Nature

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.

Jonathan Self: November used to be a month of bleak fields and naked trees; this year we had summer flowers in bloom and ate lunch on the terrace

Jonathan Self discovers a name for his sense of unease caused by life being out of balance.

Dawn Chorus: Churchill's swimming pool, the end of puppy smuggling, Quiz of the Day, and a two tropical islands for the price of one

This morning's Dawn Chorus brings a few rays of sunshine to the start of December.

Curious Questions: What's in a (scientific) name? From Parastratiosphecomyia stratiosphecomyioides to Myxococcus llanfair­pwll­gwyn­gyll­go­gery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch­ensis, 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.

Chandeliers and marble floors in Britain's most eye-popping £750,000 house

A house in a Lancashire town where you get a LOT for your money, plus nature, Christmast presents and our Quiz of the Day: it's our daily Dawn Chorus.

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

The £3 million Van Dyck painting going under the hammer with a unique buy-one-get-one-free offer

If you've ever dreamed of owning an Anthony van Dyck, now's your chance to pick up two in one go — plus more fun from today's Dawn Chorus.

Where have all the salmon gone, and what can we do about it?

Jane Wheatley examines the dire situation facing the king of fish.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The science behind how Nature can heal us, and how it's easier than you think, with Professor Miles Richardson

Professor Miles Richardson joins James Fisher on the Country Life Podcast.

Ghost hunters: the search for Britain's rarest flowers

Climbing, swimming and crawling, rare-plant hunters know no bounds when it comes to tracking down the botanical equivalent of the Holy Grail, says Peter Marren

Curious Questions: How did a scrotum joke confuse paleontologists for generations?

One of the earliest depictions of a fossil prompted a joke — or perhaps a misunderstanding — which coloured the view of dinosaur fossils for years. Martin Fone tells the tale of 'scrotum humanum'.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.