UK Nature and Environment

Wondering which butterflies you might spot in your garden this summer during Big Butterfly Count, the annual UK-wide survey aimed at helping us assess the health of our environment my counting the amount and type of butterflies we see?

It depends on the planting within your outdoor space – but you don’t just have to look at buddleia (also known as the butterfly bush) to spot a wealth of different species.

As many as 1,000 hectares (2,471 acres) of farmland could become a nature haven in the largest scheme of its kind in London.

The Enfield Chase Landscape Restoration Project is expanding on woodland restoration at Enfield Chase in north London.

That has seen 140,000 trees planted in the past four years.

In June a public consultation was launched so residents could have their say.

A campaign has begun to raise awareness of beach-nesting birds and their vulnerable nests.

Called Share our Shores, external, it has been launched by the Essex Wildlife Trust (EWT), Bird Aware Essex and the Royal Society for the Protection Of Birds.

EWT said beach-nesting birds like ringed plover, oystercatcher and little tern have been "facing declines since the 1980s".

The public has been urged to follow simple guidelines so the birds can lay their eggs and raise chicks safely.

The UK only has credible plans to achieve 19 per cent of the remaining carbon emissions cuts needed to meet it’s legally-binding target for 2037, according to a report by its own climate change adviser.

The Climate Change Committee also found plans to make up a further 33 per cent of the shortfall have “some risks”- while plans for the other 46 per cent are classed as either having “significant risks” or simply being “insufficient”.

Britain is only forecast to achieve just over half of the remaining emissions cuts required to hit its 2030 target.

A wildlife trust is seeking £54,000 to help buy fields near its nature reserve which it said could be sold to housing developers.

Durham Wildlife Trust needs to raise the money before October so it can buy the fields bordering the driveway to its Rainton Meadows reserve in Durham.

Emily Routledge, head of development and communications at the charity, said the trust had been trying to buy the land for years, but the landowner has only recently entertained its offer.

A National Trust nature reserve has been named the UK's newest dragonfly hotspot, a title awarded by the British Dragonfly Society.

Wicken Fen National Nature Reserve near Ely, in Cambridgeshire, has been recognised for its ongoing conservation efforts to create ideal conditions for the ancient, winged insects to thrive.

The reserve is home to 22 of the UK's 57 species of dragonfly, including the rare Norfolk Hawker.

Dragonfly Week is an annual celebration of our favourite insects – Dragonflies and Damselflies.

We invite everyone to join in the celebrations, wherever you are!

Dragonfly Week '24 will be held from Saturday 6 July to Sunday 14 July 2024.

A vagrant Bonaparte's Gull has returned to Oare Marshes in Kent for the twelfth summer in a row.

The bird was reported on The Swale, which is adjacent to the Kent Wildlife Trust reserve, during the morning of 21 June. The return marked the twelfth consecutive year that the gull has spent the summer months at Oare Marshes.

First found as a first-summer on 22 May 2013, the gull usually arrives in early July and departs in late August or early September. Aside in 2013, when it was first found, it has arrived in July every year bar 2015, 2018 and 2020. So, the June arrival this year is on the early side.

Help us find out how Blackbirds are doing in your garden and understand why they are declining in some areas.

The Blackbirds in Gardens project will help us understand how Blackbirds use gardens, and the potential effects of the Usutu virus on their population in the UK.

If you have access to a garden, have an interest in garden birds and can recognise a Blackbird by sight, then this survey could be for you!

A pond boom is happening in Britain’s gardens as people try to halt wildlife loss by digging water sources for amphibians and other aquatic life.

Data from the Royal Horticultural Society shows a marked increase in sales of pond greenery; their online store had a 35% increase in sales of pond plants for 2023 compared with 2022.

Garden designers at Hampton Court Palace flower show have noticed the trend and many ponds are popping up among the exhibits at the show, which opens on Monday, as a result.

The population of red squirrels in Cumbria looks to be showing signs of life following a difficult winter.

Squirrel pox was detected in the Lake District towards the end of last year bringing with it fears of the consequences it could have for the species.

