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.

The tiny, brown-and-white sand martin is a common summer visitor to the UK, nesting in colonies on rivers, lakes and flooded gravel pits. It returns to Africa in winter.

These little critters are related to the woodlice you find in your garden and play a very important role on rocky shores.

This comical little duck lives up to its name – look out for the black tuft of feathers on its head!

These colourful little fish are a delight for snorkellers or shallow water divers to photograph, rarely being scared off by their presence!

Although introduced by humans, the fallow deer has been here so long that it is considered naturalised. Look out for groups of white-spotted deer in woodland glades.

Barnacles are so common on our rocky shores that you've probably never really noticed them. They're the little grey bumps covering the rocks that hurt your feet when you're…

Found on rocky shores and seabeds, the Keyhole limpet gets its name from the little hole at the tip of its shell.

The brimstone moth is a yellow, night-flying moth with distinctive brown-and-white spots on its angular forewings. It frequently visits gardens, but also likes woods, scrub and grasslands.

In May, our hedgerows burst into life as common hawthorn erupts with creamy-white blossom, colouring the landscape and giving this thorny shrub its other name of 'May-tree'.

In May, our hedgerows and woodland edges burst into life as midland hawthorn erupts with masses of pinky-white blossom. During the autumn, red fruits known as 'haws' appear.

The pied flycatcher is a summer visitor, migrating here from West Africa to breed. Look for this small, black-and-white bird in woodland, parks and gardens, mostly in the west of the UK.