The bar-tailed godwit winters in the UK in the thousands; look for it around estuaries like the Thames and Humber. In spring, the males display arresting breeding plumage, with brick-red heads,…

Pellitory-of-the-wall is a small to medium-sized herb that frequently grows from cracks in old stone walls, pavements, cliffs and banks, and churches and ruins.

Bottlenose dolphins in British waters are the biggest of their kind – they need to be able to cope with our chilly waters! They are very sociable and will happily swim alongside boats, providing…

Golden banks of common rock-rose make a spectacular sight on our chalk and limestone grasslands in summer. A creeping shrub, it is good for bees, moths and butterflies.

It's easy to see where the blue shark got its name from. These sleek, elegant sharks have beautiful metallic blue backs which provide brilliant camouflage out in the open ocean.

The elephant hawk-moth is a pretty, gold-and-pink moth that can be seen at dusk in gardens, parks, woods and grassy habitats. The caterpillars look like elephant's trunks and have eyespots to…

The yew is a well-known tree of churchyards, but also grows wild on chalky soils. Yew trees can live for hundreds of years, turning into a maze of hollow wood and fallen trunks beneath dense…