Just when you think most of our woodland wildlife is hibernating, the most exquisite plants and fungi are bursting into life, and some are so minute that you could easily walk by without noticing them.

Take a stroll into Sydlings Copse nature reserve, near Barton, and you’ll find that the recent wet weather has transformed tree trunks, branches and the woodland floor into verdant patches of bright green mini-habitats. These are home to many microscopic insects that help to create the entire woodland ecosystem.

At the base of elder, ash and willow trees you’ll spot soft green mounds made up of several different species of moss. Higher up on the tree trunks are small cushion-forming mosses. Look out for the crisped pincushion with its spearhead-shaped leaves, and the elegant bristle-moss with pretty capsules standing proud from tiny green leaves. But look even closer at the trees and you may see other, stranger-looking, green plants pressed tightly against the bark. These are liverworts, which together with mosses are known collectively as bryophytes.

Many liverworts are even smaller than mosses, and one species in particular is so minuscule it looks like a green smudge. Its name is fairy beads, which gives you a clue that it may be small, but to see it properly you’ll need a magnifying glass or hand lens. The tiny, pointed oval leaves are minute; each one is about 0.2 mm long. The whole plant may only be about 6mm long in any direction.

Liverworts are everywhere and most of us never see them; it’s as though they are hidden, but in full view. With a magnifying glass in hand you’ll soon spot the difference between a green smear on a branch and a pretty little string of fairy beads. It’s not just mosses and liverworts that can surprise you at this time of year.

Fungi are still putting in an appearance until the first severe frosts. Some have intriguing names such as eyelash fungus, orange peel fungus and scarlet elfcup. The latter is easily spotted anytime from December to February as its bright red 2cm-wide cups are so striking when nestling amongst the green moss covering the wood it is growing on.

In Lashford Lane Fen nature reserve, near Abingdon, the bright red scarlet elfcup positively glows beside the footpath on the circular walk through the wood. Other surprising sights on a sunny winter’s day are peacock, small tortoiseshell or red admiral butterflies. They hibernate as adults and tuck themselves away amongst trees and ivy until a warm winter sun wakes them briefly. Perfect camouflage protects them from predators through the winter months, so you need to be really sharp eyed to spot them because they look like dead leaves hanging from a twig.

The extraordinary names given to fungi, mosses and liverworts are part of the charm of discovering them. But one of the more unusual wild flowers now thriving in Oxfordshire still has no name. The hybrid of the monkey and lady orchids on the Hartslock nature reserve, near Goring, was discovered six years ago, and it’s still the only place in Britain where you can see them.

On November 14, in a BBC Radio 4 programme In Pursuit of the Ridiculous you can find out more about these beautiful flowers when naturalists Matthew Oates, Andy Byfield and reserve warden Chris Raper discuss how and why this new orchid has appeared in the Chilterns.

Visit www.bbowt.org.uk to find a woodland reserve near you and take Peter Creed’s book A Guide to Finding Fungi of Berks, Bucks and Oxon when you go for a stroll