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.

The grayling is one of our largest brown butterflies and a master of disguise - its cryptic colouring helps to camouflage it against bare earth and stones in its coastal habitats and on inland…

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.

A medium-sized diving duck, the goldeneye can mainly be spotted in winter when birds fly in from Northern Europe. Conservation efforts have helped small numbers of these birds to nest in Scotland…

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.

This brown seaweed lives in the lower shore and gets its name from the serrated edges to its fronds.

The streamlined red-breasted merganser is a handsome bird and a great fisher - its long, serrated bill helps it to catch and hold its slippery fish prey. It is most commonly spotted around the…

The wolf spider can be found in a wide range of habitats, including the garden. It hunts down its prey, leaping on it just like a wolf. Spiders are beneficial neighbours, helping to manage garden…

The brimstone moth is a yellow, night-flying moth with distinctive brown-and-white spots on its angular forewings. It frequently visits gardens, but also likes woods, scrub and grasslands.

In May, our hedgerows burst into life as common hawthorn erupts with creamy-white blossom, colouring the landscape and giving this thorny shrub its other name of 'May-tree'.