With its fluffy-looking, light blue flower heads, sheep's-bit is a pretty plant of dry grassland, heaths and clifftops. Sometimes carpeting an area, it is popular with nectar-loving insects…

One of the longest seaweeds native to the UK, thongweed helps create a beautiful underwater forest to rival that of any on the land!

A tall orchid of woodland and scrub, the broad-leaved helleborine has greenish, purple-tinged flowers that look a little 'drooping'. Strongly veined, oval leaves spiral around its stem…

The bulbous buttercup has the familiar butter-yellow flowers of its namesake, but grows from a bulb-like 'corm' (a swollen underground stem). Look for it on chalk and limestone…

The tawny grisette has an orange-brown cap and a tall, slender stem that arises from a conspicuous cup-like sack. It can be found in woodlands, particularly those with Birch, but also on heaths.…

The whooper swan is a very rare breeding bird in the UK, but has much larger populations that spend winter here after a long journey from Iceland. It has more yellow on its yellow-and-black bill…

This well-camouflaged wader is a winter visitor to the UK, where it can be seen feeding on wetlands with a distinctive bobbing motion.

The shoulders of the Forest bug are distinctive - they are square-cut, almost rounded, unlike the other 'spiked' shield bugs. This bug can be found in woodlands, feeding on the sap of…

With a torpedo-shaped body and long, narrow wings, the privet hawk-moth is a striking garden visitor. But the caterpillars really stand out: lime-green, with purple streaks and a black hook at the…

Looking like a short dandelion, but with a much rounder middle, colt's-foot is a 'weed' of waste ground and field edges that brightens up early spring with its sunshine-yellow…