The wigeon is a colourful duck that can often be spotted wheeling round our winter skies in large flocks. A dabbling duck, it surface-feeds on plants and seeds in shallow waters.

A handsome gamebird, the pheasant is an introduced species that has settled here with little problem. It can be spotted in its farmland and woodland habitats, although you'll probably hear…

As its name suggests, giant hogweed it a large umbellifer with distinctively ridged, hollow stems. An introduced species, it is an invasive weed of riverbanks, where it prevents native species…

The eel is famous for both its slippery nature and its mammoth migration from its freshwater home to the Sargasso Sea where it breeds. It has suffered dramatic declines and is a protected species…

With yellow-and-black bands, the giant horntail looks like a large wasp, but is harmless to us. The female uses her long, stinger-like ovipositor to lay eggs in pine trees, where the larvae then…

The small, brown Dartford warbler is most easily spotted when warbling its scratchy song from the top of a gorse stem. It lives on lowland heathland in the south of England, where it nests on the…

Introduced from Japan in the 19th century, Japanese knotweed is now an invasive non-native plant of many riverbanks, waste grounds and roadside verges, where it prevents native species from…

Look out for the Daubenton's bat foraging over wetlands across the UK at twilight. Its flight is fast and agile as it skims the water's surface for insect-prey.