As the UK’s tallest bird the common crane is instantly recognisable with the ruffle of tail feathers and very long legs. Their bugling call is also very distinctive.

Listen out for the 'chattering' song of the reed warbler, while wandering the UK's lowland wetlands in summer. A small, brown bird, they are quite hard to see.

The song thrush is a familiar garden visitor that has a beautiful and loud song. The broken shells of their blue, spotty eggs can often be found under a hedge in spring.

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…

This secretive bird is a member of the rail family, related to coots and moorhens. The breeding call, a rasping rattle, is given mostly at night, sometimes for hours on end.

The melodious song of the nightingale is the most likely sign of this bird being about. Shy and secretive, it sings from dense scrub and woodland, day and night.

A common and stocky bird of our rocky coasts, the rock pipit can nearly always be seen close to the sea. It is a bit smaller than a starling.

One of the joys of a spring day is watching a fluttering, lemon-yellow brimstone alight on a flower - an early sign that the seasons are changing. It is commonly spotted in gardens, woodland and…

Although introduced by humans, the fallow deer has been here so long that it is considered naturalised. Look out for groups of white-spotted deer in woodland glades.

A plain-looking warbler, the garden warbler is a summer visitor to the UK. It is a shy bird and is most likely to be heard, rather than seen, in woodland and scrub habitats.

The turtle dove is the UK's fastest declining bird species and is on the brink of extinction. A small and pretty pigeon, it breeds in lowland England and winters in Sub-Saharan Africa.