As its name suggests, creeping bent runs along the ground before it bends and grows upright. It is a common grass of arable land, waste ground and grasslands.

A low-growing plant of sand dunes, heaths and grassy places, Common centaury is in bloom over summer. Look for clusters of pretty, pink, five-petalled flowers.

Their empty, delicate pink or yellow shells can often be found washed up on beaches, but the animals themselves live buried in the sand all around the coasts of the UK.

The soft, downy look of Yorkshire-fog makes it an attractive plant, even if it is considered a weed of cultivated land! It is also attractive to the caterpillars of the Small Skipper butterfly as…

The upright, blue flower spikes of Viper's-bugloss can be spotted on chalk grassland, sand dunes, cliffs and banks. Its spotted stem is thought to resemble a viper.

The streamlined black-throated diver is a superb swimmer and diver, but not so graceful on land! During the summer, the distinctive black patch on its throat appears, heralding the breeding season…

The spiky, silvery leaves of Sea-holly give this plants its common name. Look for its beautiful, thistle-like, blue blooms on coastlines and sand dunes in summer.

This smelly, strange looking fungus is also referred to as octopus stinkhorn or octopus fungus. Its eye-catching red tentacles splay out like a starfish.

A plain-looking warbler, the garden warbler is a summer visitor to the UK. It is a shy bird and is most likely to be heard, rather than seen, in woodland and scrub habitats.