He had just sat down to dinner in the garden when a speedy visitor whizzed by – a “grey lump with orange wings”, recalled Luke Burstow, from Sussex. It was a hummingbird hawk-moth, a flying insect that migrates to the UK from continental Europe and north Africa.

“I was like: ‘Wow!’,” said the software project manager. “I didn’t even know they existed.”

Burstow is one of many UK wildlife watchers who have described seeing the moth on social media lately. “This made my day,” wrote one Reddit user after their sighting.

Intensive farming has all but destroyed England’s ancient woodlands and freshwater wetlands. On a farm in Lincolnshire a radical aristocrat hopes to show there’s money in protecting nature

Wildlife habitats devastated by the "utterly sickening" fire at Dunwich Heath could take up to 25 years to recover.

The area along the Suffolk coast went up in flames at about 17:00 BST on Wednesday before engulfing more than 250 acres (100 hectares) – equivalent to about 140 football pitches.

It included parts of the RSPB's Minsmere nature reserve, which is home to rare birds and reptiles.

The whole of Wales is now in drought, as the UK struggles with extreme heat, wildfires and dry conditions that experts warn may linger until the autumn.

The UK has endured its fourth heatwave of the summer, with temperatures topping 35C, as health authorities warned England is on track this year for the highest number of deaths caused by such hot spells since current figures began.

Natural Resources Wales (NRW) has extended its drought declaration – which was declared for North Wales and the Upper Severn last week – to cover the whole of the country, after very little rainfall and sustained high temperatures.

recognised with a prestigious national Bees’ Needs Award for its pioneering Life on the Edge project, which is helping to protect pollinators and restore vital habitats across the South Devon coast.

Presented by Defra, the annual award celebrate organisations making an outstanding contribution to supporting pollinators through habitat creation, conservation and community engagement. South Devon National Landscape received the award in the Communities category during a ceremony at RHS Wisley.

Made possible with support from The National Lottery Heritage Fund, Life on the Edge has become a leading example of landscape-scale nature recovery. Since launching in 2023, it has protected almost 144 hectares of habitat for pollinators, helped safeguard rare species, including the UK's last known colony of the Six-banded Nomad Bee at Prawle Point, engaged more than 9,300 people through events and learning opportunities, and been supported by volunteers contributing more than 300 days to conservation work.

Half of England has been declared officially in drought, as farmers warn the extreme conditions and record-breaking heatwaves are making it “harder, riskier and more costly” to produce food.

The Environment Agency says seven regions across central, eastern, and southern England are in drought after what is thought to be the driest July on record combined with soaring temperatures.

Agency bosses warned of lasting effects of the absence of rain on the environment, wildlife and the economy, while experts said farming was becoming increasingly precarious.

Pine marten kits have been born on Exmoor for the first time in over a hundred years, new footage has revealed.

A female marten with four babies was captured by camera traps as they explored the woodland.

Nine females and 10 males from Scottish Highlands populations were introduced to the area by the Two Moors Pine Marten Project last year.

About 200 dormant orchids are being relocated to a new nature reserve to safeguard their future.

The orchids at Greenabella Marsh, near the Tees estuary, are to be transported and replanted at specially selected locations within the RSPB Saltholme nature reserve in Stockton-on-Tees and Seaton Common National Nature Reserve, Hartlepool.

The marsh is set to become an intertidal habitat as part of the Environment Agency's plan for flood alleviation in the area.

Permission could be refused for a traditional hunt of young seabirds to take place on an uninhabited Hebridean island later this summer.

For centuries, gannets have been killed for their meat during an annual hunt on Sula Sgeir, a small rocky island 40 miles (64km) north of Ness on Lewis in the Western Isles.

NatureScot officials have recommended board members refuse granting a licence for this year's hunt due to the potential impact on Sula Sgeir's gannet population. The officials said animal welfare concerns were also considered.

Gardeners across the UK are being urged to help hedgehogs and foxes ad the heatwaves take their toll on wildlife.

Animal rescue centres are “fit to bursting” with animals suffering from heatstroke, the RSPCA said.

The UK is going through the fourth heatwave in a row and temperatures are expected to peak as high as 35C across south-eastern England on Wednesday.

A long orange beak poked curiously out from its wooden crate, followed by a sleek head and slender body. Then the first white stork of the morning flapped its wings and took to the air. Moments later a second emerged tentatively to stalk through the long grass, followed closely by a final sibling who stretched its wings and explored the length of the enclosure.

The trio of juvenile white storks have just arrived at their new home in Willington Wetlands in Derbyshire and conservationists are hopeful that their presence will kickstart the return of the birds to the Midlands after an absence of more than 600 years.

“It feels absolutely incredible,” said Katie Last, the living landscape officer for Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, who has overseen the project and manages the nature reserve. “To see white storks back at Willington feels like a real milestone. We’ve put years of work into restoring this landscape. I’m over the moon with how it all went. Our next aim is to get to the point where they’re a sustainable population and they can live outside, flying around and people can see them moving through the landscape.”

A 10-year plan to clean up some of London's rivers and waterways has been announced by Sir Sadiq Khan, who says they have suffered from "decades of neglect and pollution".

A total of £1.8bn has been pledged by water companies, boroughs and charities, with London's mayor adding £2.7m across three years, on top of £13.6m already promised.

The city's main waterway, the River Thames, has been polluted by at least 72 billion litres of sewage discharges since 2020, BBC News revealed in 2023, although that figure was likely to be much higher.

A wildlife conservation trust working to save a native frog species says it is "incredibly proud" after winning an award for the work.

Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust has been safeguarding Jersey's agile frog - the island's only native species of the animal - since 2001, following a steady population decline.

