The rose-red breast, large black cap and thick bill make the bullfinch easy to identify. A plump-looking bird of woodlands, hedgerows and orchards, it also frequents gardens.

Hedge mustard is a tall plant with small, yellow flowers atop tough stems. It likes disturbed ground and grows in hedgerows and roadside verges, and on waste ground.

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

The large white is a common garden visitor - look out for its brilliant white wings, tipped with black.

Common laburnum is an introduced species, planted in parks and gardens. It is most recognisable in flower - its hanging bunches of yellow blooms giving it the name 'golden rain'. It is…

The scorpionfly, as its name suggests, has a curved 'tail' that looks like a sting. It is, in fact, the males' claspers for mating. It is yellow and black, with a long 'beak…

The tiny wren, with its typically cocked tail, is a welcome and common visitor to gardens across town and countryside. It builds its domed nests in sheltered bushes and rock crevices.

With brown-and-orange markings, the drone-fly looks like a male honeybee, but is harmless to us. This mimicry helps to protect it from predators while it searches for nectar in gardens and urban…

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…

The brown long-eared bat certainly lives up to its name: its ears are nearly as long as its body! Look out for it feeding along hedgerows, and in gardens and woodland.