With its familiar features, the Field pansy is a delicate version of a garden favourite. Usually creamy-yellow in colour, it can be seen in fields and on roadside verges and waste ground.

This unusual fly ambushes bees, laying eggs inside of them.

The song thrush is a familiar garden visitor that has a beautiful and loud song. The broken shells of their blue, spotty eggs can often be found under a hedge in spring.

A well-travelled migrant, the painted lady arrives here every summer from Europe and Africa. This beautiful orange-and-black butterfly regularly visits gardens.

The pied flycatcher is a summer visitor, migrating here from West Africa to breed. Look for this small, black-and-white bird in woodland, parks and gardens, mostly in the west of the UK.

The Welsh poppy is a plant of damp and shady places, roadsides and hillsides. It is also a garden escapee. It flowers over summer, attracting nectar-loving insects.

The tiny wren, with its typically cocked tail, is a welcome and common visitor to gardens across town and countryside. It builds its domed nests in sheltered bushes and rock crevices.

The redwing is a winter visitor, enjoying the feast of seasonal berries the UK's hedgerows, gardens and parks have to offer. Look out for the distinctive orangey-red patches under its wings…

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.

This scarce breeding duck is a summer visitor, spending the winter in Africa. Although large flocks can be found in their wintering grounds, they are usually only seen in pairs or small groups in…