Get involved

If you are keen to get outdoors and do your bit for biodiversity, there are many wildlife surveys and nature experiments that you can take part in across the UK. Here is a selection.

Trees in towns

Identify and record the trees in your garden, street and park for the Natural History Museum’s urban tree survey.

Small tortoiseshell © Jim Asher/Butterfly Conservation

Big Butterfly Count

Join the biggest ever nationwide survey to assess the health of our environment from 24 July – 1 August.

Plant more trees

More Trees, More Good is a new campaign from the Woodland Trust to encourage us to plant 20 million native trees a year for the next 50 years.

Ladybird parasite survey

You can help scientists studying the natural enemies of ladybirds by looking for ladybird pupae and recording what hatches from them.

Pond dipping to see how healthy the water is © NHM

OPAL Water Survey

The OPAL water survey is asking people to find out how healthy or polluted their local lakes and ponds are.

Wildflowers Count

Plantlife is running their annual survey asking people to take a stroll close to where they live and record the wildflowers they come across.

Waterways Wildlife Survey

Whether it’s counting kingfishers or spotting otters, your sightings could help to improve our waterways.

Wildest Hide and Seek

The WWT's Wildest Hide and Seek runs until Monday 31 May and is asking people to spend just one hour outside searching for 14 barometer species.

Bee Scene

From now until August children can take part in a new survey to spot bee-friendly wildflowers in parks and green spaces.

Cherry tree survey

Join the first ever survey to locate, identify and count the cherry trees in streets, parks and gardens across the UK.

OPAL, the Open Air Laboratories Network wants to find out more about what’s living in our hedges because they are an important source of food and shelter for our wildlife. They want as many people as possible to take part in a new biodiversity survey by exploring their local hedges and recording what they find.

Puppet made for last year’s E-Day © E-Day Ark

Make a puppet to support campaign

Children and adults are being asked to use their creative skills to make a puppet of an animal that they care about and want to save. Photos of the puppets can join others onboard the online E-Day Ark. The ark launches this week in preparation for E-Day which falls on Tuesday 17 November.

Orange striped anemone (Haliplanella lineata) © Patrick Van Moer

Marine invaders

About 65 non-native marine species are currently found in UK waters – usually near the coast or in estuaries. They are concentrated in areas with a lot of human activity such as habours and marinas. Very often alien species slip into UK seas unnoticed on the hulls of boats and then establish themselves in sheltered ports and marinas when the boats are moored.

View all articles

IYB - UK