UK Nature and Environment

The water regulator is taking action against four more water companies, including Severn Trent and United Utilities, meaning every wastewater company in England and Wales is under investigation over sewage spills.

Ofwat said it had served formal notices on Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water, Hafren Dyfrdwy, Severn Trent and United Utilities, asking them to provide evidence for its investigation into companies’ wastewater management in England and Wales.

The regulator has looked at the companies’ environmental performance and data about how often they spill from storm overflows. It said this had heightened its “concerns that these companies may not be fulfilling their obligations to protect the environment and minimise pollution”.

A nature reserve in Guildford, Surrey, is set for improvements as £1.3 million of investment plans are announced.

Riverside NR is situated in the north-east corner of Guildford. The core part of the reserve is Stoke Lake – formed in the 1970s when a gravel pit was dug out for road-making materials used for the re-routing of the A3, which now serves as a boundary flanking the south-west of the lake.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Stoke Lake was one of the more productive birding sites in Surrey. Unfortunately, it now suffers from considerable disturbance, especially from dog walkers, and the selection of waterbirds found here is not what it once was.

One of the UK’s weirdest, and least understood, birds is facing increasing challenges as a result of wetter springs and ongoing insect declines.

Researchers from the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) have been tagging rare nocturnal Nightjars, in the hope of better understanding the secret life of these peculiar visitors.

As dusk falls, an eerie sound drifts across the heath. A strange, almost mechanical, insistent purr. This is the sound of a male Nightjar, a bird that most people have never even heard of, let alone heard or seen for themselves.

A pod of bottlenose dolphins were caught on camera frolicking on the River Clyde at the weekend. Locals in Greenock and Helensburgh observed the playful group of between 10-20 dolphins in the Firth of Clyde throughout the day on Saturday and Sunday.

Footage shows the mammals breaching the water and flying into the air, much to the delight of people watching from the coast and in small boats.

Amateur photographer Fiona Cook said the pod had been regulars in the area for the last few years. She admitted that they can be hard to spot at times but put on "an incredible spectacle" when they are playing.

A campaign is under way to save the last remaining wildflower meadows in Nottinghamshire.

Since the 1930s the county is said to have lost nearly all its meadows, which are a vital haven for wildflowers and wildlife.

Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust (NWT) has launched a £10,000 appeal to support its work at sites in its care.

Suntory Beverage & Food GB&I (SBF GB&I), the proud producer of Ribena and UK’s third biggest soft drinks manufacturer, is leveraging AI technology to reveal a remarkable story of biodiversity across a number of its blackcurrant farms this harvest season. The project – in partnership with the Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group (FWAG) South West – reveals the presence of a range of threatened bird species across hedgerows, woodland and grasslands.

Analysing the birdsong across these blackcurrant farms, the project is helping to demonstrate how farm stewardship can go hand in hand with wildlife protection as part of SBF GB&I’s broader commitment to improving biodiversity and supporting its growers as they respond to climate change.

Ecologists have started work to turn a former livestock farm into a nature reserve.

Derbyshire Wildlife Trust hopes the land attached to Common Farm in Nether Heage will become a "mosaic of habitats" for insects, birds and mammals.

It said rewilding farmland could benefit food security locally by encouraging pollinators, improving soil health and soaking up flood water.

Supporters helped the trust to buy the farm through a crowdfunding campaign which raised almost £300k.

The new 83-acre reserve will help connect existing Derbyshire wildlife habitats at Crich Chase to the north and Wyver Lane to the south west.

Today, Monday 15th July, WTSWW reveals plans to improve habitats and recreate temperate rainforest at Trellwyn Fach near the Pembrokeshire coast. Rainforests used to cover much of the west coast of Britain, though were destroyed over hundreds of years and only fragments remain.

Rainforest restoration forms part of a wider programme of nature-based projects funded by Aviva to remove carbon from the atmosphere and help wildlife recover. Communities in Pembrokeshire will be closely involved in the project, with ambitions to provide volunteering, educational and employment opportunities, as well as improved access to nature.

The project at Trellwyn Fach is part The Wildlife Trusts’ Atlantic rainforest recovery programme, made possible through thanks to share of £38 million donation from Aviva.

Water companies must be transparent with the public about sewage spill data, the UK’s information commissioner has warned.

John Edwards has written to the water companies calling on them to be as transparent as possible with their customers, and has asked them to disclose information related to sewage discharges every month.

Water companies have recently been uncooperative with data requests, refusing to reveal memos and data about sewage discharges.

The companies operate a monopoly, meaning customers cannot switch to another provider if they are unhappy with the service. One of the few powers the public has is to request data about sewage spills under freedom of information laws.

Endangered eels are being released into rivers by school pupils across the West Country.

Schools in Gloucestershire and Somerset have been given tanks as part of a project to educate children about the species which is facing a "dramatic decline".

Flood defences like the Huntspill sluice are stopping millions of eels each year swimming through the Somerset Levels, the Sustainable Eel Group (SEG) said.

Pupils at Churchill School in Langford said they have “really enjoyed” feeding eels and releasing them back over the barrier at Tealham Moor.

Labour’s animal-welfare and environmental policies may be better than the Tories’ – but they contain disappointing gaps, experts say.

In a YouGov poll last year, a third of voters said animal welfare was one of their top three issues.

So new environment secretary Steve Reed will come under pressure from lobby groups – and in some cases, from opposing countryside and farming factions.

Highland Council has launched a 12-week public consultation on its draft Ecology Strategy and Action Plan.

The draft strategy and plan were approved at May’s meeting of Highland Council’s economy and infrastructure committee, setting out a set of actions to tackle biodiversity loss and address the ecological emergency.

