UK Nature and Environment

Farmers have been urged to take part in a new farmland bird survey as figures show numbers have declined by more than 60% over the past 53 years.

The annual Big Farmland Bird Count, organised by the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT), began in 2014.

Officials launched the 2024 survey, which runs until 18 February, at Lodge Farm, in Westhorpe, Suffolk.

The trust said farmland birds "desperately" needed help,

Farmers' union the NFU said the best part of 20,000 farmers took part in the 2023 count.

New research published by the University of Sussex suggests that wild honey bee colonies are in abundance in the UK, thanks to our ancient or veteran trees.

In a new paper, researchers estimate that around 40,000 wild-living honey bee colonies could be nesting in ancient or veteran trees in England, with around 75,000 across the UK. But with UK trees under threat from the likes of disease, development and severe climate related weather, this latest research shows the value of veteran trees to our most important pollinators.

It’s not often we get to hear heartening news about wildlife. However, 2023 was a historic year for marine conservation in the UK according to the Wildlife Trusts, with the creation of the first highly protected marine areas and a spike in sightings of whales and dolphins, tentatively suggesting that some species may be recovering and growing in numbers.

Measures to protect bluefin tuna (a fish that has returned from the brink of extinction) led to an increase in sightings, while in Cornwall there were 156 recorded sightings of Risso’s dolphins in 2023, compared with 45 in the previous year. A “super pod” of 350 common dolphins and 10 minke whales was even spotted off the Scottish coast, and an orca recorded in the sea three miles from the Yorkshire coastline — the first time one has been seen in the area since 2007. Humpback whales, basking sharks and fin whales have all been sighted, and the number of seal pups born increased by a third in some areas of the country compared with the previous year.

Here, we round up the Wildlife Trusts’ most glorious coastal nature reserves to spot fantastic winter wildlife.

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Standing in a field close to the Somerset coast surrounded by her flock of sheep, Juliet Pankhurst shook her head. “It doesn’t make any sense,” she said. “They want to flood this land that has been farmed for generations. We’ve got great crested newts in the pond over there, water voles in the ditches, hares all over the place. They’ll be lost.”

Her partner, Mark Halliwell, shrugged. “But they’ll get their way – they always do. No matter what scheme they come up with.”

The “they” in question is EDF, the French company building the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station a few miles down the coast from the farm. The scheme is to create a salt marsh on the land as “compensation” for dropping an innovative plan to stop millions of fish from swimming into the plant’s cooling system and being killed.

“The whole thing sounds a bit odd,” said Pankhurst.

A toxic mix of oil, chemicals and bits of tyre from roads is polluting English waterways and no-one is regularly monitoring it, the BBC has found.

Heavy rain forces run-off into streams and rivers. Campaigners say it causes 'absolutely horrific' damage in places, including just downstream of where The Great British Bake Off is filmed.

England's major road network has more than 18,000 outflows or drains.

National Highways runs the network and says it's working to improve them.

Britain’s tallest bird, the spectacular, wetland-loving crane bred in higher numbers last summer than at any point since they disappeared from the UK in the 16th century.

At least 80 pairs of cranes were recorded in 2023, up from the previous high of 72 two years earlier. The birds, which make distinctive bugling calls but are surprisingly elusive in the breeding season, as they hide in reedbeds, successfully fledged at least 36 chicks.

The species, which performs elaborate mating dances each spring, first returned from Scandinavia to breed in east Norfolk in 1979. The population was kept secret for years and very slowly spread.

More recently it has been boosted by a reintroduction project where hand-reared cranes were released on expanded wetlands in the Somerset Levels.

From leaf buds bursting to blackberries ripening, let us know what’s happening near you. You'll be contributing to a long biological record that dates back as far as 1736.

The UK Government’s decision to close the sandeel fishery in the English North Sea comes after more than 25 years of campaigning by the RSPB and others, which called out the practice as one of the leading causes of seabird decline. Many seabirds, including Puffins, rely on sandeels to feed their chicks. But climate change and over-fishing has vastly depleted sandeel populations, having a devastating knock-on effect on seabirds.

Britain's loudest bird, which had been driven to extinction, has been caught on camera at a nature reserve.

The bittern was spotted at Willington Wetlands, in Derbyshire, on 16 January, months after the bird bred in the county for the first time since records began.

Male bitterns make a distinctive, booming "foghorn" call.

