Blink and you may miss the fantastic kingfisher! This beautiful bird is easy to recognise thanks to its bright blue and metallic copper colours. It darts along the riverbank or sits patiently on a…

Look for common toadflax on waste ground and grassland, and along roadside verges and hedgerows. Its yellow-and-orange flowers are tightly packed on a tall spike and have distinctive 'spurs…

The tightly packed, thistle-like purple flower heads of common knapweed bloom on all kinds of grasslands. Also regularly called black knapweed, this plant attracts clouds of butterflies.

Forming mats of straight, bright green stems, Common spike-rush does, indeed, look like lots of tightly clustered 'spikes' near the water's edge of our wetland habitats.

When threatened, the green tortoise beetle acts just like a tortoise, pulling its feet and antennae in and hunkering down, gripping the leaf it is on as tightly as possible. Look for it on white…

Guillemots really know how to live life on the edge – quite literally! They nest tightly packed on steep ledges and cliffs around the coast. This may sound like a strange nesting spot, but it…