Wildlife explorer

Hairy bitter-cress is an edible weed of rocky places, walls, gardens and cultivated ground. Gathering wild food can be fun, but it's best to do it with an expert - come along to a Wildlife Trust event to try it.

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 from spring.

This large shieldbug lives up to its name, bristling with long pale hairs. It's a common sight in parks, hedgerows and woodland edges in much of the UK.

Living up to its name, the hairy violet is covered in fine hairs. Look for its delicate, violet flowers blooming from March to June on chalk grasslands, in particular.

The hairy-footed flower bee can be seen in gardens and parks in spring and summer, visiting tubular flowers like red dead-nettle and comfrey. As its name suggests, it has long, orange hairs on its middle legs.

Despite being a little shy, these amazing marine mammals can be spotted close to shore in shallow waters. If you do get close, keep an eye out for the loud ‘chuff’ noise they make as they come to the surface to breathe!

The stiff, spiky and upright leaves and brown flowers of hard rush are a familiar sight of wetlands, riversides, dune slacks and marshes across England and Wales.

The hare's ear is a cup-like fungus that grows in clusters in broadleaved and mixed woodland, often near to the path. Its orange colour makes it quite conspicuous in the leaf litter.

The downy hairs that cover the pale pink flowers of Hare's-foot clover give it the look of a Hare's paw - hence the common name. Look out for this clover around the coast and on dry grasslands.

The nodding, blue bells of the harebell are a summer delight of grasslands, sand dunes, hedgerows and cliffs. They are attractive to all kinds of insects, too.

A non-native species originating from Asia, the harlequin ladybird is prevalent in towns and gardens.

The hart's-tongue fern is a hardy fern of damp, shady places in woodlands. It also makes a good garden fern. It has simple, tongue-shaped, glossy, green leaves that have orange spores on their undersides.