From spring, look out for the beautiful, speckled gold-and-black breeding plumage of the golden plover. It can be found in its upland moorland breeding grounds from May to September, moving to…

The dark bush-cricket, as its name suggests, is dark brown or reddish. It can be found in woodlands, hedgerows and gardens throughout summer. Its irregular chirpings are a familiar sound of summer…

One of the longest seaweeds native to the UK, thongweed helps create a beautiful underwater forest to rival that of any on the land!

The aromatic fragrance of Large thyme can punctuate a summer walk over a chalk grassland. It is an evergreen that grows low to the ground, with erect spikes of tiny, lilac flowers appearing over…

The whooper swan is a very rare breeding bird in the UK, but has much larger populations that spend winter here after a long journey from Iceland. It has more yellow on its yellow-and-black bill…

With a torpedo-shaped body and long, narrow wings, the privet hawk-moth is a striking garden visitor. But the caterpillars really stand out: lime-green, with purple streaks and a black hook at the…

The large, fluffy caterpillars of this moth are often seen in summer and early spring.

As its name suggests, the house martin can be spotted nesting in the eaves of houses in our towns and villages. Its intricate mud nests take days to build and are often returned to and used in…

Their long narrow shells are a common sight on our shores, especially after storms, but the animals themselves live buried in the sand.