The banded demoiselle can be seen flitting around slow-moving rivers, ponds and lakes. The males are metallic blue, with a distinctive dark band across their wings, and the females are a shiny…

The Greater butterfly-orchid is a tall orchid of hay meadows, grasslands and ancient woodlands. It has whitish-green flowers that have spreading petals and sepals - a bit like the wings of a…

The oak marble gall wasp produces brown, marble-shaped growths, or 'galls', on oak twigs. Inside the gall, the larvae of the wasp feed on the host tissues, but cause little damage.

Sometimes called 'Wild spinach', Sea beet can be cooked and eaten. It grows wild on shingle beaches, cliffs and bare ground near to the sea, as well as in saltmarshes.

Yellow corydalis is a familiar 'weed' of gardens, walls and rocky places. It is a garden escapee in the UK, so is not a native plant. Try choosing natives for your garden to prevent…

A late-flowering plant, Autumn gentian displays pretty, mauve, tube-like flowers atop its reddish stems. It favours dry, chalk grassland and sand dune habitats.

As its name suggests, giant hogweed it a large umbellifer with distinctively ridged, hollow stems. An introduced species, it is an invasive weed of riverbanks, where it prevents native species…

The cormorant is an excellent fisher. It is most easily spotted when it is perched, stretching its wings out in the sun to dry after a dive. The UK holds internationally important wintering…

It’s easy to see where these butterflies get their name – the males have bright orange tips on their wings! See them from early spring through to summer in meadows, woodland and hedges.

Ivy-leaved toadflax is an introduced species in the UK that has become widely naturalised. Look for creeping along old walls and pavements, and shingle beaches. Its flowers resemble those of…

Forming mats of straight, bright green stems, Common spike-rush does, indeed, look like lots of tightly clustered 'spikes' near the water's edge of our wetland habitats.