The river lamprey is a primitive, jawless fish, with a round, sucker-mouth which it uses to attach to other fish to feed from them. Adults live in the sea and return to freshwater to spawn.

Swifts spend most of their lives flying – even sleeping, eating and drinking – only ever landing to nest. They like to nest in older buildings in small holes in roof spaces.

The willow tit lives in wet woodland and willow carr in England, Wales and southern Scotland. It is very similar to the marsh tit, but has a distinctive pale panel on its wings.

A familiar shrub of hedgerows and woodland edges, blackthorn comes alive in spring when it bursts into a froth of white blossom. It is well known for its sloes, too - the blue-black fruits used in…

Well-known for its role in making beer, Hop is a climbing plant that can be seen in woodlands and along hedgerows and field edges. Its female flowers bear the cone-like fruit that is used in beer…

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…

Pushing its way up through the cracks in pavements, the straw-coloured flower spikes of greater plantain or 'broadleaf plantain' are a familiar sight. This 'weed' also pops up…

A very rare ant, once found on heathland across southern England but now restricted to Scotland and Devon. It constructs distinctive thatched nests in open areas at the edges of scrub, and forages…

The small, shaggy-furred whiskered bat roosts in all sorts of houses, old or modern. It is similar to the Brandt's bat and they often roost together, but in separate colonies. It feeds along…