Work to improve drainage on a motorway has been paused and will take several more months to finish, after dormice were found on site.

National Highways began work on the M5 in Somerset in October last year, to alleviate flooding on the verges and carriageway near junction 26 for Wellington.

It involves the de-silting of ditches, replacing blocked drainage pipes and resurfacing and was due to finish by the end of February, but is now expected to go on until the end of April.

A record number of cranes bred in the UK last year as the once-vanished bird continues its comeback, conservationists said.

Cranes went extinct in the country around 400 years ago as a result of over-hunting and the loss of their favoured wetland habitat.

But wild recolonisation from Europe since the late 1970s, backed by efforts to protect existing habitat and create new wetlands – along with a concerted reintroduction scheme which saw conservationists dress as cranes to hand-rear young birds, have enabled the bird to stage a comeback.

I remember, as a child, hanging on to one specific party balloon for what seemed like years. I don’t remember how or where I acquired it, but it had initially floated high, bobbing against the ceiling, and, over time, lost its buoyancy, coming to rest on the carpet. Yet, when a family friend asked if they should pop the now sad-looking balloon, I assumed they were joking – like when an adult asks, teasingly, if they should eat your last slice of birthday cake – and was distraught when they followed through. I didn’t care that it had become grubby and partly deflated – I’d had that balloon for what felt like for ever.

This, it turns out, is the problem with many balloons. Not that clingy young children might become over-attached to them, but that they are often a single-use plastic – and even biodegradable alternatives such as latex balloons do not decompose quickly, meaning they can pose a significant risk to wildlife and the environment. In 2019, scientists found that balloons eaten by seabirds are more likely to kill them than other kinds of plastic – yet they do not seem to have been earmarked in the same way as, for example, plastic straws. If anything, balloon-based decor has become more popular in recent years, with balloon arches or tunnels deployed not just at birthdays but at events ranging from baby showers to shop openings. Balloon drops are used at New Year’s Eve celebrations and graduation parties, and balloon releases have also endured – particularly at funerals, where the unleashing of helium-filled balloons signifies the letting-go of a loved one.

Discover some of the special species living in a garden pond, with entomologist Ben Keywood.

One of the most impactful ways to support wildlife in your garden is to create a pond. Ponds provide a valuable source of drinking water for birds, hedgehogs and other wildlife, as well as a home for a large range of aquatic invertebrates.

A good wildlife pond needs to have a deeper middle and shallow sides; you can even create a pebble beach along one edge for insects to safely wade and drink. It's also important to make sure that there are safe places around the edges of the pond for wildlife to hide. You can add logs or large stones, or let native grasses and marginal plants grow. Frogs and newts can shelter here when they leave the pond but have quick access back into the water when needed.

New research from the Ramblers shows overwhelming public support for access to nature yet millions of Brits are being locked out of nature by a “shameful web of barriers”.

The Ramblers is accusing governments of failing to support and grow Britain’s love of walking outdoors, with a new poll finding that 84% of adults think access to nature should be a basic right.

The charity says decades of political inaction has led to far too many blocked and unusable paths, missing signs and a shocking lack of access to green space – sometimes leaving entire communities without the chance to enjoy healthy walks from their doorstep.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/36014803

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England’s Community Forests has reached a major milestone: planting 10 million trees across England through its Trees for Climate programme.

The landmark figure highlights the scale and pace of tree planting delivered by the network of 15 Community Forests, improving places where people live, supporting local economies, and tackling the impacts of the climate emergency head on.

Funded by UK Government via the Nature for Climate Fund, and delivering in the areas of greatest need, Trees for Climate has increased woodland and tree cover in towns, cities and rural areas – helping capture carbon, restore nature, reduce flood risk and improve health and wellbeing. As the trees grow, they will also provide shade, cleaner air, and accessible green spaces for communities to enjoy.

"Dancing" gnats, a close encounter with a spider and a surgical examination of a dead whale are among the winners of the Scottish Nature Photographer of the Year Awards 2025.

Scenes pictured in Edinburgh and Glenshiel also picked up prizes.

An exhibition tour and portfolio yearbook of the award-winners will be launched in the summer.

