UK Nature and Environment

Thousands of starlings have been putting on a display above a street in Hull.

The flock of birds first appeared four weeks ago, but have since been joined by many others during their murmuration at dusk.

Sarah Richardson, who filmed the spectacle, said: "There's absolutely thousands of them."

The birds fly together in large groups called murmurations to create shapes and scare away predators.

Trees in ancient Denbighshire woodland have been given a regal look at they live out their dying days. Shorn of their crowns, they’ve been given coronets instead.

The pruning technique mimics the way diseased and wind-damaged trees appear when their trunks are fractured. Those pictured here are at the Graig Wyllt (Wild Rock) Nature Reserve, a former limestone quarry near Ruthin.

Oak and ash trees covers the craggy slopes of a site that gives way the a grassland panorama giving spectacular views of the Vale of Clwyd and the Eryri mountains beyond. The place positively blooms in spring when the woodland floor is carpeted with flowers.

Water quality at a popular wild swimming spot in Shropshire will be monitored by a new £25,000 project.

The Environment Agency (EA), with funding from the River Severn Partnership Advanced Wireless Innovation Region, has installed high-tech sensors in the River Teme at the Linney Riverside Park, Ludlow.

The trial, lasting two months, will provide daily remote readings. Previously, water quality was manually checked once per week.

Kent Wildlife Trust has issued an appeal for people to stop removing ivy from trees on their sites, following a series of incidents at East Blean Nature Reserve.

The charity’s social media plea to protect the plant has sparked widespread debate, amassing over 750 comments, 600 shares and 1,700 reactions.

Conservationists at Kent Wildlife Trust say that ivy has an “unfair reputation,” with many mistakenly believing it damages trees. In reality, ivy is a vital component of the ecosystem, providing crucial support to wildlife throughout the year.

More fires, taking hold over more months of the year, are causing more carbon to be released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.

Fires on peatlands, which are carbon-rich, can almost double global fire-driven carbon emissions. Researchers found that despite accounting for only a quarter of the total UK land area that burns each year, dwarfed by moor and heathland, wildfires that burn peat have caused up to 90% of annual UK fire-driven carbon emissions since 2001 – with emissions spikes in particularly dry years.

Peat only burns when it’s hot and dry enough - conditions that are occurring more often with climate change. The peatlands of Saddleworth Moor in the Peak District, and Flow Country in northern Scotland, have both been affected by huge wildfires in recent years.

Norfolk Wildlife Trust (NWT) and its partners were behind the project to find the ponds or "pingos" which originated through natural glacial processes more than 10,000 years ago.

NWT said dormant seeds preserved in sediment layers in the Brecks had germinated, bringing back a variety of aquatic plants, including rare fen pondweed.

"We think we are seeing one of the world's most successful ecological restoration techniques unfold and reveal its true potential," said University College London (UCL) professors Helene Burningham and Carl Sayer.

n partnership with landowners The Welbeck Estates Company Ltd and contractors Ebsford Environmental Ltd, this ambitious restoration is part of The Three Rivers Restoration Project. The project is a collaboration between the Trust and Severn Trent which aims to deliver a programme of essential measures to improve the water environment in three rivers within the Idle Catchment, for which Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust are the Catchment Hosts. The 3 rivers covered by the project are Rainworth Water, Vicar Water and the Bevercotes Beck. The Trust is being supported in the delivery of the Three Rivers Project by specialist staff from its subsidiary EMEC Ecology.

Vicar Water flows through the country park named after the river and then alongside Clipstone Colliery, owned by The Welbeck Estates Company Ltd. The 600m section undergoing restoration – from the railway bridge to Baulker Lane - was previously heavily modified, with much of it buried in an underground railway culvert. Initial ground works by Ebsford has now exposed the culvert, which hasn’t seen the light of day in around 70 years.

The planned work includes restoring a more natural river channel through ‘deculverting’ and river regrading, introducing berms, riffles, pools and meanders to improve water flow and enhance wildlife habitat. These are in channel features that diversify the hydro-geomorphology of the river, increasing biodiversity opportunities, improve fish passage and increase water quality. In addition to this, creation of floodplains increases water storage capacity and can contribute to flood alleviation and wetland habitats.

Plans to cull goats which are said to be disrupting conservation efforts in Dumfries and Galloway is set to take place over the next few months.

Oxygen Conservation, the land owners of where the goats live, say that the plans are necessary to the wider environment, with goats known to try and eat almost anything.

