The hairy-footed flower bee can be seen in gardens and parks in spring and summer, visiting tubular flowers like red dead-nettle and comfrey. As its name suggests, it has long, orange hairs on its…

Arrowhead is an aquatic plant of shallow water and slow-moving waterways. In bloom over summer, it displays small, white flowers, but it is the arrow-shaped leaves that are most distinctive.

Bell heather is our most familiar heather. In summer, it carpets our heaths, woods and coasts with purple-pink flowers that attract all kinds of nectar-loving insects.

A fierce pirate of the sea, the Arctic skua is renowned for stealing fish from other seabirds and dive-bombing anyone that comes near its nests. It breeds in the far north of Scotland and on the…

This striking black-and-white moth flies during the day in open woodlands, moorlands, and bogs. It's most common on Scottish moors.

As its name suggests, Red bartsia does have a red tinge to its stem, leaves and small flowers. Look for it on roadside verges, railway cuttings and waste ground in summer.

A low-growing plant of sand dunes, heaths and grassy places, Common centaury is in bloom over summer. Look for clusters of pretty, pink, five-petalled flowers.

Sometimes known as the snipe of the woods, the exquisitely camouflaged woodcock is mainly nocturnal, hiding in the dense undergrowth of woodlands and heathlands during the day.