The male purple emperor is a stunning butterfly with a brilliant purple sheen. Look for it feeding around the treetops in woodlands, or on damp ground, animal droppings or even carrion in the…

This beautiful beetle is fond of damp meadows and woodland rides, where it's often found on umbellifers or thistles.

This strange furry creature often found washed ashore after storms is actually a kind of worm!

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.

Looking like a short Dandelion, but with a much rounder middle, Colt's-foot is a 'weed' of waste ground and field edges that brightens up early spring with its sunshine-yellow…

Our only venomous snake, the shy adder can be spotted basking in the sunshine in woodland glades and on heathlands.

Water-soldier grows submerged in ponds and open water, and pops up over summer, looking like the top of a pineapple! This rare plant displays white flowers and shelters many aquatic insects.

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.

Rare summer visitors, honey buzzards breed in open woodland where they feed on the nests and larvae of bees and wasps.

Common cow-wheat is a delicate annual that brightens up the edges of acid woodland and heaths with deep golden flowers in the summer.

Looking a bit like a ragged version of a dandelion, mouse-ear hawkweed has lemon-yellow flower heads that are tinged with red at their outer edges. It likes grassy places with short turf and…