The jackdaw is a small, black-capped crow of woodlands, parks, towns and coast. It is a well-known thief, stealing other birds' eggs and breaking into garden feeders.

Creeping buttercup is our most familiar buttercup - the buttery-yellow flowers are like little drops of sunshine peppering garden lawns, parks, woods and fields.

One of the prettiest hardy ferns, the lady fern is delicate and lacy, with ladder-like foliage. It makes a good garden fern, providing attractive cover for wildlife.

The whooper swan is a very rare breeding bird in the UK, but has much larger populations that spend winter here after a long journey from Iceland. It has more yellow on its yellow-and-black bill…

Greater celandine is a very common plant that spreads easily in the garden, on waste ground and in hedgerows. It is considered a weed, but the small, yellow flowers provide nectar for insects.

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,…

Petty spurge is found on cultivated ground, such as gardens, fields and waste ground. It displays cup-shaped, green flowers in clusters and oval, green leaves.

Creeping jenny is a low-growing plant of wet grasslands, riverbanks, ponds and wet woods. It has cup-like, yellow flowers and is a popular choice for garden ponds.

With club-shaped leaflets on its fronds, wall-rue is easy to spot as it grows out of crevices in walls. Plant it in your garden rockery to provide cover for insects.

The comma has distinctively ragged wing edges, which help to camouflage it - at rest, it looks just like a dead leaf! It prefers woodland edges, but can be spotted feeding on fallen fruit in…