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'I could see puffs of condensed breath as he sang. Suddenly, the world felt fine': The wren, a little mite with a mighty heart
Shy yet bold, furtive yet fearless and fond of nesting in your trousers, the tiny ‘Jenny wren’ has a lusty voice that matches its sense of adventure.
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John Lewis-Stempel: Heathland, a place of freedom and unconventionality
Grey and bleak in midwinter, yet purple and exotic come high summer, our heathland is an unloved landscape that has become rarer than rainforest.
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Curious Questions: What's in a (scientific) name? From Parastratiosphecomyia stratiosphecomyioides to Myxococcus llanfair pwll gwyn gyll go gery chwyrn drobwll llan tysilio gogo goch ensis, and everything in between
Scientific names are baffling to the layman, but carry all sorts of meanings to those who coin each new term. Martin Fone explains.
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John Lewis-Stempel: The moors, a landscape of 'seamless sameness'
Once considered a vast, stretching terror-land synonymous with bog, the national perception of the ecologically invaluable moors has dramatically changed
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Britain lost 25 million of its 'graceful giants', the elm tree — but there's finally real hope that they are coming back
Once the hallmark of a rural idyll, our English elms were almost eradicated by the devastating fungal infection of Dutch Elm Disease. Thankfully a new cultivation aims to secure their survival, as Andrew Martin explains.
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John Lewis-Stempel: Into the deep of England's lakes
Beneath the crystal-clear, alien world of water lie the great piscean survivors of the Ice Age. The Lake District is a fish-spotter’s paradise.
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Dummy eyes, faking death and and the whiff of rotting flesh: The great deceptions of Nature's most cunning creatures
A whiff of rotting flesh, the flash of a painted eye, a dead-faint to the floor: Nature is full of cunning survival tricks, says Laura Parker, as she explores the greatest mimics and frauds you'll find among the animals, insects, plants and birds of Britain.
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John Lewis-Stempel: The Broads, a relic wetland resurrected
A strange, amphibious land floating somewhere between earth and sky, East Anglia’s majestic wetlands remind us that our ancestors made arcadias in these isles.
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John Lewis-Stempel: Beechwood, nature's own cathedral
‘Most lovely of all’, the stately beech is our tallest native tree and creates a shaded environment that few plants can survive.
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The 1,000-year-old sweet chestnut tree you'll find in the Cotswolds — and what to do if you have a younger example near your home
Tis the season to roast sweet chestnuts.
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John Lewis-Stempel: The perfumed arcadia of the Downs, England's oldest manmade habitat
Home to the iconic skylark, the chalk downlands are as colourful and botanically diverse as rainforest.
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Hedgehog numbers have plunged in the last 20 years — but help is at hand
Annunciata Elwes reports on the new National Hedgehog Conservation Strategy that's been created by two key conservation organisations.
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Trees of God: The story of the mighty cedar
Once considered an exotic addition, cedar trees were frequently employed by ‘Capability’ Brown as topographical punctuation marks and are now as loved and reassuring as any fine church steeple.
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John Lewis-Stempel: The deer parks that came to define us
A Roman conception that came to define the topography of England, the deer park was both a status symbol for the arriviste elite and a training ground that would secure our victory at Agincourt.
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Mud, glorious mud: Why we should get down and dirty in our wet earth
We loved it as a kid, and we should love it as an adult. Mud is fun to walk through, play with and has real scientific benefits for our health to boot.
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'A square yard of estuary mud contains the energy equivalent of 16 chocolate bars': John Lewis-Stempel on the life of the English Estuary
Part water, part earth and a habitat of constant movement, the bleak and desolate estuary environment is an acquired taste. Yet this monochrome minimalism can be paradise, says John Lewis-Stempel.
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Alexander Darwall: Dartmoor camping case is about conservation and preservation, not denial of access
The landowner at the centre of the legal battle over wild camping on Dartmoor explains why he has chosen to go to the Supreme Court about the issue.
