A funny little fellow in his glossy black dinner jacket and crisp white bib, the puffin is instantly recognisable from its brightly coloured parrot-like bill. Puffins use their colourful bill to…

Sand eels are a hugely important part of our marine ecosystem. In fact, the fledgling success of our breeding seabirds entirely depends on them.

The shy dunnock can be seen hopping about under hedges as its other name, 'hedge sparrow', suggests. It inhabits gardens, woodlands, hedgerows and parks.

The song thrush is a familiar garden visitor that has a beautiful and loud song. The broken shells of their blue, spotty eggs can often be found under a hedge in spring.

Wild privet is a shrub of hedgerows, woodlands and scrub, but is also a popular garden-hedge plant. It has white flowers in summer and matt-black berries in winter that are very poisonous.

Fat hen is a persistent 'weed' of fields and gardens, verges and hedgerows. But, like many of our weed species, it is a good food source for birds and insects.