This small, round sea urchin is (unsurprisingly!) green in colour and can be found on rocky shores around the UK.

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.

An introduced plant, vervain is widely naturalised in the UK. It is a great source of nectar for all kinds of insects and can be seen on rough grassland, waste ground, coastal cliffs and roadside…

A key species in the story of conservation, the avocet represents an amazing recovery of a bird once extinct in the UK. This pied bird, with its distinctive upturned bill, can now be seen on…

The dense, spiky tufts of Marram grass are a familiar sight on our windswept coasts. In fact, its matted roots help to stabilise sand dunes, allowing them to grow up and become colonised by other…

The common banded hoverfly has a fitting name: it is not only one of our most common species, its black body is also covered in yellow bands! It can be seen in many habitats from gardens to…

There are several species of spider that live in our wetlands, but the water spider is the only one that spends its life under the water. In its pond habitats, it looks silvery because of the air…

A common thistle of roadside verges, rough grassland and waste ground, the Musk thistle has large, purple, nodding flower heads that appear in summer. It is attractive to a wide range of insects…

As its name suggests, Red bartsia does have a red tinge to its stem, leaves and small flowers. Look for it on roadside verges, railway cuttings and waste ground in summer.

Looking like a short dandelion, but with a much rounder middle, colt's-foot is a 'weed' of waste ground and field edges that brightens up early spring with its sunshine-yellow…