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Common carder bee (Bombus pascuorum)
These delightful little bumblebees vary quite a lot in colour, though usually have ginger fuzz on their thorax, with cream and black stripes on their ‘tail’. They are among our most abundant summer bees, flourishing in gardens and allotments, as well as in all kinds of other grassy places. Their name comes from their curious habit of combing (‘carding’) plant hairs and pieces of grass over their brood cells. Unlike many other bumblebees, they don’t build their nests underground, but tucked among moss or tussocky grass, or hidden under hedges.
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Greater burdock (Arctium lappa)
Related to thistles, burdock is an impressively sturdy plant that grows rapidly. Once foraged for its edible root, it is today often considered a weed. In summer, burdock produces thistle-like purple flowers, with a ball of viciously hooked spines below each flowerhead. This prickly structure, called a burr, contains the seeds.
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Barred grass snake (Natrix helvetica)
An idyllic pond, strewn with enough water lilies to keep Monet busy for hours, might seem an unlikely place to meet our largest, most abundant snake. Rather chilly for a sun-worshipping serpent, you might think. But the barred grass snake (usually just referred to as grass snake in the UK) is a strong swimmer, and, by mid-morning on a summer’s day, having warmed up nicely by basking in a sheltered spot, it sets off to hunt. Top of the menu are amphibians and fish, which it stalks above and below the surface – sliding among floating lilies and weeds and through lush bankside vegetation to hide its approach. A decent meal will last the reptile two or even three weeks.
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Common house martin (Delichon urbicum)House martins are in rapid decline in the UK, especially in English suburbia, and they’ve flown all the way from West Africa to share summer with us. As with swallows, but unlike swifts, they raise two families in a season.
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Common darter dragonfly (Sympetrum striolatum)Abundant and widespread, it visits gardens and parks until autumn, sometimes far from water, and happily rests on top of any stick, bamboo cane or garden fork. Try positioning a convenient perch to tempt one closer. Males are red, females , golden-brown.
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Pedunculate oak (Quercus robur)Many of our ancient specimens are not in forests in the modern sense, but stand proud in wood pasture, a traditional landscape where livestock grazed freely among pollarded trees. In this parkland-style setting, they serve as valuable stepping stones for wildlife. The largest may produce over 100,000 acorns.
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Green tiger beetle (Cicidela campestris)
Many British ground beetles – and there are a lot of them, about 350 species – are essentially black or brown, sometimes with a metallic sheen. But here’s a stunning exception. Sunny patches of bare, dusty earth are all the beetle needs for hunting, so it thrives on ex-industrial sites and in other abandoned, scruffy corners of cities. Further afield, check sandy paths and heaths. The larvae lurk in killing pits, like ant-lions.
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Purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria).Growing in lush profusion beside rivers, this gorgeous plant has brilliant magenta flowers. Even its stems, which may reach 1.5m tall, are reddish-purple. Invariably, clumps of purple loosestrife will be buzzing with insect life, but the nectar is well- hidden, so visitors are long-tongued species – mainly bumblebees, butterflies and moths. Another bankside bloom at its best this month is hemp agrimony, whose flowerheads resemble shaggy, pink pompoms.
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Green woodpecker (Picus viridis)
In summer our largest woodpecker escorts its fledged young to park and garden lawns to forage for ants together, especially where the soil is light and sandy. Juveniles can easily be told by their thickly spotted head and underparts, though come September they will be moulting into their first set of smart adult feathers.
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All information from , British wildlife in April | BBC Wildlife Magazine - Discover Wildlife