While grey squirrels are largely resistant to the disease, their red counterparts are often much more susceptible to the condition.

However, hope has been renewed for their survival in the local area after a number of them were seen enjoying what the region has to offer.

An increasing threat of wildfires amid rising temperatures and Met Office warnings could have a "devastating" impact, according to the UK's largest woodland conservation charity.

The Woodland Trust says uncontrollable wildfires put people, wildlife and natural habitats at risk. And with a Met Office amber alert issued in parts of the UK, the Trust has urged visitors to woods, parks and green spaces to stay fire free.

With school holidays fast approaching, the conservation charity is expecting increased numbers of visitors to its more than 1,000 free, public woods across the UK, but says barbecues, campfires and discarded picnic rubbish could spark disaster.

Concerns have been raised about levels of E.coli in the River Thames ahead of Henley Royal Regatta.

Campaign group River Action said its water sampling by citizen scientists near Fawley Meadows showed "alarmingly high levels" of E.coli bacteria which can cause serious infections.

Thames Water, whose own sampling showed lower levels, said the study was "alarmist".

Regatta organisers have issued guidance to participants on "minimising the risk of illness due to proximity to polluted water."

More than 20 of the UK's largest homebuilding companies have signed a voluntary commitment to install bird-nesting bricks and create hedgehog highways on all new developments.

The Homes for Nature commitment, which has been signed by Barratt Developments, Persimmon, Taylor Wimpey, Redrow, and Bellway, aims to support swift populations and many more species across the country by incorporating more nature-friendly features in new homes.

In addition to promising to make nest bricks and boxes and hedgehog highways mandatory in all new low-rise homes, the housing developers have said they will consider introducing additional nature-friendly features in homes, such as bat roosts, insect bricks, and shelters for hibernating animals.

Bat Conservation Trust publishes its new three-year strategy (2024 – 2027), which is based on our 10-year Theory of Change (2024 – 2034).

The Theory of Change allows us to take a longer view while recognising challenges we need to overcome. The three-year strategy acknowledges that external factors are changing fast, and we need to be agile in our responses.

Our work has helped deliver one of the UK’s consistent conservation successes. Thanks to legal protection and conservation action we are starting to see very slow signs of recovery for some bat species. There is much left to do, and we remain vigilant to emerging threats, but we have a solid foundation for our work over the next decade.

An off-duty fisherman enjoying a boat trip with his wife spotted a humpback whale feeding on eels.

Peter and Becky Sanderson sailed from Bridlington harbour to Flamborough South Landing on Tuesday evening and were slowly making their way home when they spotted the whale.

The Bridlington couple, who both love whales, had booked an upcoming humpback whale-spotting tour in Iceland but Mr Sanderson joked they might now cancel it.

He said the encounter, which lasted about half an hour, was a "really special" experience and "might be a once-in-a-lifetime thing".

A farm is celebrating a record number of breeding pairs of lapwings, a bird red-listed as being of conservation concern in the UK.

The birds first began nesting at Lark Rise, a 400-acre arable farm, near Barton and Comberton in Cambridgeshire in 2018.

The farm is managed by the Countryside Regeneration Trust (CRT), a Cambridgeshire-based national charity promoting nature-friendly farming.

It said five breeding pairs arrived at Lark Hill this year, which was two more than 2023, and they managed to successfully fledge nine chicks.

If you go down to the sea today, there’s a good chance you will find something you’ve never seen before. With more than 10,000 miles of coastline and a rich mix of habitats, the Great British seaside is the perfect place for wildlife encounters. Whether you fancy a spot of beachcombing, rock pooling, bird watching or fish following, there’s plenty to keep you busy. With a few simple pointers on where and how to look, there are hundreds of coastal species to find. Grab a pair of wellies or a wetsuit and dive mask and the British coast is all yours to explore.

A new legal requirement for developers to demonstrate a biodiversity boost in planning applications could make a more meaningful impact on nature recovery if improvements are made to the way nature’s value is calculated, say researchers at the University of Cambridge.

