If you were to pick up a rock in the garden, you’d hopefully find a few common woodlouse. These hardy minibeasts have in-built armour and like to hide in warm, moist places like compost heaps.

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.

The dense, spiky tufts of Marram grass are a familiar sight on our windswept coasts. In fact, its matted roots help to stabilise sand dunes, allowing them to grow up and become colonised by other…

"One for sorrow, two for joy…" is a popular rhyme associated with the magpie - a bird of much myth and legend. An unmistakeable member of the crow family, it can be seen almost anywhere…

Famously predatory, the long, slender pike will lurk among the vegetation of a river or lake, bursting out with ferocious speed to catch its prey. Look out for it across the UK.

The collared dove is a pretty little pigeon that is a regular sight in our gardens, woodlands and parks. Listen out for its familiar cooing call, which you may hear before you see the bird itself…

Ordinary moss is very common in gardens and woodlands. moss provides shelter for many minibeasts, so encourage it to grow in your garden by providing logs, stone piles and untidy areas.