UK Nature and Environment

At 9.15am the male bird took off and soared towards the reservoir in search of a meal. Sixty minutes later he was back, and over the next hour or so he and his mate took turns sharing the fish he had caught and sitting on their three eggs.

The appearance of these two ospreys on farmland in the Usk valley in mid-Wales is seen as a milestone in the recovery of the species.

It is believed to be the first time a pair has nested and produced eggs in these parts for more than 200 years, and the site is thought to be the farthest south in the UK for a pair that has not been deliberately reintroduced.

At its meeting on Wednesday the 30th of April, the Eryri National Park Authority adopted its first ever Tree and Woodland Strategy. It is the result of nearly two years of co-designing with partners, the public and land owners and managers to expand, protect and restore the National Park’s wooded landscape.

Our wooded landscapes have a key role to play in our response to the climate emergency and our nature recovery efforts. As well as acting as carbon stores, improving air quality and mitigating the effects of heavy rainfall, trees provide a safe habitat and food source for a variety of wildlife. As they form ecosystems that play a critical role in carbon sequestration, we have co-designed a 100-year strategy that outlines how we will protect and develop them based on three core principles including safeguarding existing trees, managing our woodlands better, and connecting and expanding our woodlands.

For almost two years the Eryri National Park Authority has been co-designing the Eryri Tree and Woodland Strategy with the support of Coed Cadw. During the development phase, the public and land owners and managers were consulted to ensure an ambitious but deliverable strategy that offered flexibility to take action in a way that didn’t compromise productive land.

Visitors are being warned to take extra care when visiting a popular north Wales lake after harmful algae was found in the water.

Eryri National Park said the blue-green algae was present in parts of Llyn Tegid in Bala, Gwynedd.

The authority has urged people to be careful around the lake and avoid direct contact with the algae.

Walk along the gin-clear River Itchen in Hampshire and you might see otters, salmon, kingfishers and clouds of mayflies, all supported by the unique ecosystem of the chalk stream.

The UK has no tropical rainforests or tigers; its wildlife is arguably more modest in appearance. But its chalk streams are some of the rarest habitats in the world – there are only 200, and England boasts 85% of them. If you look properly, they are as biodiverse and beautiful as any rainforest.

Despite the rarity and importance of these very pure rivers, which are full of minerals from the chalk aquifer, they have no specific legal protections. Environmentalists fear the Labour party’s planning bill will use the country’s departure from the EU to make it legal for developers to destroy them, as long as they offset the damage by paying into a fund to create nature somewhere else.

A ban on fishing for sand eels in UK waters will remain in place despite a legal challenge from the EU.

The small, silvery eels make up the bulk of the diet of seabirds, but they are fished for commercial pig food. A lack of sand eels means seabirds such as puffins can starve to death.

After the UK left the EU, the previous Conservative government banned European countries from fishing for sand eels in British waters.

More than 2,000 American mink have been captured since a project to eliminate them from the islands began in 2001.

Saving Nature Outer Hebrides said a "total removal" of the carnivorous mammals was possible after receiving a £94,000 grant from the Scottish government's Nature Restoration Fund.

The animals were first brought to Scotland for the fur farming industry in the 1950s, but they became feral after the farms closed and began threatening native birds.

Housing developers will be able to build on once-protected green spaces without having to replace the loss of nature in the nearby area, the Guardian understands.

New nature areas, parks and community gardens created to offset the removal of green spaces to make way for housing developments may not even have to be in the same county, under the new planning and infrastructure bill, sources at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said on Thursday.

The planning and infrastructure bill, which is currently at committee stage, has provisions to allow developers to build on green spaces and remove nature from local areas, if they pay into a fund which will create habitats elsewhere. The aim is to streamline regulations for developers so they can speed up their projects and the Labour government can meet its target for delivering 1.5m new homes by the end of this parliament in 2029.

Two landscapes separated by a wide sweep of river tell a story of change. On one side is traditional farmland, close-cropped grazing, uniform grasses, neatly tended hedges and a sparsity of trees, a farmscape ubiquitous across England. On the riverbank opposite, rougher, less uniform grasses grow unevenly between trees, thistle and brambles, in a chaos of natural disorder swaying in the breeze towards the reedbeds below.

The land on the Sharpham estate side of the River Dart used to be a mirror of the traditional farmscape on the opposite bank. It hosted a non-organic dairy farm and a vineyard, within a tightly controlled 18th-century heritage landscape of deforested parkland.

But five years ago the managers of the trust began a process of nature restoration within the 223-hectare (550-acre) site in south Devon, with a vision of tackling the twin crises of the 21st century: a rise in people suffering from mental health conditions and a catastrophic loss of the natural world.

As the planting season nears its end, Forestry England is celebrating the completion of an ambitious four-year woodland creation programme with 1.8 million trees planted at 16 new woodlands across England expanding the nation’s forests.

Launched in March 2021, the programme, funded by the Government’s Nature for Climate Fund, has planted 16 new woodlands across England together covering 1,000 hectares. These woodlands will offer rich habitats for wildlife, beautiful spaces for people to enjoy and be a sustainable source of timber in the years ahead.

York Community Woodland was the first new site to open to visitors in August 2024, with more set to welcome people this year. Most of the new woodlands will have public access under CROW designation, alongside the majority of the 1,500 woodlands and forests in Forestry England’s care.

Wildlife trusts and environmental charities are joining calls for people to take part in No Mow May.

The campaign urges gardeners to avoid mowing their lawns to give pollinators, such as bees and butterflies, a boost by allowing wildflowers to thrive.

Avon Wildlife Trust and nature protection charity, Plantlife, are amongst the organisations supporting the annual campaign.

A Scottish summer is synonymous with the humble yet pesky midge.

But Glasgow University scientists have confirmed the continued rise of its distant cousin - the mosquito.

