Species by group
Look up a species by its group, from birds and mammals to fungi and invertebrates.
Browse groups →Wildlife in the UK
UK Biota — UK Wildlife, Species and Biodiversity Hub
Where to look up protected sites Explore UK habitatsFor everyone who cares about nature
There's wildlife all around us in the UK. It's in gardens, parks and towns, as well as in the countryside.
Some of it is doing well, and some of it is in trouble. It can be hard to find out which. The information is held by a lot of different organisations, and you have to know where to look.
We'd like to bring it together in one place. We've made a start, and we're adding to it.
You can begin with whatever brought you here.
Ways in
Pick the one closest to what you'd like to find out.
Protected sites: the official maps
Find the official maps of protected sites and habitats, and the rules that cover each one.
Find places →The law explained
What the law says about a species or site, with the schedule and section named.
Read the law →How biodiversity is doing
See where the national measures of species and habitat trends are published.
See the picture →Issues facing wildlife
The pressures affecting UK wildlife, and what the evidence shows about each one.
See the issues →Habitats across the UK
Learn what habitats support UK wildlife and where the priority habitats lie.
Explore habitats →Take part in recording
Add your sightings to schemes that put the records to use, wherever you are.
Start recording →Identify a species
Work out what you saw, with the features that separate it from similar species.
Get help identifying →One farm's own record of what changed
Wyke Farm, in Dorset, keeps its own record of the species found on its land, including at Chedington Woods. We show that record here with the farm's permission, credited throughout to Wyke Farm Ltd.
To tell whether a change in land management made a difference, you need records from the same place before the change and again afterwards. Wyke Farm keeps its entries that way: each one is dated, tied to a named plot on the farm, and traceable back to the farm.
You'll find more examples of what changed after a specific action, at Wyke Farm and elsewhere, on the case studies page.
Who keeps the national records?
Three different bodies publish the official measures of how UK wildlife is doing, each for its own purpose.
- Defra (the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) publishes the Indicators of species abundance in England, the statutory measure of England's progress toward its species-abundance target. Defra uses it to follow how the populations of a set range of species have changed over time. See Defra's indicators of species abundance in England.
- The Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) publishes the UK Biodiversity Indicators, bringing measures for all four nations together in one set, covering habitats, protected sites and species trends. See the UK Biodiversity Indicators.
- A partnership of conservation and research organisations produces the State of Nature report, a periodic assessment of how UK wildlife is faring, drawn from the monitoring schemes and indicators behind it. See the State of Nature report.
We'd like UK Biota to sit alongside them. The national records rarely show a single species or a single place, and that's what we'd like to collect. To see how these measures read the picture today, go to How Is UK Biodiversity Doing?
The habitats UK wildlife depends on
Woodland, wetland, grassland and coast each have their own species, their own pressures and their own protections.