Levels of a toxic “forever chemical” rose to 13 times the legal limit during Thames Water pilots for a controversial multimillion pound water recycling scheme that will pump millions of litres of treated sewage into the River Thames during drought.

The data from the pilots is in stark contrast to public comments from Thames Water that their water recycling project in south-west London will not harm the riverine environment.

In technical notes in the company’s files for the project, seen by the Guardian, the results from two pilots reveal the recycling system rapidly and significantly increased levels of a particularly toxic type of Pfas chemical perfluorooctane sulfonate (Pfos), a suspected carcinogen – breaching the legal limits by as much as 13 times.

Oxfordshire’s adder population is on the brink of extinction, conservationists have warned.

Following the confirmed extinction of the species in neighbouring Warwickshire, concerns have been raised about the future of Britain's only venomous snake in Oxfordshire.

Experts say the adder is now "all but extinct" in Oxfordshire, with records showing a sharp decline since 2000.

Little egrets have bred in north-east Scotland for the first time, as climate change pushes the range of these once Mediterranean birds further north.

Four of the distinctive large white chicks have fledged at NatureScot’s Forvie National Nature Reserve (NNR) this summer, in what is thought to be the most northerly breeding record in the UK.

Little egrets are a recent colonist of the UK, where they were first recorded breeding in 1996. The first Scottish breeding record was in Dumfries and Galloway in 2020. The UK population is around 1,500-2,000 pairs but the Scottish population remains small.

An island could protect 30% of its waters under plans aimed at safeguarding marine life.

The proposal would see about 50 sq miles (128.8 sq km) of sea around Sark in the Channel Islands receive additional protection under plans developed by the island's agriculture, environment and sea fisheries committee with support from the Blue Marine Foundation, local fishermen and marine experts.

Freddie Watson, Channel Islands project manager at Blue Marine Foundation, said marine protection could help safeguard sensitive habitats while supporting sustainable fishing.

The Fen Futures project will restore and reconnect Oxfordshire’s internationally important fens while pioneering new DNA techniques to understand and protect threatened species.

Berkshire, Buckinghamshire & Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust (BBOWT) and Freshwater Habitats Trust have announced a partnership project that aims to safeguard some of England’s rarest wetland insects and restore precious alkaline fen habitats across Oxfordshire.

The Fen Futures: Recovering Rare Fen Insects project will focus on eleven fen sites centred on the internationally important Cothill Fen Special Area of Conservation (SAC) and surrounding wetlands in west Oxfordshire. Together, these sites support nationally significant populations of four threatened species: the southern damselfly, orange-horned green colonel, clubbed general, and dark-winged soldier.

Hearing the trill or whistle of a bird while going about daily life is well known to boost people’s mood. But a new study suggests the psychological benefits of hearing birdsong are being threatened by traffic noise.

Researchers found that even low levels of traffic noise negatively affected the benefits to wellbeing that could otherwise be derived from listening to natural sounds.

Bird song has previously been associated with psychological benefits, including stress reduction and positive mood changes, while noise from traffic has been linked to both stress and annoyance.

A record-breaking number of choughs have made their nests around the Cornish coastline this summer proving the breed is in "robust health", a bird conservation charity has said.

RSPB England said 161 choughs had been counted in Cornwall - 32 more than the 129 recorded in 2025.

The charity said the new birds came from 56 successful breeding pairs meaning the average productivity of a Cornish chough nest was three fledglings.

Barn owls have had a bumper summer in County Fermanagh, with 10 chicks recorded across two sites.

The breeding success follows years of conservation work by Ulster Wildlife with local farmers installing nest boxes and improving habitat for the elusive bird.

There are thought to be fewer than 30 breeding pairs left in Northern Ireland. The chicks have had rings placed on their legs so that they can be recorded in any other areas they turn up in after leaving the nest.

On a rocky beach in Cornwall, a group of wetsuit-clad freedivers and snorkellers are wading into the shallows. Below St Mawes Castle, built by Henry VIII to defend Falmouth harbour, they disappear in a swish of florescent pink and green fins.

They are volunteers, trained by the Cornwall Wildlife Trust to use underwater cameras and floating GPS devices to detect changes in marine habitats over time.

Their work is vital because beneath the surface of Falmouth’s busy natural harbour, known as Carrick Roads, are two of the UK’s most biodiverse and carbon-rich marine habitats: lush seagrass meadows and purple-pink carpets of ancient maerl – a rare and fragile coral-like seaweed. They are some of the largest such beds in England.

As we're driving in a pickup truck to see the aftermath of a huge fire which burnt for more than a month in the Cairngorms, I spot fresh smoke coming from the ground.

My guide - RSPB Scotland's site manager at the Abernethy nature reserve, Ben Oliver-Jones - puts the vehicle in reverse and we jump out to see what's happening.

It's one of several hot-spots which keeps emerging a full week after firefighters left the scene, which Ben likens to a game of whack-a-mole in an already charred landscape where the smell of burning still hangs heavily in the air.

Sadly, it's now official – the adder, Britain's sole truly venomous reptile, is effectively history in Warwickshire.

Its disappearance from a county once regarded as a stronghold has been reluctantly confirmed by the Warwickshire Wildlife Trust.

And the adder may well have vanished for quite some time: there have been no verified sightings since the 1990s.

Wild beaver kits have been born in Norfolk for the first time in more than 500 years.

The pair of newborns are the offspring of two free-living beavers who mysteriously arrived in Pensthorpe nature reserve near Fakenham in December.

This couple, who have built a lodge on the River Wensum, were the first wild beavers recorded in Norfolk since the native species was hunted to extinction in England at the beginning of the 16th century.

A conservation group has warned that avian botulism outbreaks will become more common due to climate change after more than a hundred birds died in East Sussex.