It has helped thousands of froglets back into the wild through its Agile Frog Recovery Programme, which has been recognised as the Best Conservation Project Award at the Conservation Awards.

Leading climate scientists who created Greater Manchester’s carbon neutral by 2038 commitment are urging Andy Burnham to unequivocally reject new drilling in the North Sea.

In a letter to the prime minister they said he, as mayor of Greater Manchester, had unveiled one of the UK’s most ambitious local climate programmes that tackled housing, green growth and public transport.

Reports over the weekend continued to suggest Burnham was set to give the green light to controversial new drilling in the North Sea by approving the Jackdaw and Rosebank oilfields, which were given approval under the Conservatives but put on hold by legal action. The ruling in court said a more detailed assessment of the environmental impact was required to take into account the effect on the climate of burning any fossil fuels extracted.

A conservation project in County Tyrone says it has been making progress tackling an invasive species that has been described as the UK's "most dangerous plant".

Giant hogweed contains a sap which can leave painful blistering and scarring when it comes into contact with human skin.

The plant can grow up five metres high, and it is usually found in places with damp soils, such as riverbanks and coastal areas.

Water charities are calling on new Prime Minister Andy Burnham to do more to prevent sewage and pollution ending up in our rivers.

Data compiled by environmental charity the Rivers Trust suggests there were sewage spillages in North Cotswolds rivers for at least 3,470 hours in the past year.

Campaigners say one of the big culprits is Thames Water, which services most of the North Cotswolds area.

Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust has collected more than 100,000 seagrass seeds from underwater meadows in the Solent, providing the next generation of seed for its ongoing efforts to restore one of the UK’s rarest marine habitats.

The seeds were gathered from seagrass meadows during a series of low-tide collection sessions at Calshot in Hampshire and Seaview on the Isle of Wight, where volunteers waded and snorkelled through shallow waters to carefully collect mature seed from flowering shoots bearing flowering heads called spathes.

The collection forms the next stage of the Trust's long-term seagrass restoration programme, which has been working to bring this lost habitat back to the Solent since 2021.

Almost three-quarters of riverbanks in England have no public access, according to data released by the Right to Roam campaign.

Across the country, the public cannot use riverbanks or gain access to the rivers themselves in most of the river catchments from the west of Cornwall up to the Tweed, which flows through northern England and Scotland.

Lewis Winks, an environmental social scientist from Right to Roam, who led the research, said: “Access to rivers should be a basic right, yet the vast majority remain off limits. As we continue to experience extreme heat, it’s vital the public are able to draw from the benefits that water brings.”

Hundreds of species have been found living on former farmland bought by a charity following a £1.5m appeal.

The Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire took ownership of Strawberry Hill in 2024.

The 377-acre (152-hectare) site between Kettering and Bedford has now been found to contain half of Bedfordshire's nightingales, as well as 11 bat species and 50 species of moss.

An air raid shelter that once protected families from bombs during World War Two has been turned into a haven for wildlife including birds, insects and hedgehogs.

Plot holders at Brookfield Allotment have planted a wildflower garden on the roof of the bunker and installed shelters and drinking stations for insects and animals beside it.

Work at the site in Urmston, Greater Manchester, has been made possible with the help of local businesses.

The story of Sorrel the hen harrier is an exceptional one.

Ringed and satellite tagged on Langholm Moor in south Scotland a decade ago, simply by surviving and still being trackable she is a most unusual bird.

Natural England records show that the majority of her peers have either died, been killed or are categorised as "missing - fate unknown".

It is a warm but windy evening in East Sussex and we are on the hunt for glow worms.

As the sun sets on the Benfield Hill Nature Reserve, just outside Hove, a distinct green glimmer starts to flicker in the chalk grasslands.

This site is hailed as a "stronghold" for glow worms in Sussex and with the insects' summer breeding season well under way, conservationists say they have spotted 60 glowing females on one evening at the reserve.

In the recent summer heatwave, a number of unusual, exciting animals have been spotted in the Brighton and Hove waters.

Parts of Cornwall's coastline have become an important refuge for one of England's rarest bumblebees, conservationists have said.

The Bumblebee Conservation Trust said the Moss Carder bumblebee is now found in only a handful of locations after disappearing from many parts of the UK where it was once common.

The species survives in a few hotspots, including Penhale near Perranporth, the Lizard and Gwithian Towans.

Frogs; newts; small fish such as minnows and sticklebacks; dragonflies; water boatmen and water snails: these are just a few of the hundreds of animal species that make their homes in Britain’s ponds alongside diverse wetland plants, some of which are endangered. Yet while small bodies of water are cherished by hobbyists as well as scientists, they have startlingly few protections – even at a time when the polluted state of rivers, lakes and coastlines is a key focus of environmentalists.

With a clean water bill expected soon, this official neglect of ponds should soon be consigned to the past. While rewilding projects have overseen the rediscovery of older “ghost ponds” as well as the creation of new, and householders are encouraged to create miniature ones in their gardens, charities including the specialist Freshwater Habitats Trust point to the growing body of international research that testifies to their ecological importance. In 1996 the first-ever national survey estimated that there were 228,900 ponds in Britain. Thirty years on would be an apt moment to grant them enhanced status.

The decline of ponds is part of a wider story of damage to the UK’s waterways by a combination of intensive agriculture, building development, pollution and the failure to manage it. One local study in Leicestershire has found an average 1% species loss every year for 15 years. But unlike rivers, many of which disappeared underground when they were culverted by the Victorians, around two-thirds of ancient ponds in England and Wales have vanished altogether either through drainage or infilling for farmland. When horses were replaced by tractors, it was wrongly thought that these pools had served their purpose.