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.

Traditionally a coastal species, Lesser sea-spurrey has spread inland, taking advantage of the winter-salting of our roads. Its pink-and-white flowers bloom in summer.

The laughing 'yaffle' call of the green woodpecker can be heard in our woodlands, parks and gardens. Look out for it hopping about your lawn, searching for ants to eat.

Despite its name, the large blue is a fairly small butterfly, but the largest of our blues. It was declared extinct in 1979, but reintroduced in the 1980s and now survives in southern England.

The song of the skylark has been the subject of many great musical and literary works. A quintessential feature of our farmland and grasslands habitats, it is declining rapidly with habitat loss…

The black hairstreak is a rare butterfly that is restricted to woodlands and hedgerows containing blackthorn - the foodplant of the caterpillar. It is both elusive and hard to tell apart from…

A small and delicate plant of chalk grasslands, Fairy flax can be seen in bloom from May to September - look out for its nodding, white flowers.

In May, our hedgerows burst into life as common hawthorn erupts with creamy-white blossom, colouring the landscape and giving this thorny shrub its other name of 'May-tree'.

Considered to be one of the prettiest gentians, the Chiltern gentian is a rare plant in the UK. It likes chalk grasslands, its purple, trumpet-shaped flowers blooming from August.

The European larch was introduced into the UK from Central Europe in the 17th century. Unusually for a conifer, it is deciduous and displays small, greeny-red cones on brittle twigs.