Narcissus bulb fly
With ginger hairs, dark banding and a cream tail, the Narcissus bulb fly looks like a bumble bee, but is harmless to us. This mimicry helps to protect it from predators while it searches for…
Water vole by Terry Whittaker/2020VISION
With ginger hairs, dark banding and a cream tail, the Narcissus bulb fly looks like a bumble bee, but is harmless to us. This mimicry helps to protect it from predators while it searches for…
The Yellow slug lives up to its name - its yellow body is mottled with grey patches. Often found in gardens and damp places in houses, it can be considered a pest, but is an important nutrient…
As its name suggests, the zebra spider has the familiar black-and-white stripes of a zebra, making it very distinctive. It can be found stalking its prey on rocks, trees and walls, particularly in…
Look for the small, white, star-shaped flowers of Common chickweed all year-round. Sometimes considered a 'weed', it is still a valuable food source for insects.
A tall and hairy plant, Great willowherb displays pretty pink-and-cream flowers. It can be found in damp places, such as wet grasslands, ditches and riversides.
In summer, the 'frothy' flowers of lady's bedstraw can carpet the grasses of meadows, heaths and coasts with yellow and fill the air with a sweet, honey-like scent.
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.
An uncommon hedgerow and woodland tree of central and eastern England, Purging buckthorn displays yellow-green flowers in spring, and poisonous, black berries in autumn.
Water figwort is a tall plant of riverbanks, pond margins, damp meadows and wet woodlands. Its maroon flowers are pollinated by the Common wasp.
As its name suggests, Wood spurge is found in woodlands. It is an attractive evergreen that displays cup-shaped, green flowers in clusters and dark green leaves.
A delicate, small plant of woodlands and hedgerows, wood-sorrel has distinctive, trefoil leaves and white flowers with purple veins; both fold up at night.
A regular in gardens, hunting around compost heaps and under stones, the brown centipede is a common minibeast. Despite its name, it has 15 pairs of legs - one on each segment of its body.