Often growing in swathes along a roadside or field margin, the oxeye daisy is just as at home in traditional hay meadows. The large, white, daisy-like flowers are easy to identify.

Have you ever seen those worm-like mounds on beaches? Those are a sign of lugworms! The worms themselves are very rarely seen except by fishermen who dig them up for bait.

Sometimes known as the snipe of the woods, the exquisitely camouflaged woodcock is mainly nocturnal, hiding in the dense undergrowth of woodlands and heathlands during the day.

Once considered a weed of cornfields, the common poppy is now in decline due to intensive agricultural practices. It can be found in seeded areas, on roadside verges and waste ground, and in field…

Look out for the white, umbrella-like flower heads of lesser water-parsnip along the shallow margins of ditches, ponds, lakes and rivers. When crushed, it does, indeed, smell like parsnip!

Musk mallow has pretty pink flowers that can be seen along roadside verges, hedgerows and field margins in summer. It lives up to its name, producing a delicate, musky smell that increases indoors…

The green sandpiper is a very rare breeding bird in the UK, and is mainly seen on migration in autumn. Look out for it feeding around marshes, flooded gravel pits and rivers. It even likes sewage…

The large, sunshine-yellow flowers of the yellow iris brighten up the margins of our waterways, ponds, wet woods, fens and marshes. Also called the 'flag iris', its outer petals have a…