UK Nature and Environment

JULY is the peak of summertime glory. Warm summer days are punctuated by the hum of insects; our butterflies and moths fluttering their way through our grassy green spaces and bees buzzing in search of nectar. Birds dance their way through gloriously blue skies, and many of our mammals emerge to bask in the summer sun.

Yorkshire’s meadows and grasslands come alive in summer too. Orchids burst into being in a riot of sculptural colour, bellflowers, plantain and field scabious turn their faces to the skies, and globeflowers spread out across fields in a sunny spectacle. Hoards of butterflies and moths flutter in amongst the stems, as skylarks sing their hearts out overhead.

Rich in variety, grassland meadows, hay meadows and floodplain meadows have unique wildlife that relies upon subtly different habitat to survive. The recent State of Yorkshire’s Nature report also found that meadows formed on limestone and wetland landscapes are key wildlife habitats in Yorkshire. These protect our most important Yorkshire Stronghold Species, those found in few or no other place, and give a home to many Species of Conservation Concern.

Birmingham has been recognised as the UK's first official Nature City by a group including the National Trust and Natural England.

The city has been awarded the accolade as part of a programme working to improve access to nature in urban communities.

The award recognised the role played by the city council and others in providing communities in Birmingham with better access to nature and green spaces.

Water companies spilled raw sewage for a record time of 3.61m hours into sea and rivers in England in 2024, according to data from the Environment Agency.

Rules allow a limited discharge of sewage in periods of excess rain, but environmental groups remain concerned that the levels post a threat to wildlife and a health risk to swimmers.

Sewage spills into England's lakes, rivers and seas by water companies increased slightly in 2024 to 3.614 million hours up from 3.606 million hours in 2023. However, the Environment Agency said that the total number of spills were down - meaning that on average spills in 2024 were longer in duration.

A barn owl mum discovered at a Lincolnshire farm has been described as rare and incredible. Not only is the creature the oldest barn owl ever to have been recorded, the female was found successfully breeding a six-week-old chick.

The bird of prey has left experts amazed after she was discovered at Eastfield Farm in Hough. The incredible creature is 18-years-old - and experts are sure she’s the oldest barn owl ever recorded in Britain or Ireland.

The owl was ringed as a chick, the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) have confirmed, she had a ring placed around her leg in Nottinghamshire back in 2007, allowing tracking of the bird.

Everyone cherishes the sight of a wee black-nosed hedgehog pottering about in their garden - yet many remain oblivious to the challenges these prickly creatures face during the summer months.

While we humans may grumble about the heat, we have the luxury of fans, chilled pints or a refreshing plunge in the pool to keep us cool. In contrast, wild hedgehogs encounter two primary difficulties - a scarcity of succulent insects to feast upon and a lack of cool water bodies to frolic in.

The majority of hedgehogs are born in June and July, and according to Hedgehog Street, the charmingly named baby hedgehogs, or hoglets, are making appearances in back gardens nationwide.

A prehistoric fish that predates the dinosaurs is thriving in a North Wales river after the removal of a well known weir. Last summer the EU-funded LIFE Dee River project, led by Natural Resources Wales, removed a large proportion of Erbistock weir, on the River Dee.

Following this removal fisheries experts have discovered 25 sea lamprey redds (nests) upstream of the former barrier. They said this is a clear and tangible sign that environmental interventions on the River Dee are gradually transforming the ecosystem for the better.

Earlier this month, the project team captured drone footage highlighting one of these redds just 40 metres downstream of Manley Hall gauging weir. This confirms the removal of Erbistock(Overton) weir in Wrexham county has opened up an additional four kilometres of critical habitat, enabling these incredible, prehistoric fish to return to spawning grounds long restricted by man-made obstacles.

Nurturing Natural Connections is a transformative five-year project that will restore urban wildlife and empower communities across Cumbernauld and The Conservation Volunteers (TCV) will play a key role in delivering it.

Supported by National Lottery players through The National Lottery Heritage Fund, this is a wide-reaching programme of nature restoration and community engagement. As part of this, TCV will expand our charitable work in the area and deepen our impact on both people and nature.

Healthcare professionals are being trained to use nature in treating people with poor mental health, it has been announced.

Natural England said it was funding courses so NHS staff from across Sussex could learn how to work in outdoor settings.

