The distinctive spiky, or 'bearded', green flower heads of wall barley appear from June to July and are easy to spot in an urban environment as they push their way up through pavements…

The grey long-eared bat certainly lives up to its name - its ears are nearly as long as its body! It mainly forages over grassland and meadows, but is very rare in the UK.

Flowering rush is a pretty rush-like plant of shallow wetland habitats, such as ponds, canals and ditches. Its cup-shaped, pink flowers appear in summer, brightening up the water's edge.

Unsurprisingly, the chalkhill blue can be found on sunny, chalk grassland sites in southern England. Clouds of this beautiful blue butterfly may be seen fluttering around low-growing flowers.

The meadow pipit favours moorland and grassland. It is an unfortunate victim of cuckolding behaviour - their own young being pushed out of the nest, so they can look after the 'parasitic…

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…

The notch-horned cleg-fly isa horse fly dark grey in colour, with grey-brown mottled wings and intricately striped, iridescent eyes. There are 30 species of horse-fly in the UK; this is one of the…

Mainly found in southern and eastern England, the common hornbeam is a tall tree of ancient woodlands. Its large catkins appear in spring, and its winged seeds are dispersed by the wind in autumn…

The grizzled skipper has a striking brown-and-white checked wing pattern. It is a fast flier, so is best observed in the morning as it basks in the sun to warm up. It favours chalk grassland and…

Chamomile releases a beautiful, apple-like scent when crushed. For this reason, it was used in Elizabethan times as a plant for lawns and seats! Today, it is scarce in the wild, its grassland…

The male whitethroat does, indeed, have a white throat! Arriving from Sub-Saharan Africa in April, it can be spotted on grassland and scrub, and along hedgerows. It is bigger than the lesser…

The common spotted-orchid is the easiest of all our orchids to see: sometimes, so many flowers appear together that they create a pale pink carpet in our woodlands, old quarries, dunes and marshes…