They are part of the heron family, and were driven to extinction across the UK in the 1870s before they returned to Britain in small numbers in the early 20th Century.

Kate Lemon, landscape recovery manager at Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, said she was "absolutely thrilled" bitterns had made Willington Wetlands their home.

Plans for new laws to reverse the loss of wildlife and protect nature have been outlined by the Welsh government.

They include setting up a new, independent watchdog to hold organisations' feet to the fire on environmental issues like sewage spills or air pollution.

Public bodies in Wales will also be forced to publish nature recovery action plans.

Opposition parties and campaigners said the changes were long overdue and urged ministers to "crack on".

A pair of rare white-tailed sea eagles have been spotted in west Suffolk.

The species, which is Britain's largest bird of prey with a wingspan of up to 2.5m (8.2ft), was driven to extinction in the UK in the 20th Century.

A reintroduction programme has helped the birds, nicknamed "flying barn doors", return to the Britain.

Birdwatchers, who were alerted to the rare sighting, have said they feel "lucky" to have now seen one of the birds.

Ministers are “window dressing” with nature policies announced to “cover up” the government’s failings on environmental targets, wildlife groups have said.

The Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) found earlier this month that nature in England is at risk of falling into an “irreversible spiral of decline” because of the government’s failures to meet its legally binding targets on species abundance and water quality.

Instead of providing a detailed response to the OEP, the government has issued an announcement that it will ban the industrial fishing of sandeels to celebrate a year since it announced its legally binding environmental improvement plan (EIP) targets. These targets are to replace the oversight of the EU and are part of the Environment Act 2021.

The swallowtail, one of Britain’s rarest butterflies and also the largest, has suffered its worst summer since records began.

The butterfly is confined to the Broads in East Anglia, where its caterpillar’s food plant is found, and is now breeding on just 16 sites.

Eighty-three per cent of English rivers contain evidence of high pollution caused by sewage and agricultural waste, according to the largest citizen science water testing project ever to take place in the UK.

Hundreds of anglers took part in the study, organised by the Angling Trust, after being angered by the brown blooms of sewage in the waters they painstakingly tend for the benefit of fish.

Six hundred and forty-one anglers from 240 angling clubs now regularly monitor pollution in 190 rivers across 60 catchments. Between them, they have taken more than 3,800 samples, which are revealing the systemic pollution across England’s waterways. This is mainly caused by agricultural runoff and sewage spilled by water companies.

England's hedgerows would stretch almost ten times around the Earth if lined up end to end.

That's according to a new map - the most comprehensive to date - of these historic features of the landscape.

Ecologists hope the data will lead to better protections for the much-loved lines of trees and shrubs that provide food and shelter for wildlife, and store large amounts of carbon.

Laser scanning from the air reveals a total of 390,000 km of hedges.

A typical British countryside walk may conjure up images of vast green fields, heather-topped moorlands, and of course, countless stiles providing access throughout the right-of-way network. However, while stiles connect trails and public pathways, they are a physical barrier to accessible green spaces for all.

Over the last two decades, national parks across England have been removing stiles as part of a programme of measures to create more easy-to-navigate walking routes. Research by us and others shows how opening up natural spaces in such ways can particularly benefit young and disabled people. If such schemes were adopted more widely, the benefits could be spread even further.

More than 100,000 trees are being planted in north Devon as part of efforts to boost temperate or Celtic rainforests, some of the UK’s most magical but endangered environments.

The trees are being planted close to surviving pockets of rainforest at two spots close to the coast and one inland.

Among the trees that will be planted is the almost-extinct Devon whitebeam, which is only found in the English West Country and in Ireland. It can reproduce without fertilisation, creating seeds that are genetic copies of itself. Its edible fruit used to be sold at Devon markets as “sorb apples” – celebrated in the DH Lawrence poem Medlars and Sorb-Apples (“I love you, rotten,/Delicious rottenness.”)

Glen Affric in the Highlands has joined more than 10 rivals in bidding to gain the new status – and the benefits that go with it

Glen Affric in the Highlands is home to deer, ospreys, otters and one of Scotland’s largest Caledonian pine woods. Often described as one of the country’s most beautiful glens, its scenic landscapes and diverse wildlife are such that it is protected as a national nature reserve.

Now, local community groups have launched a bid for it to become Scotland’s third national park, in a race which has so far seen more than 10 other areas also submit their interest.

Culture wars by ministers over the reintroduction of animals such as the beaver and the lynx must end if we are to restore nature in England, the head of the government’s taskforce on the issue has said.