The plans though have been met with anger by protestor Emma Ritchie who is set to set-up a petition to try and stop the cull.

Kestrels, weasels, shrews, wood mice and other small mammals had been slowly disappearing from around the River Lea until hundreds of volunteers began rebuilding their ecosystems with piles of logs, artificial food caches and by selectively cutting trees, known as coppicing.

Ian Phillips, an ecologist who has helped lead the river restoration project over three years, said it "feels like it happened almost overnight".

"It was just absolutely amazing to see everything fall into place."

The agency said there were 25 incidents of heavy rain washing off farm fields into rivers, roads or homes in January, nearly double the number of incidents reported during the same period in 2024.

It said some previously used methods of preventing erosion no longer work and the window for taking action had become shorter due to climate change.

Farmers are being asked to risk assess their land and install measures to prevent run-off reaching property and watercourses.

The Cornwall Wildlife Trust, which has been collecting data on sightings, said the number had "gone through the roof".

The whales have been spotted in both Watergate Bay and Mawgan Porth.

Bex Allen, marine conservation officer at the trust, said the team have had confirmed sightings of at least five whales across Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly.

Legislative proposals to help restore nature and protect biodiversity in Scotland have been introduced to Parliament.

The Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill, which will now be considered by MSPs, would place a duty on Ministers to set legally-binding nature restoration targets and will modernise how national parks and deer are managed.

The legislation is a key part of the Scottish Government’s Strategic Framework for Biodiversity and complements the Scottish Biodiversity Strategy and related delivery plans.

An MP has warned of an “environmental disaster” after around 4,000 litres of diesel leaked from a bus depot storage tank in Croydon on Tuesday, leaving wildlife covered in oil.

The oil is said to have entered the River Wandle in Thornton Heath and has impacted wildlife and water quality from Wallington to Wandsworth.

Birds have been coated in oil, struggling to clean themselves and survive in the contaminated water, according to the Liberal Democrats.

Experts have raised fears for the seals at England’s largest colony after four were found to have died after having been infected with bird flu.

Government scientists are investigating to find out whether the seals died after scavenging from the corpses of infected birds.

Four seals on the north Norfolk coast were found dead on the shoreline and tested positive for bird flu. Two of these were at Blakeney Point, home to the largest seal colony in England with about 4,000 pups born each year.

An amateur wildlife photographer has captured incredible pictures of a humpback whale off Newquay Cornwall.

Adrian Langdon, from Wadebridge, spotted the impressive mammal near Watergate Bay last Thursday (Feb 13).

He says: "I was on board a boat surveying the coast as part of the Cornwall Seal Group Research Trust regular seal and marine life surveys.

Otters have made a return at a nature restoration project in Hampshire – the first confirmed sightings in the spot for more than 70 years.

A mother otter and pup have been spotted at Ewhurst Park, a 925-acre former shooting estate bought in 2020 by environmentalist and former model, Mandy Lieu, who has set about restoring it into an “edible landscape” for nature and sustainable food production.

The team at Ewhurst said they had captured footage on wildlife cameras showing the mother and pup playing, swimming, scent marking and using bark from a fallen tree to groom their fur.

The boss of Rainham Marshes nature reserve has promised the site is "not going anywhere" amidst charity-wide cuts.

Alan Johnson, RSPB area manager for Kent and Essex, has assured that Rainham Marshes will be protected as a reserve in the future after its shop and cafe were scrapped.

These were part of sweeping cuts across the conservation charity, revealed exclusively by the Recorder in October, which put several other nature reserves at risk of complete closure.

However, Mr Johnson called Rainham Marshes a "hyper important" reserve, which will not shut due to it being a "hotspot" for certain bird species and other wildlife.

An improvement in freshwater biodiversity in England’s rivers was linked to reductions in pollution of zinc and copper, largely due to the decline of coal burning and heavy industry, say researchers.

Invertebrates are used as an important measure of a river’s biodiversity and health, and Environment Agency data show there was a widespread, significant increase in species richness across England in the 1990s and early 2000s. However, there has been little significant further improvement since then.

Therefore, a team of scientists led by the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) looked for the possible reasons for this, using statistical modelling to investigate a wide range of different chemical and physical factors, such as temperature, river flow and landscape.

Reintroducing wolves in the Scottish Highlands could lead to an expansion of native woodland which could take in and store one million tonnes of CO2 per year, environmental researchers have suggested.

