The starling is a familiar garden visitor that has a beautiful purple-and-green sheen to its black feathers. It is famous for its wintry aerial displays - massive flocks can be seen wheeling over…

One of the most colourful fish in UK seas, the cuckoo wrasse looks like it belongs in the tropics. Don't be fooled though, it's very much a native species.

The White-clawed crayfish is a freshwater, bronze-coloured crustacean with pale undersides to its claws - hence the name. It is under threat from an invasive and introduced species of crayfish.…

Buddleia is a familiar shrub, well-known for its attractiveness to butterflies. It is actually an introduced species, however, that has become naturalised on waste ground, railway cuttings and in…

Sand sedge is an important feature of our coastal sand dunes, helping to stabilise the dunes, which allows them to grow up and become colonised by other species.

Traditionally a coastal species, Lesser sea-spurrey has spread inland, taking advantage of the winter-salting of our roads. Its pink-and-white flowers bloom in summer.

A much-loved garden bird, the blackbird is famous for its harmonious song. In winter, our resident birds are joined by migrants from Scandinavia and the Baltics.

The Welsh poppy is a plant of damp and shady places, roadsides and hillsides. It is also a garden escapee. It flowers over summer, attracting nectar-loving insects.

The ringlet gets its name from the small rings on the undersides of its wings. These rings show variation in the different forms of this species, even elongating into a teardrop shape.

With a silvery body, and purple, pink and bluish streaks down its flanks, the rainbow trout lives up to its name. Popular with anglers, it is actually an introduced species in the UK.

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.

The Common sexton beetle is one of several burying beetle species in the UK. An undertaker of the animal world, it buries dead animals like mice and birds, and feeds and breeds on the corpses.