Habitat explorer

Lakes come in many forms: some are splendid and clear, while others are more reminiscent of a murky swamp. Each lake is strongly influenced by the underlying lakebed and the surrounding landscape, and collectively, lakes support a huge variety of animal and plant life.

Typical of softly rolling pastoral landscapes, the short, aromatic turf of lowland calcareous grassland is flower-rich and humming with insects in the summer. Its long use by humans lends it an ancient feel and it is often seen amongst prehistoric burial mounds, hill forts and old trackways.

Sprinkled with diminutive, short-living flowers in spring and parched dry by July, this is a habitat of heathlands, coastal grasslands and ancient parkland.

Water-logged and thick with reeds and robust tall-herbs or tussocky sedges, fens are evocative reminders of the extensive wet wildlands that once covered far more of the lowlands than they do today.

Heathlands form some of the wildest landscapes in the lowlands, where agriculture and development jostle for space, containing and limiting natural processes. Once considered as waste land of little value, lowland heathland is now appreciated and protected for its unique wildlife and austere beauty.

There's another world waiting beneath the waves. Seals weave in and out of sunlit kelp forests, cuttlefish flash all the colours of the rainbow, starfish graze along the muddy seabed and sharks slip through the open water.

Generally found as part of lowland farms or nature reserves, these small, flower-rich fields are at their best in midsummer when the plethora of flowers and insects is a delight. Tiny reminders of the former abundance of wildflowers in the farmed countryside, they are now treasured for both their wildlife and for the unique rural traditions that developed as part of their farmed history.

A visit to a traditional orchard reveals gnarled old trunks of fruit and nut trees bursting with blossoms and young leaves in springtime, with wildflowers and insects populating summer’s long grass, and foraging wildlife attracted by autumn’s fallen fruit.

Whether found in a garden or part of an agricultural landscape, ponds are oases of wildlife worth investigating. Even small ponds can support a wealth of species and collectively, ponds play a key role in supporting freshwater wildlife.

This distinctive type of damp pasture is generally found on commons, as a component of lowland fen, or in undeveloped corners of otherwise intensively farmed landscapes.

Found between water and land, reedbeds are transitional habitats. They can form extensive swamps in lowland floodplains or fringe streams, rivers, ditches, ponds and lakes with a thin feathery margin of reeds.

From otters to freshwater shrimps, all animals are dependant on an abundant and reliable supply of clean water. Rivers sustain the natural environment, wildlife and people in equal measure.