Look for the unusual flowers of lords-and-ladies in spring woodlands: a pale green sheath surrounds a spike of tiny, yellow flowers. This spike eventually forms a familiar, short stalk of striking…

Despite its name, spurge laurel is not a laurel - it just looks like one! It has glossy, dark green leaves and black, poisonous berries, and can be found in woodlands in southern England, in…

The pyramidal orchid lives up to its name - look for a bright pinky-purple, densely packed pyramid of flowers atop a green stem. It likes chalk grassland, sand dunes, roadside verges and quarries…

The starling is a familiar garden visitor that has a beautiful purple-and-green sheen to its black feathers. It is famous for its wintry aerial displays - massive flocks can be seen wheeling over…

The hart's-tongue fern is a hardy fern of damp, shady places in woodlands. It also makes a good garden fern. It has simple, tongue-shaped, glossy, green leaves that have orange spores on…

A small fish found on rocky shores in the south and west of Britain.

A fleshy herb of the wet margins of brooks, streams and ditches, Brooklime can be seen all year-round and provides shelter for tadpoles and sticklebacks.

A large colourful sea slug found on rocky shores around the UK.

One of our largest ducks, the shelduck is a handsome creature with a dark green head, red bill and chestnut-brown band across its white body. Look out for it around most of our coastline,…