The Health of Our Planet
As stories break about the increasing challenges that the environment is facing, Harry Barton reflects on what the future of the environment might look like, its impact on us, and what needs to be…
As stories break about the increasing challenges that the environment is facing, Harry Barton reflects on what the future of the environment might look like, its impact on us, and what needs to be…
It’s always intrigued me that Kenneth Grahame chose Toad as his most impulsive, charismatic and rumbustious character. An adrenaline junky, desperate to be loved and the antithesis of Ratty’s…
It’s a crisp, early spring morning of watery sun and rippling bird song. The April greens are at their sharpest, the leaves of every plant impossibly lush. The flowers pushing themselves up among…
Ratty. Sensible, dependable, loyal, comfortable in his own skin, writes Harry Barton, Devon Wildlife Trust's CEO. He is the character who gives the river in Wind in the Willows its sense of…
Badger. Strong defiant, paternal, the only animal that the weasels and stoats won’t dare to cross. It is badger who the other animals turn to when things go wrong, the reluctant leader who steps…
The small heath is the smallest of our brown butterflies and has a fluttering flight. It favours heathlands, as its name suggests, as well as other sunny habitats.
The rare heath fritillary was on the brink of extinction in the 1970s, but conservation action turned its fortunes around. It is still confined to a small number of sites in the south of England,…
The Heath bumblebee is not only found on heathland, but also in gardens and parks. It nests in small colonies of less than 100 workers in all kinds of spots, such as old birds' nests, mossy…
Cross-leaved heath is a type of heather that likes bogs, heathland and moorland. It has distinctive pink, bell-shaped flowers that attract all kinds of nectar-loving insects.
This bog-loving butterfly is mostly found in the north of the UK, where it takes to the wing in summer.
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…