In the second of our nature specials, David Randall talks to National Trust experts who reveal 40 of their prime places to spot the best and rarest of British flora and fauna, from butterflies and dormice to wildflowers and falcons

A 15-year-old has died after he collided with a deer while cycling with friends along a country lane.

Serves 4

Castaway turned television presenter Ben Fogle said he was "bitterly disappointed and sad" yesterday after failing to buy the remote Scottish island which catapulted him to fame.

Walk Of The Month: Eastern moors of the peak district - A chance to see the UK's largest wild mammals is what lures walkers to the misty hills on Sheffield's doorstep, says Mark Rowe

The Countryside Alliance's new chief executive wants it to move beyond marches to make itself heard, she tells Jonathan Brown

The most convincing solution so far to the mystery of what happened to the Emperor, the legendary red deer of Exmoor, emerged last night. The well-known Devon film maker Johnny Kingdom told two Sunday newspapers that he has identified the final moments of the stag's demise.

The killing of Exmoor's biggest stag has provoked an angry search for the culprit

Nature lovers were today mourning a giant stag feared to have been shot dead for its antlers.

Plans are being laid to create a network of vast deer ranches in the glens and hills of Scotland to cater for the nation’s appetite for venison, once more commonly associated with historical banquets but now finding its way into shopping baskets as a low-fat, eco-meat.

Behind The Numbers

Likened to the novels of WG Sebald but also reminiscent of Borges and Calvino, Hollis's fairy-tale accounts of 13 buildings from the Parthenon via Hagia Sophia and Notre Dame to the Berlin Wall was long-listed for the Samuel Johnson prize.

With such an edgy persona as Sara Pascoe's, it could go either way, as with the Marmite test that she references in her show.

I walked past one of Joana Vasconcelos's large sculptures at Haunch of Venison before I realised it was there. As I entered the lobby it seemed that part of the gallery had been cordoned off and I was being led in a particular direction by a series of ropes. It wasn't until I looked more closely at the ropes, the kind you might find sheathed in velvet at a fancy club, that I realised they were made from long thick glossy hair in blonde, brown and auburn, which, arranged in a plaited style, seems like women's hair. The work is called One Way (Una Dirección) (2003) and, with a simple gesture, Vasconcelos highlights the ways in which women can be oppressed, held in place, or, worse, trafficked, and how ideals of beauty can play a part in this. This exhibition is filled with works that brilliantly tackle this kind of territory without being bogged down in it – this Portuguese artist's sculptures always look wonderful, excessive and extremely rich, while posing awkward questions.