Have you ever seen those worm-like mounds on beaches? Those are a sign of lugworms! The worms themselves are very rarely seen except by fishermen who dig them up for bait.

Look out for the white, umbrella-like flower heads of lesser water-parsnip along the shallow margins of ditches, ponds, lakes and rivers. When crushed, it does, indeed, smell like parsnip!

This hefty diving bird is a winter visitor to the UK, where it can be seen around the coast or occasionally on large inland lakes.

The large, sunshine-yellow flowers of the yellow iris brighten up the margins of our waterways, ponds, wet woods, fens and marshes. Also called the 'flag iris', its outer petals have a…

The rare Slavonian grebe is an attractive diving bird with distinctive, golden ear tufts that give rise to its American name - 'horned grebe'.

This unusual fly ambushes bees, laying eggs inside of them.

With yellow-and-black bands, the giant horntail looks like a large wasp, but is harmless to us. The female uses her long, stinger-like ovipositor to lay eggs in pine trees, where the larvae then…