UK Nature and Environment

A friendly if slightly tuneless chirp is the most ubiquitous birdsong in British gardens with the house sparrow topping the Big Garden Birdwatch charts for the 21st consecutive year, according to the annual RSPB survey.

Blue tits, starlings, wood pigeons and blackbirds were the next most-sighted birds by more than 600,000 participants in the world’s largest wildlife garden survey.

The long-running citizen science project provides conservationists with invaluable data on how common species are faring. Although an average of four house sparrows were spotted in every garden when the survey was conducted in January, the number recorded has declined by nearly 60% since the survey began in 1979.

Animal campaigners claim new laws to prevent illegal fox hunting with packs of dogs are being flouted.

Footage taken by activists from the League Against Cruel Sports show hunts out with packs of foxhounds during the latest hunting season, which ended in March.

Hunts get round fox hunting rules by claiming to be “drag hunting” - a form of equestrian sport, where horses, riders and hounds follow the trail of an artificial scent laid down by human volunteers.

Three juvenile loggerhead turtles have washed up on beaches in southern England over the course of a week.

Recent storms and rough seas probably pushed them off course, the British Divers Marine Life Rescue charity said.

Turtles found at Kimmeridge, Dorset, and Milendreath, Cornwall, on Tuesday were rescued by wildlife experts but have since died, the organisation said.

Another turtle is likely to have died after being returned to the sea at Lydd, Kent, the charity added.

Norfolk Wildlife Trust has today sent a letter to the Rt Hon Steve Barclay MP, DEFRA Secretary of State.

The correspondence calls out Norfolk MPs who are labelling Natural England’s recent Barbastelle Bat guidance ‘arbitrary’ as they ask DEFRA Secretary of State to stop the report from blocking development of the controversial Norwich Western Link road.

The letter, co-signed by national organisations including The Wildlife Trusts, RSPB, The Woodland Trust, Buglife and Butterfly Conservation, calls the MP’s April 2nd letter “an ill-advised and unfair attack” on the dedicated work of Natural England specialists and the main contributor to the Favourable Conservation Status report for Barbastelle Bats, who is a renowned expert in the species.

The letter outlines the importance of Natural England’s evidence-based Favourable Conservation Status report and the guidelines it adheres to. It asks the Secretary of State to respect the role of Natural England as the Government’s advisor on nature, bringing a considered and independent position based on evidence.

Onlookers have been left baffled by the discovery of a spiny seahorse more than half a mile inland in Poole - but an expert says the explanation is more simple than it might appear.

The aquatic creature was found outside Stanley Green First School, Stanley Green Road, about a 15 minute walk from the water.

Founder of The Seahorse Trust, Neil Garrick-Maidment, 54, believes it has been brought in by a seagull who dropped in hope to crack it open to eat.

He said: "This particular one is quite exciting. It's a female spiny seahorse and we've had records before where seagulls have found them washup on the beach or in the shallows, pick them up, fly up high and drop it onto concrete to try and smash it open so that it can eat its contents.

The project, undertaken by Mexborough Estates, the owner of 3000-acre Arden Great Moor, will have serious and sustainable environmental benefits.

Arden Great Moor is in the Howardian Hills in the heart of the North York Moors National Park.

Jamie Savile, director of Mexborough Estates, said: “The restoration of peatland is now common practice across the UK and we were keen to play our part in creating a greener and healthier environment on the moor.

“In essence, the work we have done will improve the blanket bog peatland habitat, which is some 40 centimetres-plus deep, improve the hydrological integrity of the peatland and preserve the shallower peat bodies.

"Taken together, these changes will benefit wildlife, create carbon sinks, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve quality of the water on the moor.

In the warmer months, our coastal cliffs are rowdy and raucous. Seabirds line the rocky ledges, ready to breed and raise a brood. It’s an amphitheatre packed full of unruly audience members, where the birds overlook crashing waves — yet the most gripping drama is unfolding from their seats. Hundreds of thousands of individuals can be seen mating, egg-laying, fishing, and feeding, making seabird cities one of our finest spring and summer spectacles.

Let’s take a look at the species you might see on a sea cliff stroll this season!

New research has revealed that newborn fallow deer fawns differ both in sleeping patterns and the rate of development from birth on an individual basis, as we see in newborn human babies, in the first study of its kind led by Queen’s University Belfast.

The researchers recorded the sleeping behaviour of free-ranging fallow deer fawns during the first five weeks of life at Phoenix Park in Dublin. They used minimally-invasive biologging technology, developed by WildBytes and Swansea University, to track the animals while they remained hidden in the woods and vegetation, and isolated from their mothers and wider herd.

Good sleep is essential for health in humans and other animals, playing a fundamental role in development. This study shows the marked and consistent individual differences among deer in sleep quantity, quality and fragmentation, as well as the rate sleep develops – in the first week of life, the shortest sleeping fawn slept about half the time of the longest sleeping fawn.