The birds died after a suspected outbreak of the disease at Rye Harbour Nature Reserve, according to Sussex Wildlife Trust.

The charity's head of nature reserves, Jamie Parsons, said that as heatwaves and droughts become more common, "more outbreaks are going to come along with them".

A new conservation project is set to provide a more secure future for two of the UK’s rarest ant species.

The ants in question are the Narrow-headed Ant (Formica exsecta), the only English population of which is found at Devon Wildlife Trust’s Chudleigh Knighton Heath nature reserve, and the Erratic Ant (Tapinoma erraticum), a Nationally Scarce species which was recently discovered living at the Trust’s Bovey Heathfield nature reserve. Together, the two nature reserves are among the best and largest remaining examples of a heathland landscape that once covered much of the surrounding area of South Devon.

The Narrow-headed Ant takes its name from the distinctive ‘pinched-look’ of its head. The species is also found at a few sites in Scotland, with one recent discovery on the Royal estate at Balmoral capturing national headlines.

The eating habits of barn owls have revealed a wide and varied small mammal population hiding and thriving in a nature reserve.

Researchers from the Mammal Society have been analysing owl pellets found at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds' (RSPB) Saltholme reserve near Middlesbrough.

The pellets, which the birds cough up, contain undigested food such as bones and fur which makes it easier to see which animals are making a home in the area north of the River Tees.

The surprise return of beavers to the British countryside brings benefits and controversy for humans and wildlife alike. The work of these famously busy rodents increases local biodiversity, reduces storm-induced flooding, and restores wilderness to a highly manicured landscape. It also injects some chaos into the lives of the beavers’ human neighbors. Can the British beavers regain their former glory as powerful ecosystem engineers, or is their new home too domesticated to return to the wild?

2023

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdkZH3uM1BI

A total of 21 white storks have been released into the wild as part of a charity's aim to reintroduce them in the county.

Yan Swiderski, founder of the Cornwall Stork Project, released the storks from the project's base at Hamatethy, St Breward, near Wadebridge last week.

It is hoped the birds will eventually return to their roots when they are ready to breed, going on to raise their young in Cornwall and recolonising the area.

Reform UK-led Barnsley Council has announced its intention to withdraw its climate emergency declaration.

The party said a review of all climate and net-zero activity was under way, saying programmes that lacked a clear resident benefit, financial saving or statutory requirement should change or stop.

The council's intention is to withdraw the Climate Emergency declaration from 2019, Zero40, Zero45 and similar net-zero targets, and to direct resources to frontline services.

Tucked away on a country lane, a small field bursts with yellow and pink flowers. Quail and whitethroats call from the thick hedges and the plants, including common centaury, yellow rattle and marsh and common spotted orchids, bounce with hoverflies and butterflies.

More than 150 plant species have been recorded on Sayer’s Old Meadow, in north Norfolk, England, which is remarkable when there was just one – oilseed rape – growing there 21 years ago.

This transformation has happened without sowing any commercial wildflower mixes or making any other expensive interventions such as deep ploughing or top-soil removal, often undertaken when arable land is “restored” to nature-rich meadow. Instead, the four-acre field was simply cut for hay once every summer, with an abundance of wildflowers naturally – and rather mysteriously – finding their way into the field.

Fishing nets are the most likely cause of death for common dolphins stranded on Cornwall's coast, research shows.

More than 860 short-beaked dolphins were stranded from 2018 to 2024 and the vast majority were dead, it found.

The Defra-funded study by the University of Exeter, Cornwall Wildlife Trust and Cornwall Marine Pathology Team examined 175 stranded dolphins and concluded 39% died after getting tangled in fishing gear.

A pine marten has been spotted at a nature reserve in Powys – for the very first time.

The elusive mammal was recorded for the first time at Gilfach Nature Reserve, near Rhayader, with the sighting captured on a camera trap by Rhodri Blakeway, a conservation intern with the Radnorshire Wildlife Trust.

Mr Blakeway said: "Efforts eventually paid off after reviewing one batch of footage; the bushy tail and yellow bib of a marten appeared on my computer screen.

Wyre Marine Champions of all ages came together at Ferry Beach in Fleetwood to explore the wildlife living among the area’s sand dune plants.

The community engagement session, organised by The Bay Project, gave participants the opportunity to investigate the bugs and insects found in the dunes while learning more about the importance of the habitat.

The Fylde coast has lost 80 per cent of its sand dunes over the last 150 years. As part of Our Future Coast delivery, the session highlighted the role sand dunes play as a natural sea defence, as well as providing an important habitat for a wide variety of insects and plants adapted to the coastal environment.

A wildlife charity hopes funding of £760,000 will help the water vole population in Nottinghamshire to "thrive again".

Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust said it had secured government funding for its initiatives to bring back water voles and prepare for the return of beavers to the county.

Part of the funding will be used to "eradicate" non-native mink in Nottinghamshire, which the charity said threatened vole populations.

A county in Wales had one of the world's highest carbon emissions per square kilometre due to wildfires in July, according to a charity.

The fire above Blaenavon, Torfaen was described as "one of the largest and most challenging" in south Wales in recent years by the fire service.

Save the Children said it was concerned about possible health consequences after data, external published by the European Union's earth observation programme, Copernicus, showed Torfaen behind Malanje in Angola, Spain's Ávila and Annaba in Algeria in terms of wildfire emissions in July.

A joint project to create wildlife habitats across Westmorland and Furness has been given a national award.

The Planting for Pollinators scheme, run by Westmorland and Furness Council and Cumbria Wildlife Trust, won The Bees’ Needs Award Champion title from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Since the project launched in 2023, 22 sites have begun their transformation into species-rich lowland meadows or pollinator-friendly community gardens.