The bright green ring-necked parakeet is an escapee and our only naturalised parrot; its success is likely due to warmer winters.

The bright yellow daffodils that adorn our roadsides and parks are likely to be garden varieties. Head to a woodland or damp meadow in North or South West England, or Wales, to see a true wild…

The Holm oak is an introduced species that has been widely planted near the coast and in parkland. It is self-seeding in the south of the UK. Its young leaves are spiny like Holly leaves, and it…

The small, brown Dartford warbler is most easily spotted when warbling its scratchy song from the top of a gorse stem. It lives on lowland heathland in the south of England, where it nests on the…

Red squirrels are native to the UK but are a lot rarer than their grey cousins. They live in a few special places across the UK thanks to reintroduction projects.

The turtle dove is the UK's fastest declining bird species and is on the brink of extinction. A small and pretty pigeon, it breeds in lowland England and winters in Sub-Saharan Africa.

A key species in the story of conservation, the avocet represents an amazing recovery of a bird once extinct in the UK. This pied bird, with its distinctive upturned bill, can now be seen on…

Famous for its fearsome jaws, the stag beetle does not have the bite to match. Look for it in woods, parks and gardens in South East England in summer. Males display their massive jaws to attract…