The merlin, Britain’s smallest bird of prey, is one of more than 200 species that will become extinct in the UK if action is not taken to curb emissions and unsustainable land use, a study has claimed.

According to the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH), there is a 20-year window in which decisions on climate and land use will determine the fate of dozens of Britain’s native species.

By 2050, the British isles, already one of the most nature-depleted regions in the world, faces an ecological “point of no return”, they said.

Back when the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch began in 1979, the Greenfinch was at number seven in the top 10 birds seen. But in this year's Birdwatch (2026), they were down to number 18. These figures reflect a broader loss across the UK. Numbers of Greenfinches have been falling since around 2005, dropping by over 65% in the last three decades.

In 2021, conservationists moved Greenfinches into the Red List category in the Birds of Conservation Concern report due to this severe decline. Chaffinch numbers have begun to decrease too, with 39% being lost between 2012 and 2022. For both species, the cause is a disease, trichomonosis.

Trichomonosis is caused by a microscopic protozoan parasite called Trichomonas gallinae. It typically infects the upper digestive tract of birds. Trichomonosis has been known to affect pigeons and doves, along with birds of prey, for many years. These bird species can be infected by different strains of the parasite, they can act as carriers or succumb to the disease.

Part of a wide-ranging tree planting scheme on the Isle of Man has been completed ahead of schedule, with the team behind it hoping to plant 333,000 more across the island.

The Manx Wildlife Trust (MWT) owns three areas of temperate rainforest on the island - seeking to improve its biodiversity, flood defence and water quality through planting native trees.

The 105-acre (about 42-hectare) site at Creg y Cowin, in the Baldwin Valley, has since seen the last of its 30,000 mixed-native trees go into the ground by a team of volunteers.

Almost 40% of England’s seas are designated as marine protected areas. Their purpose, the government says, is “to protect and recover rare threatened and important marine ecosystems … from damage caused by human activities”.

And yet in the four years to 2024, trawlers using vast nets, including those that scour the seabed, caught more than 1.3m tonnes of fish within them, according to official figures that campaigners say show they are “little more than lines on a map”.

“The government claims vast areas of UK waters are protected, but the reality is a national scandal,” said Chris Thorne, senior oceans campaigner at Greenpeace UK.

Efforts to remove invasive stoats from Orkney have given a boost to the islands' native voles and birds of prey, according to a new report.

The Orkney Native Wildlife Project report shows vole activity in spring 2025 was the highest since 2019 when a project to protect native wildlife from not-native stoats began.

It also revealed the number of breeding attempts by rare hen harriers and short-eared owls - which rely on the voles as a food source - were high compared with six years ago.

Cows and goats are playing a vital role in restoring some of the most important freshwater wildlife habitats in mid-Wales. Livestock is being introduced to carefully chosen sites as part of the River Irfon Catchment Project, led by Freshwater Habitats Trust.

Working with landowners, the national conservation charity is using controlled livestock grazing to help manage dominant vegetation and give rare plant species a chance to thrive.

The River Irfon catchment stretches from Abergwesyn to Builth Wells and is home to a rich variety of freshwater wildlife, living in ponds, wetlands, fens, and streams, as well as the main river channel. One of the aims of the River Irfon Catchment Project is to restore biodiversity hotspots by establishing long-term management plans to protect them for the future.

A hibernating dormouse was rescued after being found fast asleep in an old helium balloon caught in a tree.

The tiny creature was discovered by an Essex Wildlife Trust officer during a litter-picking campaign in woodland north of Halstead.

It was in a torpid state, meaning a sleepy hibernation which they go into in colder weather as a survival strategy, the trust said.

Drivers across south-east England are being asked to count the number of insects which hit their vehicles as part of a nature survey.

Bugs Matter, organised by charities Kent Wildlife Trust and Buglife, is a survey which is due to start on Wednesday and finish on 30 September.

The organisations said the study was to help them understand of the health of flying insects, which are crucial to the ecosystem.

At one of the most remote spots in southern England, Al West skilfully tilts and rotates the bucket of a small digger, like a giant mechanical hand. He lifts turf, and pats it down gently on to the rich, dark brown peat beneath. Above him, the granite stack of Fur Tor looms above the vast, boggy, wild expanse of northern Dartmoor.

