UK Nature and Environment

The average UK winter has become around 1C warmer and 15% wetter over the past century, new Carbon Brief analysis shows.

The analysis covers more than 100 years of data on temperature, rainfall, wind speed and snow, to assess how UK winters have changed.

The data show that extremely warm and wet winters are becoming more common. Six of the 10 warmest winters on record were in the 21st century, and four of these also rank in the top 10 wettest years on record.

An amateur wildlife photographer says capturing a pod of orcas teaching a youngster how to hunt was "amazing".

Graham Campbell captured video and pictures of the pod as they hunt, breach (when the whale launches their body out of the water) and spy hop (when they pop their heads up out of the water to inspect their surroundings) throughout the afternoon.

His footage, captured off Hoxa Head in South Ronaldsay, Orkney, caught the pod teach a calf how to catch seabirds.

Mr Campbell told BBC Scotland: "It was an amazing afternoon watching this pod of orcas. I regularly go out looking for sightings with some friends during my spare time."

A Devon nature reserve is due to be significantly expanded today in part thanks to a unique piece of coastal engineering, which has seen 50 hectares of internationally important new wetland habitat created.

The huge climate change adaptation project led by the Environment Agency reconnected the River Otter with its historic estuarine floodplain – helping protect properties but also creating a new wetland habitat that has today been declared the third nature reserve in the King’s Series of National Nature reserves.

The enlarged national nature reserve, which is being extended by 90 hectares in total or the equivalent of 128 football pitches, will connect the Otter Estuary and the restoration project with the existing lowland heathlands of Pebblebed Heaths National Nature Reserve. This unique landscape supports some of our most precious wildlife, from Dartford warblers, silver-studded blue butterflies to populations of sea trout, Atlantic salmon and eels and will now be protected for nature.

A key fund at the heart of the government’s plans to clean up rivers has not been established 15 months after it was promised.

The water restoration fund was first pledged by Thérèse Coffey when she was environment secretary. She said it would redirect millions of pounds of raised from fines headed to the Treasury to pay to improve polluted waterways instead.

However, the fund does not exist, there is no timetable for its establishment and The Times can reveal that steering groups to establish it have not yet even met.

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The Saving Wildlife project, primarily based in the RZSS Highland Wildlife Park, aims to recover the species through an in-house breeding programme.

Wildcats are paired together in breeding locations in a secret location in the park, with the hope that any kittens born can eventually be released into the wild.

Leading wildlife charity Butterfly Conservation is celebrating the discovery of a new breeding group of rare White-spotted Sable moth near Canterbury.

The exciting discovery was made by Butterfly Conservation staff and volunteers during a survey of Clowes Wood near Canterbury, Kent, in the summer.

The team were searching for the moth’s caterpillars in the woodland, which is owned by Forestry England, after extensive woodland management had enabled an important native plant to thrive.

The work to the woodland had resulted in the growth of Goldenrod, the sole foodplant of the White-spotted Sable moth caterpillars, which needs plenty of natural light to grow.

Rebecca Levey, Kent’s Magnificent Moths Conservation Officer at Butterfly Conservation, said: “As part of the Kent’s Magnificent Moths project, we have been working to protect and increase two populations of this rare moth in Kent, including one at Blean Woods National Nature Reserve, which is where we think the moths have travelled from.

ree planting is big. Governments across the UK and beyond have ambitious tree planting targets. The Scottish Government's vision is to expand woodland cover to 21 per cent of Scotland by 2032. Why? Trees soak up carbon, provide shade, a home for biodiversity, green space and timber.

But depending on what our goals are, it’s not always that simple. For example, when we look at how trees interact with soils in the initial decades following tree establishment (timescales relevant to key Scotland/UK net zero target dates of 2045/2050), our research has shown that planting trees on carbon rich soils – that’s soils with lots of organic material in it, such as moorland, which we have a lot of in Scotland’s uplands – could result in an overall release of carbon.

In a first of its kind study, researchers have identified significant differences between the diversity of gut bacteria in gray squirrels compared to red squirrels which could hold the key to further understanding the ability of gray squirrels to outcompete red squirrels in the UK.

New research, published in the Journal of Medical Microbiology, looked to understand more about the mechanisms by which gray squirrels are able to gain an advantage over red squirrels. Chris Nichols, Conservation Evidence Manager at the Woodland Trust, and co-author of the study, said,

"The more we know about gray squirrels, the more equipped we're going to be in the future to tackle the threats they pose to red squirrels and our native trees, which is one of the biggest problems for forest conservation in the UK."

