Creeping buttercup is our most familiar buttercup - the buttery-yellow flowers are like little drops of sunshine peppering garden lawns, parks, woods and fields.

Chinese water deer are easily distinguished from other deer by their strange teddy bear like appearance and the huge canine tusks displayed by the stags.

The melodious song of the nightingale is the most likely sign of this bird being about. Shy and secretive, it sings from dense scrub and woodland, day and night.

A well-travelled migrant, the painted lady arrives here every summer from Europe and Africa. This beautiful orange-and-black butterfly regularly visits gardens.

The common octopus is a highly intelligent, active predator. It even has a secret weapon - special glands produce a venom that it uses to incapacitate its prey!

Found around our coasts during the breeding season, the little tern is a diminutive seabird. Despite its size, it performs remarkable aerial courtship displays.

One of our most common butterflies, the meadow brown can be spotted on grasslands, and in gardens and parks, often in large numbers. There are four subspecies of meadow brown.

Our smallest breeding seabird, the storm petrel is barely larger than a house martin! They mostly nest among rocks or in burrows on small offshore islands.

Seabass is a seafood favourite, appearing on menus throughout the UK. But it's in trouble in UK seas, with much of the seabass we eat imported from European fish farms.

The yellow, star-like flowers of bog asphodel brighten up our peat bogs, damp heaths and moors in early summer, attracting a range of pollinating insects.

Look for the wood warbler singing from the canopy of oak woodlands in the north and west of the UK. Green above, it has a distinctive, bright yellow throat and eyestripe.