Flitting about the house in summer, the gangly, brown daddy longlegs is familiar to many of us. They are a valuable food source for many birds.

A delicate wader, Red-necked phalaropes are as comfortable swimming as they are on land. Unusually for birds, the females are more brightly coloured than the males.

Known as the phantom of the forest, goshawks can fly through the trees at up to 40km per hour as they hunt birds and small mammals.

Wild privet is a shrub of hedgerows, woodlands and scrub, but is also a popular garden-hedge plant. It has white flowers in summer and matt-black berries in winter that are very poisonous.

The bluefin tuna is a highly migratory fish which roams the oceans. This species will cross oceans, travelling between the Mediterranean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. They are speedy swimmers,…

The common carp is a very large fish that is popular with anglers due to its size and fighting spirit. It frequents ponds, gravel pits and lakes, but is not native to the UK, being introduced in…

The UK's smallest hawker, the hairy dragonfly is mostly black in colour, but has a distinctively hairy thorax. It can be found in grazing marshes and flooded gravel pits, and along canals…

Violet ground beetles are active predators, coming out at night to hunt slugs and other invertebrates in gardens, woodlands and meadows.

If you happen to be near rocky places such as sea cliffs, shingle coastlines or even gravel paths during the summer months you will most likely come across sea campion.

Meadow buttercup is a tall and stately buttercup, with buttery-yellow flowers that pepper meadows, pastures, gardens and parks with little drops of sunshine.

The gudgeon is a bottom-dwelling fish, similar to the stone loach, but with only two whisker-like barbels near its mouth. These sensory organs help it to find its prey in the sand and gravel of…