Sheffield councillors recently approved spending £98.7K on a study on introducing beavers to Blacka Moor and the surrounding Upper Don Catchment as part of natural flood defence plans for the area. The study is being funded by a Yorkshire Regional Flood and Coastal Committee Capital Grant and by Yorkshire Water.

This will provide the opportunity to examine whether the reintroduction of beavers is feasible close to a major city, where thousands of homes and businesses are at risk of flooding.

Plans for a new nature reserve have been boosted by a £2m grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Suffolk Wildlife Trust has received the money to support the establishment of Worlingham Marshes, near Beccles.

Some 381 acres within the Lower Waveney Valley and the Broads National Park would become a "corridor of wildlife".

The trust's Matt Gooch said it could "develop a landscape-scale example of reversing wildlife decline, supporting nature to adapt to climate change".

The government is facing a legal challenge over plans to permit housebuilders in England to allow sewage pollution “through the back door”.

The campaign group Wild Justice, along with the law firm Leigh Day, have submitted plans for a judicial review over what they term an “unlawful attempt to use guidance to introduce a change that was defeated in the House of Lords last year”.

Currently, in sensitive areas such as the Lake District and Norfolk Broads, housebuilders have to prevent extra sewage going into waterways, either by updating infrastructure or by buying biodiversity credits, which improve the local natural area and counteract the extra pollution. The regulations were first enacted by the EU in an attempt to prevent damaging buildups of algae and other plants that can choke off aquatic life.

Last year, the levelling up secretary, Michael Gove, proposed an amendment to the levelling up and regeneration bill, which would strike the directive from the statute book. This would have allowed developers to ignore the rules.

Title is not the same as the original Guardian article. The original title was: ‘It’s soul destroying to find nests have failed’: inside the battle against Scotland’s falcon thieves

My TL;DR:

High-status racing falcons can sell for up to £250,000 in the Middle East, according to the National Wildlife Crime Unit (NWCU). The UK exports more live raptors than any other country, and the United Arab Emirates is the largest importer.

Legally, captive-bred peregrine falcons can be traded, but the birds cannot be taken from the wild. They are strictly protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act.

For racers, however, wild birds are more desirable: considered stronger, fiercer and faster. UK birds, particularly Scottish specimens, are prized in the Middle East.

Between 2007 and 2022 there was a 4,500% increase in export permits for UK peregrines, according to Police Scotland, and it is not known how many were illegally caught.

Despite being one of the highest value areas of crime globally, it is falling down the list of policing priorities, according to research led by Nottingham Trent University. In the UK, campaigners say there has been a weakening of legislation which means this illegal trade is easier to get away with.

People used to have to register a peregrine in the same way they would register a vehicle, says Tom Grose, investigations officer at the RSPB, but that changed in 2008, when the government weakened the Wildlife and Countryside Act’s registration controls. “Now, if you want to sell a peregrine falcon you need to fill out a certificate but you don’t need to send it out anywhere – you just need to fill out this piece of paper.”

With their bright, orange feet and colourful beaks full of glistening fish, puffins are really charismatic seabirds. But puffin populations are in decline, largely due to their struggle to catch enough of these shiny fish: sandeels.

Sandeels have been industrially fished on an industrial scale since the 1950s, not for human consumption but to make fishmeal. They are the bedrock of marine ecosystems in the North Sea. But a new fishing ban could provide welcome respite for puffins and other marine wildlife.

The UK and Scottish governments have announced a permanent end to industrial sandeel fishing in English and Scottish waters. This ban will begin on April 1 – the start of this year’s sandeel fishing season.

The UK has lost more than three-quarters of its great skuas on surveyed sites since bird flu struck, according to the first report quantifying the impact of H5N1 on seabird populations.

The deaths have happened over two years, since the outbreak of H5N1 in 2021. The UK is internationally important for seabirds, home to most of the world’s 16,000 pairs of nesting great skuas.

Jean Duggan, a policy assistant on avian influenza for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), said: “To have that level of loss in a population we have international responsibility for is quite catastrophic.

Not exclusively UK related, but research carried out in the UK and with a good deal of UK interest, I think:

Modern populations of fallow deer possess hidden cultural histories dating back to the Roman Empire, which should be factored into decisions around their management and conservation.

