SPOTTING Weymouth’s wildlife is as easy as ABC thanks to a new wallchart produced for the RSPB.

Now residents are being challenged to go out this summer and find all 26 species featured.

Artist Matt Sewell has painted a wallchart featuring a different local animal or plant for each letter of the alphabet, which children can look out for in Weymouth and Portland during the summer holidays.

The wallchart was produced for the Radipole Lake Discovery Centre with funding from the Coastal Communities Fund.

Matt said: “I really enjoyed doing it because a lot of my work focuses on birds and it was a good exercise to draw bats and things like that, which I don’t get to do very often.

“I really liked doing the eel. Eels are pretty ugly things but I think I gave him a bit of charm.”

Dorset favourites such as the peregrine falcon and the kingfisher appear on the chart, along with the Ichthyosaurus anningae, which might be a bit harder to find given that it has been extinct for millions of years.

The aquatic reptile was formally described in 2015 following the discovery of a fossil in Dorset in the 1980s.

Keen wildlife spotters may be able to catch a glimpse of the fossil at the Lyme Regis Museum.

The RSPB has encouraged young people to explore their local area during the summer months to find as many of the featured species as possible.

Fulmars can be seen at Portland Bill, whilst kingfishers and marsh harriers are often found in the RSPB reserves at Radipole Lake and Lodmoor. The little tern can be seen nesting on Chesil Beach.

Lindsey Death, RSPB visitor experience officer in Dorset, said: “We want children to grow-up knowing their stuff about the wildlife they can find on their own doorstep and help to put an end to the growing disconnection from nature many children seem to have. We challenge you to get out and find all 26.”

Copies of the poster for schools and youth clubs are available from Radipole Lake Discovery Centre.

Call 01305 778313 or email lindsey.death@rspb.org.uk.