Glorious grasslands
A summer meadow is a beautiful sight, but there’s so much more to it than gently waving grass heads and fabulous flowers.
Two Little Owl chicks sitting on a branch. Credit: Hilary Chambers
A summer meadow is a beautiful sight, but there’s so much more to it than gently waving grass heads and fabulous flowers.
A round-up from our northern reserves over late summer saw grassland management and exciting plans for Shibdon Pond and Meadows.
Flower-rich grasslands, full of wildflowers such as orchids, snake's head fritillaries and bird's-foot trefoil support an abundance of insects, from bumblebees to butterflies.
This is a strange, sparse habitat of grassland growing on old mining tracks and slag heaps, on river gravels and naturally exposed metal-rich soils in the mountains. Only the toughest metal-loving…
Chicken of the woods is a sulphur-yellow bracket fungus of trees in woods, parks and gardens. It can often be found in tiered clusters on oak, but also likes beech, chestnut, cherry and even yew…
Limited in distribution, this sweetly-scented, short-cropped, springy grassland is famed for its abundance of rare and scarce species.
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…
Sprinkled with diminutive, short-living flowers in spring and parched dry by July, this is a habitat of heathlands, coastal grasslands and ancient parkland.
An unimproved area of limestone grassland with an a wonderful array of floral species
These grasslands, occupying much of the UK's heavily-grazed upland landscape, are of greater cultural than wildlife interest, but remain a habitat to some scarce and declining species.
The Wild strawberry produces miniature, edible versions of the juicy red fruits we so enjoy. Gathering wild food can be fun, but it's best to do it with an expert - come along to a Wildlife…