The whinchat is a summer visitor to UK heathlands, moorlands and open meadows. It looks similar to the stonechat, but is lighter in colour and has a distinctive pale eyestripe.

The delicate, tube-like, violet-blue flowers of Skullcap bloom from June to September in damp places, such as marshes, fens, riverbanks and pond margins.

One of our most common ladybirds, the black-on-red markings of the 7-spot ladybird are very familiar. Ladybirds are a gardeners best friend as they eat insects that love to nibble on garden plants…

The Marsh helleborine is a beautiful orchid of fens, wet grassland and dune slacks. Growing in profusion in places, look for reddish stems and white-and-pink flowers.

Wood melick is a slender, drooping grass that grows in dense patches in ancient woodlands and along shady banks. It has nodding flower heads, with brown, egg-shaped spikelets that contain the…

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…

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…

A good luck charm for travellers, Germander speedwell can be seen along roadsides, grassy lanes and hedgerows. Look for clumps of bright blue flowers.

The song of the Roesel's bush-cricket is very characteristic: long, monotonous and mechanical. It can be heard in rough grassland, scrub and damp meadows in the south of the UK, but it is…

The subject of much myth and legend, and a herbal remedy, perforate St John's-wort is a familiar flower. It has star-shaped, bright yellow flowers and lots of tiny holes in its leaves that…

These bulky beetles can sometimes be found on flowers in woodland rides or along hedgerows.