Our smallest breeding seabird, the storm petrel is barely larger than a house martin! They mostly nest among rocks or in burrows on small offshore islands.

The Marsh helleborine is a beautiful orchid of fens, wet grassland and dune slacks. Growing in profusion in places, look for reddish stems and white-and-pink flowers.

Looking a bit like a ragged version of a dandelion, mouse-ear hawkweed has lemon-yellow flower heads that are tinged with red at their outer edges. It likes grassy places with short turf and…

Sea-buckthorn is a spiny, thicket-forming shrub of sand dunes. It's native to the east coast of England but considered an invasive species elsewhere. It is most obvious in autumn when it is…

The water vole is under serious threat from habitat loss and predation by the American mink. Found along our waterways, it is similar-looking to the brown rat, but with a blunt nose, small ears…

The disc-shaped leaves and straw-coloured flower spikes of Navelwort help to identify this plant. As does its habitat - look for it growing from crevices in rocks, walls and stony areas.

The tiny, brown-and-white sand martin is a common summer visitor to the UK, nesting in colonies on rivers, lakes and flooded gravel pits. It returns to Africa in winter.

The fearsome-looking hornet may not be a well-loved insect, but it is actually much less aggressive than the common wasp. It is also an important pollinator and a predator of species that feed on…

Although introduced by humans, the fallow deer has been here so long that it is considered naturalised. Look out for groups of white-spotted deer in woodland glades.

Many of us have felt the painful bite of the twin-lobed deer-fly (a 'horse-fly') while out walking in damp grasses or woods. But mostly, it prefers to feed on the blood of cows and…

Despite having the familiar sage-green leaves, Wood sage has very little scent, so is not a good cooking herb. It can be found on acidic soils on sand dunes, heaths and cliffs, and along woodland…