Phosphorescent sea pen
This colonial creature looks like an old-fashioned quill - that's where the name sea pen comes from.
This colonial creature looks like an old-fashioned quill - that's where the name sea pen comes from.
Pellitory-of-the-wall is a small to medium-sized herb that frequently grows from cracks in old stone walls, pavements, cliffs and banks, and churches and ruins.
The striking black-and-white checks of the marbled white are unmistakeable. Watch out for it alighting on purple flowers, such as field scabious, on chalk and limestone grasslands and along…
This brown seaweed lives in the mid shore and looks a bit like bubble wrap with the distinctive air bladders that give it its name.
Unsurprisingly, the chalkhill blue can be found on sunny, chalk grassland sites in southern England. Clouds of this beautiful blue butterfly may be seen fluttering around low-growing flowers.
The tightly packed, thistle-like purple flower heads of common knapweed bloom on all kinds of grasslands. Also regularly called 'black knapweed, this plant attracts clouds of butterflies.
This sponge is found on rocky shores around the UK and looks like a thick bready crust (if you use your imagination a bit!).
The whinchat is a summer visitor to UK heathlands, moorlands and open meadows. It looks similar to the stonechat, but is lighter in colour and has a distinctive pale eyestripe.
Learn all about these amazing insects with beetle expert, Kieron Huston.
The silvery dace can be seen gathering in large shoals in lowland rivers and streams. It is a member of the carp family and looks very similar to the chub, but is smaller.
Frogbit looks like a mini water-lily as it floats on the surface of ponds, lakes and still waterways. It offers shelter to tadpoles, fish and dragonfly larve.
The sea hare looks like a sea slug – but in fact has an internal shell. They can be up to 20cm long but are usually much shorter.