Nature

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.

'There are whole fields that are 100% taxpayer funded NOT to grow crops for people to eat'

Former NFU President Minette Batters has entered the House of Lords as Baroness Batters, giving her a new perspective, and a new opportunity to find ways to help British farming.

Opinion: The doom-laden terminology of conservation campaigners is dragging us down — it's time we embraced some optimism

We’re not perfect, says Kate Green, but nor are we bottom of the class — and it's time we embraced that.

John Lewis-Stempel: The deer parks that came to define us

A Roman conception that came to define the topography of England, the deer park was both a status symbol for the arriviste elite and a training ground that would secure our victory at Agincourt.

Mud, glorious mud: Why we should get down and dirty in our wet earth

We loved it as a kid, and we should love it as an adult. Mud is fun to walk through, play with and has real scientific benefits for our health to boot.

'A square yard of estuary mud contains the energy equivalent of 16 chocolate bars': John Lewis-Stempel on the life of the English Estuary

Part water, part earth and a habitat of constant movement, the bleak and desolate estuary environment is an acquired taste. Yet this monochrome minimalism can be paradise, says John Lewis-Stempel.

Dawn Chorus: The artwork thrown in a museum bin, Cambridge's most famous sight and the world welly wanging champion unmasked by the BBC

What is it like to grow up in a castle? Can you name Cambridge's most famous landmark? And who is the Welly Wanging World Record Holder? All this and more is revealed in today's Dawn Chorus.