The country is now home to more than 20 different species of the biting insect, and some have been identified in Shetland - the most northern location to date.

A citizen science project that saw volunteers set up bat detectors in locations around the North York Moors National Park captured more than 1.2 million recordings of bats, with at least 10 of the UK’s 18 different species confirmed as present in the area. The project, which was part of the Ryevitalise Landscape Partnership Scheme, also provided unexpected evidence of the northwards spread of three different species of bush cricket across the UK countryside.

Between 2020 and 2024, the Ryevitalise project worked with volunteers to conduct bat monitoring between May and September each year. Anyone was able to collect and set up the equipment in a pre-arranged location where it was then left for four nights. The devices used detect and record ultrasound, such as the echolocation calls of bats, but also noises from certain other animals, including shrews, rats, moths and crickets. Volunteers uploaded their audio recordings to the British Trust for Ornithology's ‘Acoustic Pipeline’, which uses machine learning to automatically identify species. The results are then accessible to participants through an online platform.

In total, the study captured more than 2.2 million wildlife recordings, with 1.2 million of these confirmed as having come from at least 10 different species of bats. Also recorded were four species of small mammal (common shrews, brown rats, Eurasian pygmy shrews and wood mice), along with three species of bush cricket and two audible moth species.

The long-term decline in the number of flying insects being splattered on cars after a journey is well recognised by older drivers. But the latest survey has revealed that the number of insects found on vehicle number plates has plummeted by 63% since 2021.

An analysis of records from more than 25,000 journeys across Britain since 2021 reveals an alarming apparent drop in flying insect abundance, although the rate of decrease slowed in 2024.

Bug splats on the numberplates of citizen scientists using the Bugs Matter app for the Kent Wildlife Trust and Buglife survey declined 8% from 2023 to 2024, after sharper drops of 44% in 2023 and 28% in 2022.

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One of the most distinctive sounds on the Isle of Skye is being heard in greater numbers again thanks to the efforts of crofters.

The ‘crex, crex’ call of corncrakes – which can be made by a single male up to six million times during the breeding season - was once a familiar sound across the UK.

However, following a dramatic fall in numbers in the 20th century, the species had been left teetering on the brink of extinction.

It marks Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust’s first nesting tower across its estate, and provides much-needed secure nesting sites for these red-listed bird species.

Swifts and house martins have experienced significant population declines in recent decades, due to habitat loss and a reduction in suitable nesting sites. The UK breeding population of swifts have declined by 66 percent between 1995 and 2022, while house martins have declined by 44 per cent.

Standing five metres tall, the tower features 23 swift boxes and 12 house martin cups, offering much-needed breeding opportunities. It incorporates ventilation to keep the nests cool during warmer months and is equipped with solar panels and speakers to play pre-recorded bird calls, attracting young birds searching for a nesting site to settle into.

Efforts to create a huge new wildlife haven in the South Downs National Park through private investment are well under way.

Over 50 hectares of the Iford Estate – or 80 football pitches – have now been formally dedicated to nature restoration, thanks to two groundbreaking legal agreements with the National Park Authority.

Iford has just signed a second Section 106 agreement with the Authority, bringing the East Sussex estate a step closer to its vision of devoting two thirds of the estate to nature. The 18.75 hectares of new space for nature comes on top of the 31.8 hectares dedicated to wildlife in 2023.

The government has made very little progress in preparing the UK for the growing threats posed by rising temperatures since coming to power, its climate watchdog has warned.

In a highly critical report, the independent Climate Change Committee says progress is "either too slow, has stalled, or is heading in the wrong direction".

From hospitals and care homes to food and water supplies, this could leave the UK vulnerable to serious economic and health impacts in the decades ahead, the CCC warns.

Conservation groups are urging ministers to reject plans for an offshore wind farm which the developer predicts will kill tens of thousands of seabirds.

Five charities, led by RSPB Scotland, have written to the first minister to argue that approving Berwick Bank in the Firth of Forth would undermine efforts to protect nature.

SSE says it has already amended its designs to minimise any potential risks to Scottish seabirds.

Scientists at the University of Glasgow have developed a new modelling tool to improve protection for seabird species impacted by offshore wind farms.

The tool, published in Methods in Ecology and Evolution, is the first to accurately predict the space used by seabird colonies without relying on large amounts of satellite-tracking data, which is often unavailable.

The arrival of new plant pests and diseases is likely to severely damage UK trees and woodlands in the coming decades, new research shows.

The ash dieback epidemic prompted the government to assess all pests and diseases that could potentially enter the UK and affect our trees and agricultural crops.

In the new study, University of Exeter scientists assessed the 636 tree pests and diseases to work out the invasion probability and likely effects on tree growth.

Gardeners are being urged to resist mowing their entire lawns in efforts to support struggling butterfly populations.

Last year was one of the worst years on record for butterflies, according to the results of Butterfly Conservation's Big Butterfly Count.

Experts at the organisation say mixed lengths of grass are best for providing food and shelter, ideally with naturally occuring plants such as dandelions left to flower.

The government is failing to support the natural regeneration of trees in England owing to an overwhelming focus on planting, campaigners have said.

Recent figures show only 5% of Forestry Commission grants for woodland creation have been spent on the natural regeneration of trees, while the remaining 95% is spent on tree planting.

Natural regeneration is a process through which trees grow and reproduce in the wild without human interference by self-seeding, growing new stems from roots and natural seed colonisation.

For years, conservationists have been working to bring native trees back to the spectacular Glen Rosa on the Isle of Arran.

But a decade of effort was wiped out in days when a wildfire ripped across the valley earlier this month.

"It was years of our work going up in flames," Kate Sampson, the National Trust for Scotland's senior ranger on Arran, told BBC Scotland News.