From 2024, the UK’s Environment Act requires planning applications to demonstrate an overall biodiversity net gain of at least 10% as calculated using a new statutory biodiversity metric.

The researchers trialled the metric by using it to calculate the biodiversity value of 24 sites across England. These sites have all been monitored over the long-term, allowing the team to compare biodiversity species data with results from the metric.

Plant biodiversity at the sites matched values produced using the metric, but bird and butterfly biodiversity did not.

This means there’s no evidence that a 10% net biodiversity gain calculated using the statutory biodiversity metric will translate into real-life gains for birds and butterflies, without additional conservation management.

The Sands of LIFE project, funded by the EU and led by Natural Resources Wales (NRW), is ending after five years of recreating natural movement in dunes and revitalising habitats housing some of the country’s rarest wildlife.

Work has taken place at sites including Tywyn Aberffraw, Newborough, Morfa Harlech, Morfa Dyffryn, Laugharne-Pendine Burrows, Whiteford Burrows, Pembrey Coast, Kenfig Burrows and Merthyr Mawr Warren.

A total of 350 ha of works have taken place including habitat restoration, bare sand creation and new grazing areas – equating to 490 football pitches.

The Green party and the celebrity chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall are calling for a “protection zone” to be placed around one of the UK’s most beautiful but threatened rivers and have demanded “drastic” nationwide changes to the water industry’s management and regulation.

At a wild-swimming event on the River Wye on Wednesday, Fearnley-Whittingstall and the Green party’s candidate for North Herefordshire, Ellie Chowns, both took dips, but only after measuring the level of pollution in the water.

Fearnley-Whittingstall, who is a Green party member, said: “I love swimming in rivers and the sea. It makes me angry we have to check that it’s safe before we get in.”

It is easy to feel hopeless about the future of British wildlife. The 2023 State of Nature report found that one in six species are at risk of extinction, with the groups most under threat including plants, birds, amphibians and reptiles, fungi and land mammals. But many of us can do something simple to help: gardening.

“There are 23m gardens in Britain, so we can make a real difference,” says Rob Stoneman from the Wildlife Trusts. Gardens cover a bigger area than all the UK’s nature reserves combined, he says. “If you haven’t got a garden, perhaps you could have a window box, or get involved in a community garden, or apply for an allotment.”

Adrian Thomas from the RSPB says: “Twenty years ago, there was a sense that gardens contained bog-standard, unimportant wildlife. Research has now shown that gardens are some of our richest habitats. Villages often have more birdlife than the surrounding countryside.” He cites Jennifer Owen, who had a modest-sized suburban garden in Leicester. Over a 30-year period from 1971, she recorded 2,673 species of wildlife in her garden, including seven new to Britain and four new to science.

10th to 12th September, 2024 at the Springfield Country Hotel, Wareham in Dorset

Booking is open!

On a blustery morning in May on Shoreham-by-Sea’s west beach, Eric Smith and George Short are pointing out treasures the waves have left on the tideline. Cuttlefish bones and balls of whelk eggs, they say, are evidence of recovering marine habitats.

“Just give nature a bit of space and it will come back” says Smith, 76, a former lorry driver by trade, freediver by choice. He first started diving in Sussex coastal waters at the age of 11, and still recalls the underwater “garden of Eden” of his childhood, a kelp forest teeming with bream, lobsters and cuttlefish that stretched 40km between Shoreham and Selsey Bill. It vanished after years of intensive trawling, a destructive form of fishing involving dragging heavy nets along the seabed.

For decades, Smith was a lone voice in his community, battling to stop trawlers further destroying the seabed that hosted the kelp forest, a nursery and spawning ground for fish and other marine life and one of the country’s most biodiverse ecosystems.

POLITICIANS have gone “awol” on the environment despite four in five voters expressing concern about the climate and the natural world, conservationists warned today.

New polling for conservation charity WWF shows that while 80 per cent say they care about issues relating to climate, nature and the environment, only 45 per cent believe that politicians share their level of concern.

They face increasing pressure to do more on the environment after tens of thousands of people marched through London at the weekend.