Species families: Scarab Beetles

Healthy wetlands store carbon and slow the flow of water, cleaning it naturally and reducing flood risk downstream. They support an abundance of plant life, which in turn provide perfect shelter, nurseries and breeding grounds for wildlife.

Farmland can conjure up rural images of brown hares zig-zagging across fields, chattering flocks of finches and yellowhammers singing from thick, bushy hedges and field margins studded with wildflowers.

The Noble chafer is a rare and beautiful metallic-green beetle that can be found in traditional orchards. It is on the wing over summer, feeding on umbellifers. The larvae live in the decaying wood of old trees.

The rose chafer can be spotted on garden flowers, as well as in grassland, woodland edges and scrub.

This large, brown beetle can be seen swarming around streetlights in spring. They live underground as larvae for years and emerge as adults often in large numbers. Listen for their characteristic buzzing sound.

• Beetles
• Species

Water-logged and thick with reeds and robust tall-herbs or tussocky sedges, fens are evocative reminders of the extensive wet wildlands that once covered far more of the lowlands than they do today.

• Habitats
• Wetlands

Enormous flocks of geese, ducks and swans swirl down from wide skies to drop onto the flat, open expanses of flooded grazing marshes in winter. In spring, lapwing tumble overhead and the soft, damp ground speckled with cuckooflowers provides excellent habitat for waders probing for prey in the damp soil. By summer, when the ground is drier, some marshes are cut for hay or silage, but the ditches remain wet and come alive with dragonflies and other insects.

• Coast
• Grazing
• Habitats

Generally found as part of lowland farms or nature reserves, these small, flower-rich fields are at their best in midsummer when the plethora of flowers and insects is a delight. Tiny reminders of the former abundance of wildflowers in the farmed countryside, they are now treasured for both their wildlife and for the unique rural traditions that developed as part of their farmed history.

• Habitats
• Meadows

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 little value, lowland heathland is now appreciated and protected for its unique wildlife and austere beauty.

• Habitats
• Heathland

Most arable fields are large, featureless monocultures devoid of wildlife, but here and there are smaller fields and tucked away corners that are farmed less intensively, or are managed specifically with wildlife in mind.

• Food and Farming
• Habitats