The palmate newt looks similar to the smooth newt, but favours shallow pools on acidic soils like heathlands. During the breeding season, males grow distinctive black webbing on their hind feet.…

Frogbit looks like a mini water-lily as it floats on the surface of ponds, lakes and still waterways. It offers shelter to tadpoles, fish and dragonfly larve.

With tiger-like stripes, red fins and a humped back, the perch is a striking fish. It can be seen in lowland waterbodies and waterways across the UK, often in shoals.

Arrowhead is an aquatic plant of shallow water and slow-moving waterways. In bloom over summer, it displays small, white flowers, but it is the arrow-shaped leaves that are most distinctive.

The great diving beetle is a large and voracious predator of ponds and slow-moving waterways. Blackish-green in colour, it can be spotted coming to the surface to replenish the air supply it…

The water vole is under serious threat from habitat loss and predation by the American mink. Found along our waterways, it is similar-looking to the brown rat, but with a blunt nose, small ears…

The large, sunshine-yellow flowers of the yellow iris brighten up the margins of our waterways, ponds, wet woods, fens and marshes. Also called the 'flag iris', its outer petals have a…