Dr Andy Clements, an ornithologist who helped establish the government regulator Natural England, runs the species reintroduction taskforce, and he’s well placed to do so. He was one of those behind the hugely successful reintroduction of red kites into England.

He said he was frustrated by the debate over reintroducing species because it was based on “anecdote, not evidence”, when it is clear that increasing the abundance of rare and locally extinct species by releasing them into the wild can help restore nature.

Earth Heritage is produced twice yearly to stimulate interest in geodiversity and a broad range of geological and landscape conservation issues within the UK and further afield. It is free in pdf format from the Earth Heritage Past Issues section of this site. Our occasional updates, Earth Heritage EXTRA, are in the EH EXTRA section.

Earth Heritage should interest geological conservation specialists, and those studying Earth and environmental sciences in universities, colleges and secondary education.

Earth Heritage is free online. Readers can also buy a printed version of current and previous issues via this link to the Geologists’ Association publications section.

My TL;DR:

Doug Maw, who is campaigning for snares to be banned in England, was arrested last summer and charged with damaging and stealing dozens of snares and traps on the Duke of Norfolk’s Arundel estate.

Edward Fitzalan-Howard, the 18th Duke of Norfolk, has helped revive the endangered grey partridge on his 4,000-acre estate. Other nationally declining species thriving on the estate include skylarks, lapwing and linnet.

Maw argues that the grey partridge’s revival came at the cost of native wildlife inadvertently being caught in snares set to catch foxes, which feed on partridge eggs and chicks.

He said of the snares: “They are supposed to target foxes but they are totally indiscriminate, they will catch anything. They are incredibly cruel. We’ve got videos of pheasants, dogs, badgers, deer, foxes and hares caught in them. I’ve been caught in a few.”

Snares are designed to catch and hold target species such as foxes but studies suggest that about 70% of animals caught are “non-target” species, including dogs and cats.

Snares were banned in Wales last year and the Scottish government has promised to ban them, but they continue to be legally deployed across England.

The scale of this waxwing winter will be revealed this weekend when people are encouraged to spend an hour recording the birds they see in their gardens, balconies, parks and school grounds.

The spectacular migratory, mohican-sporting birds have been spotted across Britain during the colder weather and will be recorded alongside more familiar sparrows, blackbirds and robins in the RSPB’s annual Big Garden Birdwatch.

“Waxwings are just such a brilliant bird and they always look like punk rockers in the trees,” said Beccy Speight, the chief executive at the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds). “People have loved seeing them this winter but I haven’t seen any yet so I’m keeping my eye out for them.”

Data from the long-running garden birdwatch has traced the waxing and waning of bird species in gardens, parks and urban areas, with 38 million fewer birds in our skies than almost half a century ago.

The environment secretary has told water companies in England that they will no longer be able to monitor and report on pollution from their own treatment works.

Steve Barclay told the privatised industry he would put an end to operator self-monitoring in a toughening of the regulatory approach.

The system, which has been criticised for allowing water companies to “mark their own homework”, was introduced more than 10 years ago, ending the practice by which Environment Agency officials carried out all the testing of treatment works and sewage discharges.

Water companies were allowed to do their own testing of treated effluent to make sure it met the legal requirements of their permits, as well as monitoring their releases of raw sewage via storm overflows.

The UK Government is currently way off track on its own target to protect 30 per cent of its nature by 2030 - despite committing to this goal through an international deal agreed in Montreal in 2022.

There has been "little or no change" in the extent of land protected under the UK’s network of Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and their condition in England has deteriorated, according to a report on the government’s progress towards its environmental targets published this week.

There was also a lack of appropriate monitoring of sites outside this network, which limited the extent to which progress could be measured, the report noted. The government’s plans to recover nature in national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty had the potential to contribute to the 30 by 30 target, but action is too slow.

NOBODY is quite sure how stoats managed to make their way to Orkney.

But whether they were illegally released or arrived as fugitives on a boat, over the past decade the species has established itself on the mainland, posing a significant threat to the islands’ native wildlife.

“The stoat isn’t a native species to Orkney and there aren’t any land-based predators to keep their numbers under control,” said Lianne Sinclair, project manager at the Orkney Native Wildlife Project.

In a place like Orkney, which hosts internationally important populations of seabirds, the introduction of a non-native predator could spell disaster for both ecology and economy.