Their empty, delicate pink or yellow shells can often be found washed up on beaches, but the animals themselves live buried in the sand all around the coasts of the UK.

The delightful fragrance of wild thyme can punctuate a summer walk over a chalk grassland. It forms low-growing mats with dense clusters of purple-pink flowers.

The Atlantic salmon spends most of its life at sea, but makes an epic journey back to the river or stream in which it hatched to spawn. Look out for it in freshwater rivers in the north and west…

Kissing under the mistletoe is a much-loved Christmas tradition, making this plant familiar to us all. It actually grows as a parasite on trees - look for it hanging off branches in large balls…

Spiny lobster, crawfish, crayfish, rock lobsters - many names, one animal! This pretty lobster was made extinct in many areas through overfishing, but is now making a slow comeback.

A common tree, ash is familiar to many of us for its autumnal bunches of winged seeds, called 'keys'. It can be found in woodlands and prefers damp and fertile soils.

Often confused with the larger but similarly shaped lion’s mane jellyfish, the blue jellyfish can be colourless when young and develop a striking blue-purple bell as it matures.

A scrambling plant, Bush vetch has lilac-blue flowers. It is a member of the pea family and can be seen along woodland edges and roadside verges, and on scrubland and grassland.

In early spring, listen out for the 'chiff chaff chiff chaff' song of the appropriately named chiffchaff. It can be heard in woodland, scrub, parks and gardens across the UK.

Famed for its tapping in the middle of the night, supposedly heralding tragedy, the deathwatch beetle is a serious wood-boring pest. In houses, their tunnelling can cause major damage.