My sanctuary
Anne’s garden provides an amazing place for wildlife. She has helped rescue hedgehogs and released them to start a life in the wild again from there. Her camera traps allow her to see when they…
Anne’s garden provides an amazing place for wildlife. She has helped rescue hedgehogs and released them to start a life in the wild again from there. Her camera traps allow her to see when they…
The colourful and delightful chaffinch is a regular garden visitor across the UK. Look out for it hopping about on the ground under birdtables and hedges.
Freshwater pearl mussels spend their adult lives anchored to the river bed, filtering water through their gills and improving the quality of the water for other species.
One of the most eye-catching sights on the rocky shore, this mind-boggling species resembling a collection of beautiful pressed flowers is actually a colony of individual animals!
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.
Recently, even though we were locked down at home, we went on safari. Not to Africa, of course, just in our garden, doing an audit known as a bioblitz of the creatures living in it.
Why not…
A tall and robust species of sedge, the Great fen-sedge has long leaves with sawtooth edges. It forms dense stands in lowland fens and around lakes.
The bright green ring-necked parakeet is an escapee and our only naturalised parrot; its success is likely due to warmer winters.
The bonnet-shaped, violet-blue flowers of Columbine can be spotted in damp areas in woodlands and in fens. It is also an attractive and much-loved garden plant.
The skeletons of deep-water corals form mounds that can support over 1,000 species of invertebrates and fish.
Limited in distribution, this sweetly-scented, short-cropped, springy grassland is famed for its abundance of rare and scarce species.
The magpie is a distinctive moth with striking black and yellow spots on white wings. It is a frequent garden visitor, but also likes woodland, scrub and heathland.