It is repetitive, delicate work, which West carries out with dexterity and care. Within a boundary of white flags, he takes from a borrow pit and fashions a peat embankment across each ditch and depression covering the land, to restore it to its natural smoothness and to stop the rainwater running off down the valley.

For West this is personal. His family have had common grazing rights on Dartmoor since 1904. In the early 1920s, his great-grandfather came to the same place where West works today to cut sods of peat, along with hundreds of others, before taking it back home for domestic heating.

Do you ever worry that your brain’s slowing down and your mind is … what’s the word … fogging? If you do, I have news. A recent study on birdwatching, with the appropriately named lead author Erik Wing, found that learning to become an expert birder causes changes to the brain that may help to protect against age-related cognitive decline. Compared with novice birders, when true bird nerds tease apart difficult species, they show more activity in brain regions linked to visual processing, attention and working memory. These same areas also appear more compact, and age-related changes in them are smaller.

The take-home message is that learning to tell a chiffchaff from a willow warbler could help us to stay mentally sharp as we age. But what about discerning a common quaker from a clouded drab? Or a brown-line bright-eye from a bright-line brown eye? These are the names, not of birds, but of moths. I’ve been hooked on moths ever since I was a kid.

At the risk of alienating an entire community of wildlife enthusiasts, birds are the low-hanging fruit. Moths are orders of magnitude more difficult to distinguish. As part of a citizen science project called the Garden Moth Scheme, I regularly run a moth trap in my leafy back garden. The devices, which can be bought or cobbled together, use light to attract night-flying moths, which then stumble into the body of the trap, where they stay, unharmed, till morning.

Last year, sewage was discharged into England and Wales’ waterways for over two and a half million hours - 2,651,296 to be precise. Discharges occurred a total of 386,466 times. Today, data from water companies in England and Wales was released, containing information about raw sewage discharges into English and Welsh rivers during 2025. One thing is clear: it’s been another terrible year for sewage in our rivers.

Birders are in for a treat this spring as plenty of rare and beautiful creatures, big and small, will be taking to the skies.

Here are five species that you might see in Norfolk over the coming months.

Sewage released into England’s rivers and seas nearly 300,000 times last year

Campaigners criticise frequent use of storm overflows when parts of the country were in drought for months Sandra Laville Thu 26 Mar 2026 12.49 CET Prefer the Guardian on Google

Raw sewage was discharged into rivers and seas almost 300,000 times last year after the driest spring for more than 100 years and the sunniest and warmest year on record in England.

Water companies released raw sewage into rivers and seas from storm overflows – designed to be used in extreme wet weather conditions – 291,492 times. This was a 35% reduction on record spills in 2024. Average discharges were 20.5 spills for each overflow, compared with 31.8 in the previous year.

The duration of raw sewage discharges into waterways fell by more than half, to 1.8m hours, from a high of almost 4m hours in 2024. Some water companies had reductions of more than 60% and 70% compared with the previous year, according to figures released on Thursday by the Environment Agency (EA).

They were released this time last year with fanfare, much hope and also, perhaps, a little trepidation.

Twelve months on, there have been ups and downs for the first beavers to be (officially) reintroduced into the wild in England since the semiaquatic mammals were hunted to extinction 400 years ago.

Providing an end-of-year report, the National Trust, which is in charge of the project, said it was thrilled the beavers had been reshaping their new home in Dorset, where they have felled trees to construct a 35-metre dam, slowing the flow of a stream and creating a deep, wildlife-rich pool.

The last chance to spot a mysterious bird of prey that is making a quiet return to Norfolk is approaching.

Renowned for being "very secretive", goshawks are still a "very rare" bird in the UK, according to the Norfolk Wildlife Trust.

Otherwise known as the "phantoms of the forests", the raptors can soar through trees at up to 25mph as they hunt prey, including pigeons, crows, squirrels and rabbits.

People are being asked to keep their distance at one of the island's coastal beauty spots, to protect endangered birds nesting.

Manx Birdlife has implemented an "exclusion zone" around Langness during the ground-nesting season from March to August.

Of the island's 332 known bird species, more than 200 have been recorded at the southern peninsula.