In April and May, our ancient woodlands are awash with the white, starry flowers and smell of wild garlic. Millions of bulbs can exist in just one wood, giving rise to dazzling 'white carpets…

The Yew is a well-known tree of churchyards, but also grows wild on chalky soils. Yew trees can live for hundreds of years, turning into a maze of hollow wood and fallen trunks beneath dense…

The English oak is, perhaps, our most iconic tree: the one that almost every child and adult alike could draw the lobed leaf of, or describe the acorn fruits of. A widespread tree, it is prized…

The fluffy, white seed heads of Traveller's-joy give it the evocative, alternative names of 'Old Man's Beard' and 'Father Christmas'. A clematis-like climber, it can…

The diminutive common eyelash fungus can be found on wet wood and humous-rich damp soil, often by streams or in wet places. Its orange cup is fringed with tiny, black hairs, providing its common…

The violet click beetle is a very rare beetle that lives in decaying wood, particularly common beech and ash. It gets its name from its habit of springing upwards with an audible click if it falls…

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.

This large burrowing bivalve is found on sandy seabeds around much of the UK. It is the longest-lived animal known to man, with one individual found to be 507 years old!

As the only crow with a red bill and red legs, the all-black chough is easy to identify. But it's harder to spot: there are only small, coastal populations in Scotland, Ireland, Wales,…