The Noble chafer is a rare and beautiful metallic-green beetle that can be found in traditional orchards. It is on the wing over summer, feeding on umbellifers. The larvae live in the decaying…

Considered a gardener’s best friend, hedgehogs will happily hoover up insects roaming in vegetable beds. Famously covered in spines, hedgehogs like to eat all sorts of bugs and crunchy beetles.…

Look out for the feathery leaves of Spiked water-milfoil just below the surface of streams, ditches, lakes and ponds; its red flowers emerge from the water in summer. It provides shelter for a…

The magpie is a distinctive moth with striking black and yellow spots on white wings. It is a frequent garden visitor, but also likes woodland, scrub and heathland.

The giant house spider is one of our fastest invertebrates, running up to half a metre per second. This large, brown spider spins sheet-like cobwebs and pops up in the dark corners of houses,…

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…

The common banded hoverfly has a fitting name: it is not only one of our most common species, its black body is also covered in yellow bands! It can be seen in many habitats from gardens to…

An attractive, olive-green bird, the greenfinch regularly visits birdtables and feeders in gardens. Look for a bright flash of yellow on its wings as it flies.