Cornwall is a county of dramatic contrasts, offering a wide variety of habitats and environments where an equally wide variety of wildlife, flora and fauna thrive. Here’s just a few of the amazing creatures and plants you might come across in and around your Cornish holiday cottage.

There’s birds, seals, shellfish, crustaceans, butterflies and moths, mammals and reptiles, from the commonplace to the rare. Urban foxes are as common in Cornwall as any British county and you may spot families of foxes playing together at dusk, or hear them calling to one another in the mating season. The Wood White butterfly is a rare creature often spotted in summer and the magnificent Death’s Head moth, so named because of the remarkable skull-like markings on its thorax and abdomen, can be seen – and heard! – flapping around gardens and wild areas, a huge insect the size of a small bird.

The best Cornish holiday homes have private gardens planted with indigenous and cultivated plants. You might spot what you think is a humming bird, but take a closer look and you’ll probably find it’s a Humming Bird Hawk Moth, a tiny jewel-like creature that sips nectar from flowers via its long, flexible tongue. And the woods and fields are full of badgers, bunnies, squirrels, shrews, dormice, voles, rats and mice.

Wherever there’s fresh water there’s a chance you’ll spot stunning dragonflies, the larger of which have a wingspan of four inches and iridescent bodies in bright blue, bright green or honey brown striped with yellow. There are Demoiselle flies too, also called Damsel flies, smaller versions of the dragonfly in vibrant scarlet, turquoise or emerald. Ponds also attract frogs and toads, newts and water beetles, water skaters and water boatmen, leeches and dragonfly larvae.

Nip outdoors at dusk and you might see beautiful little bats flitting around catching insects as the sun slips below the golden horizon. Bats don’t get in your hair. They’re completely harmless, fascinating little beasts and on a quiet evening you can even hear their tiny jaws snap as they capture tasty insect life on the wing.

Cornish self catering accommodation is also ideal for bird watchers, with a wealth of sea and land birds plus occasional exotic migrating birds blown off course by storms. There’s seals and lizards, adders and grass snakes, ferns, seaweeds and endless drifts of delightful wild flowers like mallows, sea pinks and orchids. Plus numerous beautiful lichens, fungus, toadstools and mushrooms.

Cornwall is a county richer in wildlife than many, perfect for people who enjoy spotting rare and unusual flora and fauna as well as those who adore loafing on the beach or surfing the Atlantic waves!