The fieldwork was actually carried out in Dublin, but everything else seems to be UK based.

Leonardo DiCaprio has joined Scottish environmentalists in urging ministers to declare the country a rewilding nation.

The American actor took to Instagram to share the message of the Scottish Rewilding Alliance with his 61.1 million followers. The alliance is a coalition of more than 20 nature organisations urging the Scottish Government to declare Scotland as the first rewilding nation in an effort to boost conservation strategies.

The Hollywood star’s post has already attracted more than 48,000 likes as he wrote: “Scotland could be a world leader in rewilding its landscapes, ensuring clean air and water, storing carbon, reducing flooding, restoring wildlife, and improving the lives of locals.” He urged his followers to visit the link in on his social media page to learn more about the cause.

The shrill carder (Bombus sylvarum) is the bookmakers’ early favourite for invertebrate of the year. (I’m picturing a smooth, charming worm giving it the bookies’ patter and an embittered elderly grasshopper totting up the odds, disgruntled because his kind wasn’t nominated.)

Here flies one of our smallest bumblebees, a distinctive greyish-green and straw-hued species which is named after the high-pitched buzz it makes when airborne.

Bees, in particular bumblebees, are our most popular insects. We identify with their communal lifestyles, admire their industry, enjoy their association with sunny days and flowers and, increasingly, appreciate their importance as pollinators – for crops, for us, for all life on Earth.

A recent publication by JNCC – JNCC guidance for the use of Passive Acoustic Monitoring in UK waters for minimising the risk of injury to marine mammals from offshore activities – is providing new guidance on the use of Passive Acoustic Monitoring (PAM) as a tool to minimise the risk of injury to marine mammals from offshore activities.

Sounds generated from certain offshore anthropogenic activities have the potential to cause injury and disturbance to cetaceans and seals. In particular, the noise from activities such as explosive use, geophysical surveys and piling (the process of driving foundations into the bedrock to support offshore structures) could result in an injury offence such as permanent hearing damage as defined under UK regulations.

To help reduce the potential impacts of offshore activity, JNCC has developed a suite of mitigation guidelines through consultation with regulators and industry. These mitigation guidelines promote the use of marine mammal observers who are tasked with visual surveys of a location prior to the start of noisy activity. However, this is not always suitable for the detection of some species, such as deep-diving Beaked and Sperm Whales.

Networks of urban drainage ponds not only help to control surface water in our towns and cities, but they also support the genetic diversity of frogs, according to a new report.

Researchers from NatureScot and the University of Salford studied 34 common frog populations in and around Inverness to find out if the frogs that breed in sustainable urban drainage systems (SuDS) suffered from lower genetic diversity than rural frog populations.

The study found that in fact the SuDS ponds had the same levels of genetic variation as rural ponds, with no evidence of inbreeding in any of the populations studied.

It’s thought that this could be because these relatively new SuDS ponds are often built alongside nature-rich green spaces, which offer good breeding habitat and connectivity, allowing frogs to move between ponds and helping to conserve genetic variation in the species.

The proposed ‘targeted badger intervention’ policy states that it will “allow badger culling to continue in areas where evidence supports the need for its application”.

The Wildlife Trusts have significant concerns about the consultation and the proposals and have written to the Secretary of State to express these concerns.

We understand the hardship that bovine tuberculosis (bTB) causes in the farming community and the need to find the right mechanisms to control the disease. However, there is no reliable peer reviewed evidence to show that badger culling is having a significant impact on lowering bovine tuberculosis in cattle in or around cull zones.

This latest consultation appears to support the ongoing culling of badgers indefinitely and fails to provide sufficient information or detail on thresholds, parameters or timescales. The UK Government proposals could lead to 100% of badgers being killed in areas across England where bovine tuberculosis is found in cattle.

Swifts need two things. Safe, dry, nest holes high up on walls and lots of flying insects to eat – but both are in decreasing supply.

Nice, neat roof lines on modern housing, free from cracks and crevices, do not make for good swift hospitality. Campaigners are calling for the widespread installation of swift boxes or bricks in new builds to provide safe nesting spaces for these migratory birds to raise their chicks.

Studies show that these bricks work. Swifts are attracted to them and occupancy rates can be high. But research indicates that these bricks and boxes alone may not be enough to support the struggling swift population.

Some eagle-eyed residents have been spotting the ‘flamboyant’ Hoopoe in several spots in Sussex over the past week – including Brighton and Hankham. Polly Mair shared these stunning photos, taken at Hankham, on X. The sighting is particularly exciting for birdwatchers, as Hoopoes aren’t native to the UK.

Customer research published today by Ofwat and consumer watchdog CCW reveals that the vast majority of people do not trust water companies to do what’s right for the environment.

Less than a quarter (23%) of respondents said they trust their water provider to do what is right for the environment down from 31% in 2021. Additionally, just 21% believe that their water provider acts in interests of the environment a decrease from 27% in the previous study.