Committee chairman, Councillor Ken Gowans, said: “The climate and ecological emergencies are interconnected, and biodiversity loss threatens our well-being and survival.

A charity has warned there are no "litter fairies" in the Lake District and reminded visitors to take home their mess or risk harming the national park and its nature.

People expecting to find bins on open fells and a lack of knowledge about the impact of food waste are some of the reasons people leave litter strewn around, Friends of the Lake District said.

Research carried out by Keep Britain Tidy showed most people "don't want to litter" the national park, but do so when they are unprepared.

A pod of 77 pilot whales that died after washing ashore in Orkney were healthy before they became stranded, according to initial findings.

The animals were found on the island of Sanday on Thursday following what could be the largest mass stranding in nearly 100 years.

Cetacean specialists - whose expertise is in aquatic mammals - have been examining tissue samples to establish the cause of the stranding.

Mariel ten Doeschate, from the Scottish Marine Animal Stranding Scheme, told BBC Scotland News that thorough post-mortems had so far been carried out on about 30 whales.

The chicken industry is facing calls to halt the expansion of intensive production in the River Severn catchment, with campaigners warning that the river is at risk from the same pollution that has blighted the River Wye.

An outcry over the ecological plight of the Wye has effectively halted the proliferation of intensive poultry units across the catchment. Campaigners say that the pollution threat is being transported “from one catchment to the other”.

The ecological health status of the Wye was downgraded in May last year by Natural England. Campaigners warn of phosphates from poultry litter that are being washed into the Wye and fuelling the growth of algae blooms, which can suffocate a river.

A goal to renature a huge swathe of land in Sussex and Hampshire to help fight biodiversity loss is almost halfway to its target.

In 2021, the South Downs National Park set a goal of transforming 13,000 hectares (32,100 acres) into habitat for wildlife by 2030.

A total of 6,082 hectares (15,000 acres) has so far been created or improved to help nature thrive.

Gardeners are being urged to mow ‘uneven’ strips into their lawns this summer for a stark reason.

No Mow May is long since finished and gardeners across the UK have been breaking out the lawnmowers through various times in June and July - at leat, when the torrid wet weather has allowed.

But the ‘catch all’ approach of just marching onto the lawn and mowing the whole thing to one length is soon to be a thing of the past.

A proposed £1.2bn scheme to recycle effluent from the sewage system and turn it in to drinking water has been criticised as a threat to the environment and a potential costly “white elephant”.

Southern Water wants to treat effluent – wastewater from the sewage system – at a plant at Havant in Hampshire and pipe it into a nearby spring-fed reservoir to boost water supplies during droughts. The scheme would ensure less water is extracted from two rare chalk streams: the Rivers Test and Itchen.

It would be the first reservoir in the country to use recycled water derived from effluent to supplement its levels. Regulators says effluent recycling is successfully used overseas, providing plentiful and safe supplies, but campaigners say there are more environmentally friendly options.

Anyone with even a passing interest in the natural world will have noticed a dramatic phenomenon this year: a lack of insects. Perhaps most noticeable is the near-absence of butterflies. Species that are usually common, such as large and small whites, small tortoiseshells, gatekeepers, ringlets, peacocks and meadow browns, are in many places down to the point of having almost disappeared. This is certainly the case where I live, in Cambridge.

Bee populations seem to be down here, too, with flowery margins that would at this time of year normally be alive with pollinators now eerily quiet. Hoverflies are depleted, moths scarce and aphids have either appeared very late or not at all. Buddleia bushes, with their fragrant mauve flowers that are usually festooned with butterflies, moths and many other insects, sit naked of their normal visitors.

There are several probable reasons for this sudden reduction compared with typical summers. The weather has not helped, with a cool and wet spring across much of the country suppressing insect numbers. But even with that factored in, this year’s sudden drop comes after many years of much longer-term decline.

Stag beetle researchers have called on people across London to record any sightings to help track the insect's whereabouts and numbers.

Britain's largest beetle species has been in "steep decline" across much of Europe but the capital remains a "hotspot", according to the London Wildlife Trust.

The beetle, whose males have distinctive antler-like jaws, are most commonly found in west and south-west London's parks and woodlands.

North and east London has seen fewer recorded sightings over the years, which the trust says remains unexplained.

A baby beaver has been born on a Northumberland estate for the first time in more than 400 years, the National Trust has announced.

The small aquatic mammal is thought to have been born in late May on the Wallington Estate.

It comes just a year after a family of Eurasian beavers were released into a large enclosed area on the 5,431 hectare National Trust site.

A group of environmental campaigners have created an app to help keep track of pollution levels in local rivers.

The idea came from members of the River Rivelin and Loxley Rangers, a volunteer group based in Sheffield.

Users have been encouraged to submit photos and videos of pollution in the waterways that can then be reported to the Environment Agency

Experts from around the UK have arrived in Orkney to carry out examinations and post-mortems on pod of 77 pilot whales that died after washing ashore.

The animals were found on the island of Sanday on Thursday following what could be the largest mass stranding in nearly 100 years.

Cetacean specialists - whose expertise is in aquatic mammals - will use tissue samples to establish the cause of the stranding.

A species of beetle has been rediscovered after a gap of 86 years.

The great silver water beetle was found in a trap at the Great Fen in Cambridgeshire by a researcher surveying for newts.

The last record of the species in the area was at Wicken Fen in 1938, according to monitoring and research officer Henry Stanier.

"I was staring down at a much bigger beetle nearly four centimetres in size and unlike the others, which are black and yellow, this was jet black and looking very different... that's when we got very excited," he said.