The petals of the rare Lizard orchid's flowers form the head, legs and long tail of a lizard. They are greenish, with light pink spots and stripes, and smell strongly of goats! Spot this tall…

A common thistle of roadside verges, rough grassland and waste ground, the Musk thistle has large, purple, nodding flower heads that appear in summer. It is attractive to a wide range of insects…

The wigeon is a colourful duck that can often be spotted wheeling round our winter skies in large flocks. A dabbling duck, it surface-feeds on plants and seeds in shallow waters.

Often seen carpeting the floor of ancient woodlands, Dog's mercury can quickly colonise, its fresh green leaves shading out rarer plants. It is also very poisonous.

The marsh hair moss is the largest moss in the UK. Look out for it in damp woodland and on boggy heathlands where it forms large, green and spikey 'cushions'.

As its name suggests, Meadowsweet is a sweet-smelling flower of damp meadows, ditches and riverbanks. Look for frothy clusters of cream flowers on tall stems.

Sea potatoes may have a funny name, but they are perfectly adapted for life in the sand. They are a type of sea urchin that live in a burrow in the sand, feeding on dead animals and plants using…

A tall plant, purple-loosestrife can form dense stands of bright purple flower spikes in wet habitats like reedbeds, fens and marshes.

This small, white heron is an increasingly common sight in parts of the UK as it spreads north from continental Europe.

Look out for the small, yellow flowers of Celery-leaved buttercup in wet meadows and at the edges of ponds and ditches. It flowers from May to September.

The appearance of semi-circular holes in the leaves of your garden plants is a sure sign that the patchwork leaf-cutter bee has been at work. It is one of a number of leaf-cutter bee species…