Colour

You can travel all over the world and not find anything more bright and colourful as you will find in the UK.  It's always worth looking again at some of the more 'mundane' wildlife on our own doorsteps.  For starters, how about the Chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs).  This one was singing his heart out on a hedge as we passed on our walk this morning.

Britain's second most numerous bird, with a breeding population of close to 6,000,000 pairs, it is easy to overlook this most beautiful bird, simply because it is so familiar.

Familiarity should not always breed contempt and a closer look at our back garden proves this.  There can be few plants so well known and so hated by gardeners as the Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale).  How wrong can we be.  Just look at this stunner.

Looking more closely, it is every bit as beautiful as those large-flowered, in-curved Chrysanthemums which gardeners will spend so much time and money growing - and these are free!