Satisfaction with the quality of water services has dropped to 58% from 65% in 2021, while satisfaction with wastewater and drainage services has fallen to 49% from 56% in the initial study.

Chances of seeing a giant from the deep are just around the corner, as shark season looms in the UK.

At least 21 species live in British waters all year round including some of the largest and fastest.

As well as the 21 resident sharks, there are at least 11 deepwater shark species. Including the Portuguese Dogfish, Black Dogfish, Kitefin Shark and Gulper Shark.

But don't worry, all are harmless, it still is safe to go back in the water.

LOVE is certainly in the air for these two kingfishers caught in a passionate clinch.

These incredible photos were taken by our Camera Club member Andy Brear.

The photos are worthy of an appearance in a David Attenborough wildlife documentary.

A wildlife charity will be working on seagrass restoration in Cumbria after a large donation.

The Cumbria Wildlife Trust is set to rejuvenate seagrass beds in the Walney Channel near Barrow.

This ambitious project, aimed at combating the climate crisis and reviving precious marine ecosystems, has been made possible by a donation of more than £141,000 from Ozone, along with additional funding from the Environment Agency. The area targeted for restoration is located near Roa Island.

Over the last year a family of otters has been spotted swimming around a lake near the centre of Cheltenham.

Although it may not sound too unusual they have been seen on the lake at Pittville Park during the day despite normally being nocturnal.

Experts say it appears to be another example of a species becoming more comfortable in urban settings as they look for somewhere to live.

The return of spawning salmon to the rivers of Derbyshire is a real conservation success story. After centuries of intensive river management by the county’s burgeoning factories, the fish were driven extinct in many of its waterways.

Since then, the health of some of the rivers have improved to an extent that salmon can once again spawn. But the routes for the fish to return are still blocked by the remnants of the industrial boom, with numerous dams and weirs still blocking the migratory route of salmon attempting to swim upstream.

Dr Tim Jacklin is a Conservation Officer for the Wild Trout Trust who has worked on river restoration projects that encourage and helps the migration of fish such as the Atlantic salmon. He was involved with the removal of a weir at Snake Lane, Derbyshire, which allowed the salmon to recolonise the headwaters of the River Derwent.

If you’re a what-have-they-ever-done-for-us? sort of voter, you will be won over by the minotaur beetle. It’s as spectacular as any beetle, the shiny black male sporting three bullish horns on their thorax. But the minotaur is also one of that great hidden army of invertebrates who keep our planet functioning – clean and fertile – without us even knowing.

The minotaur is a dung beetle and roams across grassland and heathland at night devouring mammalian droppings.

There are more than 5,000 species of dung beetles across the world and they are a crucial “keystone” species because they bury dung in the ground to feed their young – cleaning up, recycling nutrients, fertilising the soil and helping to disperse seeds. One study estimates the value of dung beetles clearing British pastures and fertilising soils to be £367m a year.

Tim Slaney, Interim Chief Executive of the South Downs National Park Authority, said: "Nature is in crisis and National Parks need to be at the heart of raising our national ambitions and delivering a future where nature is thriving rather than simply surviving.

“We welcome the spotlight on nature from the Campaign for National Parks’ health check report on nature recovery. The report identifies some of the serious challenges facing National Parks across England and Wales as we look to deliver thriving, nature-rich landscapes – lack of enough, consistent and long-term funding, and lack of power over how land is managed.

“That is why we and other National Parks developed Wildlife Delivery Plans and in 2021, we launched our ambitious South Downs ReNature Campaign – 33% by 2030 – in partnership with the South Downs National Park Trust. The initiative aims to create 13,000 hectares of new habitat and ensure the remaining 67% of the National Park is nature-friendly through improving existing habitats across farms, woods, rivers, towns and villages.”

Nature conservation organisations have joined forces to urge the government to order an immediate clean-up of a historic Kent woodland.

KentOnline revealed in January how litter is being piled 12ft high across four acres in an illegal makeshift tip at Hoad’s Wood near Great Chart, Ashford.

An investigation into the fly-tipping on the ancient woodland, which is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), is currently being led by the Environment Agency (EA).

But now, six organisations - Kent Wildlife Trust, CPRE Kent, RSPB, South East Rivers Trust, CLA and the Woodland Trust - have written to the environment secretary, Steve Barclay, for a government grant to fund the clean-up operation.

THE government has today, Wednesday, April 10, published its response to the Independent Review of Protected Site Management on Dartmoor.

The government’s response sets out a number of priorities to ensure farmers on Dartmoor are supported to produce food sustainably and run viable businesses while protecting important habitats and species across Dartmoor.

These include boosting farmers’ confidence in Environmental Land Management schemes, including those transitioning from Higher Level Stewardship (HLS) agreements; encouraging collaborative relationships between Natural England and commoners; and backing a robust strategy and long-term governance for Dartmoor.