New research, bringing together DNA analysis with archaeological insights, has revealed how fallow deer have been repeatedly moved to new territories by humans, often as a symbol of colonial power or because of ancient cultures and religions.

The results show that the animal was first introduced into Britain by the Romans and not the Normans, as previously believed. The findings also reveal how British colonial links during the 17th–19th centuries played a key role in spreading the deer around the world, including the Caribbean island of Barbuda, where fallow deer are the national animal.

A bright clear day today and I spotted the first butterfly that I have seen this year - a slightly faded Red Admiral taking advantage of a sun trap among some heathland gorse.

A grey seal colony has established itself at a former Cold War weapons testing site on the Suffolk coast.

More than 130 grey seal pups have been born at Orford Ness, a remote shingle spit, this breeding season.

Rangers said the blubbery mammals have used the ex-military site as a breeding ground every year since 2021, following a reduction in visitor access because of the pandemic.

It is thought they spilled over from well-populated colonies in Norfolk.

Become a bee spotter for the Royal Horticultural Society by recording bumblebees on flowers in UK parks and gardens this spring (project open 12 Feb 2024 to 31 May 2024).

Flowers in spring are important but which flowers do bumblebees use? To help find the answer, the RHS are inviting gardeners across the UK to become community scientists and help spot bumblebees on flowers this spring.

England is launching a biodiversity credit scheme this week that attempts to force all new road and housebuilding projects to benefit nature, rather than damage it.

The “nature market”, called biodiversity net gain (BNG), means all new building projects must achieve a 10% net gain in biodiversity or habitat. If a woodland is destroyed by a road, for example, another needs to be recreated. This can happen either on site or elsewhere.

The requirement becomes law under the Town and Country Planning Act on 12 February for larger sites, and on 2 April 2024 for smaller sites.

DOZENS of Scotland’s marine and coastal species are critically endangered or in rapid decline due to industrial fishing, climate change, pollution and other pressures, The Ferret has found.

The species most at risk include fish, birds and mammals such as cod, salmon, trout, harbour seal, gulls, shag and guillemot.

Declining fish numbers in Scottish waters – caused by overfishing and climate change – are impacting birds, dolphins, whales and other animals that rely on fish as a key food source, while pollution, energy infrastructure and fishing gear also threaten marine life.

“The number was unbelievable,” said James Richardson, of the first times he heard there were hundreds of thousands of raw sewage spills a year in England and Wales.

He was astounded to find the figures were true. “I thought crikey, this is crazy,” said the IT worker, who was spurred to build Top of the Poops, a data-packed website adorned with a poop emoji.

Elevated by a network of outraged citizens such as Richardson, and boosted by the launch of The Times’s Clean it Up campaign one year ago, tackling water pollution is expected to be a big environmental issue when election campaigning ramps up.

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Tens of thousands of Christmas trees are buried on a beach near Blackpool.

Some stick out of the sand in plain sight, others are buried underneath metres of sand dunes - exactly where they're supposed to be.

Every February for two days, hundreds of locals descend on the beach wielding spades. They spend hours digging trenches in the sand and then fill them with old Christmas trees, buried up to their bottom branches. The next time the wind blows, the trees will catch grains of sand in their branches and begin to rebuild Lancashire's last remaining dunes.

It takes six months to a year to build new dunes with this method, a process that can take hundreds of years in nature. The annual Christmas tree burial has completely changed the landscape along the beach - what was once flat is now hilly, covered in grasses and home to around 500 sand lizards.

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Development, coastal erosion and people using the sand in industry have all forced the dunes into retreat. Fylde Council now bears the responsibility of having Lancashire's only remaining sand dunes, and ranger Andy Singleton Mills looks after them. He says the sand dunes are crucial for Fylde.

"They're a brilliant soft sea defence, they protect all the houses of St Annes and Lytham further down the coast. And they're also a rich cultural feature - they've been here for hundreds of years and they protect so much wildlife."

We reveal walking routes near you that are ideal for scenery, wildlife and peace and quiet.

52 walks rated.

Graham Usher urges Church of England to look into this ‘often very ancient land’, as it prepares to vote on increasing biodiversity

Churchyards should be rewilded to increase biodiversity and to make them “places of the living, not just the dead”, a Church of England bishop has said.

Local parishes are responsible for about 7,100 hectares (17,500 acres) of churchyards in England. The C of E also owns about 34,000 hectares of farmland, mostly let to tenant farmers, and 9,300 hectares of forestry.