The striking red crown, golden back, and bright yellow wings of the goldfinch make it one of our prettiest garden birds. It happily visits birdtables and feeders across the UK.

Named for its three bull-like horns, the minotaur beetle is a large dung beetle found on grassland and heathland. Adults drag dung back to their nests for their larvae to feed on.

The rare smooth snake can only be found at a few heathland sites in the UK. It looks a bit like an adder, but lacks the distinctive zig-zag pattern along its back.

The Atlantic salmon spends most of its life at sea, but makes an epic journey back to the river or stream in which it hatched to spawn. Look out for it in freshwater rivers in the north and west…

The most commonly encountered ray around the British Isles, it's easy to see where the thornback ray got its name from - just check out the spines on its back!

The little grebe is a fantastic diver, but to help it swim underwater, its feet are placed towards the back of its body, making it rather clumsy on land. It only really comes ashore to breed.

The bright green ring-necked parakeet is an escapee and our only naturalised parrot; its success is likely due to warmer winters.

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.