A summer visitor, the wheatear is a handsome chat, with black cheeks, white eyestripes, a blue back and a pale orange chest. Look for it on upland heaths and moors.

Flowering rush is a pretty rush-like plant of shallow wetland habitats, such as ponds, canals and ditches. Its cup-shaped, pink flowers appear in summer, brightening up the water's edge.

The pink-footed goose is a winter visitor to the UK, feeding on our wetland and farmland habitats. About 360,000 individuals spend the winter here, making it a really important destination for…

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.

The raven is famous for being the imposing, all-black bird that guards the Tower of London. Wild birds live in forests, and upland and coastal areas in the north and west of the UK.

Great reedmace is familiar to many of us as the archetypal 'bulrush'. Look for its tall stems, sausage-like, brown flower heads and green, flat leaves at the water's edge in our…

As its name suggests, the smooth stems of soft rush are thinner and more flexible than those of hard rush. It forms tufts in wetland habitats like wet woodlands, marshes, ditches and grasslands.…