A well-travelled migrant, the painted lady arrives here every summer from Europe and Africa. This beautiful orange-and-black butterfly regularly visits gardens.

The common octopus is a highly intelligent, active predator. It even has a secret weapon - special glands produce a venom that it uses to incapacitate its prey!

Seabass is a seafood favourite, appearing on menus throughout the UK. But it's in trouble in UK seas, with much of the seabass we eat imported from European fish farms.

Look for the wood warbler singing from the canopy of oak woodlands in the north and west of the UK. Green above, it has a distinctive, bright yellow throat and eyestripe.

The black hairstreak is a rare butterfly that is restricted to woodlands and hedgerows containing blackthorn - the foodplant of the caterpillar. It is both elusive and hard to tell apart from…

A small and delicate plant of chalk grasslands, Fairy flax can be seen in bloom from May to September - look out for its nodding, white flowers.

Considered to be one of the prettiest gentians, the Chiltern gentian is a rare plant in the UK. It likes chalk grasslands, its purple, trumpet-shaped flowers blooming from August.

The European larch was introduced into the UK from Central Europe in the 17th century. Unusually for a conifer, it is deciduous and displays small, greeny-red cones on brittle twigs.