A much-loved garden bird, the blackbird is famous for its harmonious song. In winter, our resident birds are joined by migrants from Scandinavia and the Baltics.

Listen out for the 'chattering' song of the reed warbler, while wandering the UK's lowland wetlands in summer. A small, brown bird, they are quite hard to see.

Tawny owls are the familiar brown owls of Britain’s woodlands, parks and gardens. They are known for their ‘too-wit too-woo’ song that can be heard at night-time.

A key species in the story of conservation, the avocet represents an amazing recovery of a bird once extinct in the UK. This pied bird, with its distinctive upturned bill, can now be seen on…

The dense, spiky tufts of Marram grass are a familiar sight on our windswept coasts. In fact, its matted roots help to stabilise sand dunes, allowing them to grow up and become colonised by other…

The melodious song of the nightingale is the most likely sign of this bird being about. Shy and secretive, it sings from dense scrub and woodland, day and night.

The common banded hoverfly has a fitting name: it is not only one of our most common species, its black body is also covered in yellow bands! It can be seen in many habitats from gardens to…

There are several species of spider that live in our wetlands, but the water spider is the only one that spends its life under the water. In its pond habitats, it looks silvery because of the air…