The water stick insect looks just like a mantis. An underwater predator, it uses its front legs to catch its prey. Its tail acts as a kind of 'snorkel', so it can breathe in the water.…

Not to be confused with the ‘jewel anemone’ which resides in deeper waters, the gem anemone is just as wonderful a find on the rocky shore!

This seagrass species is a kind of flowering plant that lives beneath the sea, providing an important habitat for many rare and wonderful species.

Stone curlews are unusual waders with large yellow eyes - perfect for hunting beetles at night.

This large starfish looks just like the sun, with 10-12 arms spreading outwards like rays.

This colonial creature looks like an old-fashioned quill - that's where the name sea pen comes from.

The variable damselfly looks a lot like the azure damselfly, but is much less common throughout most of the UK.

The large white is a common garden visitor - look out for its brilliant white wings, tipped with black.

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

Listen out for the 'chattering' song of the reed warbler, while wandering the UK's lowland wetlands in summer. A small, brown bird, they are quite hard to see.

The turtle dove is the UK's fastest declining bird species and is on the brink of extinction. A small and pretty pigeon, it breeds in lowland England and winters in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Freshwater pearl mussels spend their adult lives anchored to the river bed, filtering water through their gills and improving the quality of the water for other species.