's smallest hawker, the Hairy dragonfly is mostly black in colour, but has a distinctively hairy thorax. It can be found in grazing marshes and flooded gravel pits, and along canals…
The redshank lives up to its name as it sports distinctive long, bright red legs! It feeds and breeds on marshes, mudflats, mires and saltmarshes. Look out for it posing on a fence post or rock.…
The green sandpiper is a very rare breeding bird in the UK, and is mainly seen on migration in autumn. Look out for it feeding around marshes, flooded gravel pits and rivers. It even likes sewage…
As its name suggests, the smooth stems of soft rush are thinner and more flexible than those of hard rush. It forms tufts in wetland habitats like wet woodlands, marshes, ditches and grasslands.…
The large, sunshine-yellow flowers of the yellow iris brighten up the margins of our waterways, ponds, wet woods, fens and marshes. Also called the 'flag iris', its outer petals have a…
Listen out for the 'drumming' sound of a male snipe as it performs its aerial courtship display. It's not a call, but actually its tail feathers beating in the wind. Snipe live on…
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,…
Sphagnum mosses carpet the ground with colour on our marshes, heaths and moors. They play a vital role in the creation of peat bogs: by storing water in their spongy forms, they prevent the decay…
Sir David Attenborough has travelled the world in search of wildlife and wild spaces. But much closer to home, he can explore the hidden woodland at Crane Park Island, discover flying stag beetles…
The rare Norfolk hawker is a pale brown dragonfly, with a distinctive yellow triangle on its body. Until recently, it was only found in unpolluted fens, marshes and ditches of the Broads National…