Soft brome is a tall, annual grass of roadside verges, waste ground and meadows, and is a 'weed' of arable land. It has long, grey-green leaves and loosely clustered flower spikes.

A familiar garden bird, the blue tit can be seen around bird tables and feeders, as well as in woodlands and parks. Listen out for its trilling, 'tsee-tsee-tsee' song. It is smaller than…

A ferocious and agile predator, the green tiger beetle hunts spiders, ants and caterpillars on heaths, grasslands and sand dunes. It is one of our fastest insects and a dazzling metallic green…

Rare summer visitors, honey buzzards breed in open woodland where they feed on the nests and larvae of bees and wasps.

The garden tiger is an attractive, brown-and-white moth of sand dunes, woodland edges, meadows and hedgerows; it will also visit gardens. In decline, it is suffering from the 'tidying up…

A plant of chalk and limestone grasslands and sand dunes, Yellow-wort has butter-yellow flowers. Its distinctive leaves sit opposite each other, but are fused together around the stem.

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…

Common cow-wheat is a delicate annual that brightens up the edges of acid woodland and heaths with deep golden flowers in the summer.

A familiar garden bird, the great tit can be seen around bird tables and feeders, as well as in woodlands and parks. Listen out for its shrill song that sounds just like a bicycle pump being used…

Aspen is a slender poplar tree that can be spotted on heathland and in woodlands, particularly in Scotland. It displays hanging catkins in spring and its fluttering leaves turn vibrant yellow in…