A study led by researchers at the University of Leeds said reintroducing the species into the Cairngorms, south-west, north-west and central Highlands could help curb the problem of red deer eating tree saplings, which stops natural woodland regeneration.

The researchers estimate that if wolves were reintroduced, a population of around 167 of the animals would thrive, which they say is enough to reduce red deer populations to a level that would allow trees to regenerate naturally.

A beetle that has previously devastated Norway spruce populations across continental Europe has been found to be equally attracted to the Sitka spruce, a finding experts say could have significant implications for commercial forestry.

The eight-toothed European spruce bark beetle has now been found in the UK, raising fears for the Sitka, which accounts for a quarter of Britain’s forest cover and half its commercial forestry plantations.

Researchers said they did not know initially whether the insect would be as attracted to the Sitka spruce.

A nature reserve is to be expanded after a "spectacular" fundraising appeal saved fields from a potential housing development.

Durham Wildlife Trust (DWT) launched a bid to raise £54,000 to buy land near its Rainton Meadows reserve in Houghton-le-Spring in June last year and smashed the target within a week.

The money helped unlock a £540,000 Biffa award from the government's Landfill Communities Fund and in March the trust will take over ownership of the fields.

With significant long-term declines in UK butterfly abundance1, the desire to help by improving private gardens for butterflies and other wildlife has grown rapidly. While there is an abundance of advice from organisations and individuals, few wildlife-friendly gardening practices have been tested scientifically2. A recent study by Butterfly Conservation scientists, Dr Lisbeth Hordley and Dr Richard Fox, set out to provide robust evidence to underpin two commonly recommended practices, allowing grass to grow long and having flowering Ivy in the garden.

Previous research has found that particular garden features, such as the presence of trees and ponds, can increase insect biodiversity. For example, butterfly abundance and species richness positively correlate with a garden quality index derived from 17 different wildlife-friendly features in UK gardens3. More specifically, several studies have shown that flowering plants influence garden visits by butterflies4 and other pollinators5. It has also been demonstrated that garden size and the surrounding landscape can be important influences on the insect communities found in gardens6.

The new Butterfly Conservation research, published in Science of the Total Environment7, used six years of citizen science data from nearly 650 well-recorded UK gardens from the Garden Butterfly Survey. First, the researchers showed that despite a simple, non-standardised design, the Garden Butterfly Survey provides reliable estimates of abundance for butterflies that are commonly recorded in gardens. They also found significant correlations with garden size and the surrounding landscape; butterfly abundance and/or relative species richness were greater in larger gardens and in gardens with larger proportions of woodland and arable farmland in the immediate area, while the amount of urban land-use (which includes other houses and gardens) in the vicinity had a negative impact.

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Sinking into nature comes easy at the Plock of Kyle. I visit this tiny wedge of parkland on the west coast of Scotland, just across the bridge from the Isle of Skye, on a rainy day in late September, and park ranger Heather Beaton and I spend the afternoon wandering around its various ecosystems-in-miniature.

We clamber over rocks at one of its little hidden natural harbours. We freeze as black darter dragonflies land on her pink shoe by a pond. And we bend to peer at circles of huge mushrooms which have sprung up overnight in its tiny woodland.

A wildflower meadow, ponds, scrub habitat, coastline and even an area of peat bog can be found on this little 60-acre (24-hectare) plot, which boasts roe deer, otters, lizards, eels and a huge array of insects and birds. "We do describe it as a microcosm of Scotland," says Beaton. "If you think of all of the major habitats of Scotland, we've got them here on the Plock, just in miniature." It's an impression she works to cultivate. "The more little pockets we have, the more chance a person has to... end up having a nature experience," she says.

People are being urged to join the search for one of Scotland’s smallest species – a moth just a few millimetres long – to help save it from UK extinction.

The tiny Highland nymph, which is also nicknamed the Alpine coffee moth because of its cappuccino colours and its habitat in the mountains, is on the edge of extinction in Britain in the face of dwindling habitat.

The species, which is found in the Alps and Scandinavia and was only recorded in the UK for the first time in 1983, lives on two species of mountain willows, where its caterpillars eat the inside of leaves.

Ramsar is an international convention that gives accreditation to areas that need protection because they are particularly important to birds and other species.

The areas accredited are the Minquiers, Ecrehous, Pater Nosters and the south-east coast.

Steve Luce, Minister for the Environment, said the government would take its "responsibilities seriously" and it would be "more involved" with the management of the sites.