Swifts spend most of their lives flying – even sleeping, eating and drinking – only ever landing to nest. They like to nest in older buildings in small holes in roof spaces.

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.

The yellow, star-like flowers of bog asphodel brighten up our peat bogs, damp heaths and moors in early summer, attracting a range of pollinating insects.

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.

The early gentian is a rare plant that is only found in the UK. It likes sunny, lowland chalk grasslands, its purple, trumpet-shaped flowers blooming in May and June.

The delightful fragrance of wild thyme can punctuate a summer walk over a chalk grassland. It forms low-growing mats with dense clusters of purple-pink flowers.

A scrambling plant, Bush vetch has lilac-blue flowers. It is a member of the pea family and can be seen along woodland edges and roadside verges, and on scrubland and grassland.

The striking black-and-white checks of the marbled white are unmistakeable. Watch out for it alighting on purple flowers, such as field scabious, on chalk and limestone grasslands and along…

White dead-nettle does not sting. It displays dense clusters of white flowers in whorls around its stem, and can be found on disturbed ground, such as roadside verges.

A spring delight, the wood anemone grows in dappled shade in ancient woodlands. Traditional management, such as coppicing, can help such flowers by opening up the woodland floor to sunlight.

Cross-leaved heath is a type of heather that likes bogs, heathland and moorland. It has distinctive pink, bell-shaped flowers that attract all kinds of nectar-loving insects.

Traditionally a coastal species, Lesser sea-spurrey has spread inland, taking advantage of the winter-salting of our roads. Its pink-and-white flowers bloom in summer.