This dashing diving duck is a winter visitor to the UK's seas, coastal lakes and occasionally inland water bodies.

The land caddis is the only caddisfly in the UK to spend its entire time on land, with no stage in water. Look in oak leaf litter over winter to see the grainy cases of the larvae, in which they…

The violet click beetle is a very rare beetle that lives in decaying wood, particularly common beech and ash. It gets its name from its habit of springing upwards with an audible click if it falls…

You are likely to spot the smooth newt in your garden or local pond. It breeds in water in summer and spends the rest of the year in grassland and woodland, hibernating over winter.

The teal is a pretty, little dabbling duck, which can be easily spotted in winter on reservoirs, gravel pits, and flooded meadows. Watching flocks of this bird wheel through a winter sky is a true…

Did you know that there are coral reefs in the UK? UK seas are home to some amazing cold-water corals that form reefs on the seabed over 400m deep.

A member of the buttercup family, Common water-crowfoot displays white, buttercup-like flowers with yellow centres. It can form mats in ponds, ditches and streams during spring and summer.

Look out for the white, umbrella-like flower heads of lesser water-parsnip along the shallow margins of ditches, ponds, lakes and rivers. When crushed, it does, indeed, smell like parsnip!