As the UK’s tallest bird the common crane is instantly recognisable with the ruffle of tail feathers and very long legs. Their bugling call is also very distinctive.

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.

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.

The rare Slavonian grebe is an attractive diving bird with distinctive, golden ear tufts that give rise to its American name - 'horned grebe'.

The fine, downcurved bill of the treecreeper makes this tit-sized bird unmistakeable. Look out for it in woodlands and parks, literally 'creeping' around tree trunks.

The turtle dove is the UK's fastest declining bird species and is on the brink of extinction. A small and pretty pigeon, it breeds in lowland England and winters in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The black poplar is a large tree of floodplains, flooded gravel pits and ditches, particularly in England. Despite being an important part of our culture for centuries, it has declined massively…

The black-headed gull is actually a chocolate-brown headed gull! And for much of the year, it's head even turns white. Look out for it in large, noisy flocks on a variety of habitats.

Buddleia is a familiar shrub, well-known for its attractiveness to butterflies. It is actually an introduced species, however, that has become naturalised on waste ground, railway cuttings and in…

In spring and summer, look out for 'cuckoo-spit' - the frothy mass of bubbles that appears on plant stems everywhere. This is actually the protective covering for the nymphs of the tiny…

With a silvery body, and purple, pink and bluish streaks down its flanks, the rainbow trout lives up to its name. Popular with anglers, it is actually an introduced species in the UK.

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.