Violet ground beetles are active predators, coming out at night to hunt slugs and other invertebrates in gardens, woodlands and meadows.

The tiny, grey-brown house mouse is one of our most successful mammals. It thrives around buildings but is less likely to be found in our houses these days due to better construction.

Soft brome is a tall, annual grass of roadside verges, waste ground and meadows, and is a 'weed' of arable land. It has long, grey-green leaves and loosely clustered flower spikes.

Although they might not look it, sea cucumbers like this one belong to the Echinoderm group and are therefore closely related to starfish and sea urchins

This secretive bird is a member of the rail family, related to coots and moorhens. The breeding call, a rasping rattle, is given mostly at night, sometimes for hours on end.

The Glanville fritillary can be spotted on warm days around coastal habitats on the Isle of Wight and the Channel Islands, as well as at a few locations in mainland England.

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.

A delicate, small plant of woodlands and hedgerows, wood-sorrel has distinctive, trefoil leaves and white flowers with purple veins; both fold up at night.

An unmistakeable insect of heaths, sand dunes and grasslands, the Emperor moth is fluffy, grey-brown, with big peacock-like eyespots on all four wings. Males can be seen during the day, but…