It comes as less than half the population say they've been to the countryside or a local park recently, according to government statistics, external.

"The importance of open spaces cannot be underestimated," said Sarah Davies, Natural England's principal adviser for partnerships in Sussex and Kent.

Adaptations to some butterflies' habitats are being made to help them cope with erratic weather driven by climate change.

The Wiltshire Wildlife Trust is hoping for a bumper year for butterflies in 2025 following the record-breaking spring heat, but warns overall the insects' populations are drastically dropping.

The trust is trialling four e-shaped mounds, called butterfly banks, on its Coombe Bisset reserve to offer the creatures a space both to warm up and to cool down during heatwaves.

Ministers will take action to tackle all forms of water pollution in England and Wales, the government has promised, as the sector awaits the findings of a report on the water industry on Monday.

The commitment by Steve Reed, the environment secretary, aims to highlight that, while sewage spills into waterways are a significant source of public concern, runoff from farms and roads also makes up a critical part of the pollutants going into rivers and other bodies of water.

A report on the water industry in England and Wales, led by Sir Jon Cunliffe, a former deputy governor of the Bank of England, is due to be published on Monday morning, and is expected to recommend the abolition of Ofwat, the water industry regulator.

NATURE enthusiasts are celebrating after a rare moth was spotted in Essex for the first time in 50 years.

The forester moth is listed in The Essex Field Club species account as “very scarce” and was first recorded in Essex in 1895.

With 13 total records, the latest record was in 1974.

A council that transformed intensively mown areas into thriving wildflower corridors to help insects and wildlife has won an award.

Bedford Borough Council was honoured with the Bees' Needs Champion Award 2025 for its pollinator-friendly initiatives. It previously won in 2021.

The authority said it had worked to provide food and shelter for animals, as well as "safeguard open spaces from vehicle incursions by planting wildflower-rich landscape features along park boundaries".

Spotting a rare sea slug in UK waters was "absolutely incredible" says an underwater photographer.

Maria Munn from Swanage, Dorset, captured the Warty Doris near Old Harry's Rocks in Studland Bay earlier this month.

The ocean lover who volunteers with Seasearch, a project led by the Marine Conservation Society, said she was "so excited" and had to "do a double take".

Barn owl conservationists in Sussex say they are worried about a drop in population numbers as they aim to find out what has caused the "worst breeding season in decades".

Volunteers say they have seen fewer than 10 chicks in nest boxes across the county so far this year, a marked decline on previous breeding seasons which had generally seen a recovery in barn owl numbers.

Researchers from the University of Brighton are trying to discover why numbers are so low. They are monitoring what the barn owls eat to help study their habitat.

A coalition of environmental and heritage bodies has launched a billion-pound mission to bring nature into the heart of urban areas in the UK.

The first phase of the Nature Towns and Cities initiative will involve £15.5m being invested in 40 towns and cities across the four nations.

Schemes that will be funded range from the launch of a large regional park to improving micro green spaces on the banks of canals and rivers.

People are being urged to help measure the scale of Britain’s butterfly bounceback after last summer’s dramatic decline with this year’s launch of the world’s biggest insect survey.

The Big Butterfly Count asks volunteers to spend 15 minutes in a local green space counting the butterflies and day-flying moths they see. Results of the survey, which takes place from 18 July to 10 August, can be logged on the Butterfly Conservation charity’s website or via its free app.

Naturalists say it has been an “outstanding” summer for butterflies and other flying insects but the Big Butterfly Count will determine whether it has been better than average or simply a return to normal after the dismal, butterfly-less summer of 2024.

Simply create a wild patch, record its location online and encourage much-needed natural insect prey and nesting materials for native hedgehogs

This July, gardeners, families and individuals are being urged to create wild patches as part of a new campaign to make more spaces with natural insect food and nesting materials for native hedgehogs.

The new ‘Go WILD for Hedgehogs’ campaign from Hedgehog Street – run by wildlife charities People’s Trust for Endangered Species (PTES) and The British Hedgehog Preservation Society (BHPS) – simply involves leaving a wild, undisturbed patch in a garden and recording its location online. Not only does this create much-needed food and shelter for hedgehogs, but also tells conservationists at PTES and BHPS where hedgehog havens are, and where more are needed.

A pair of peregrine falcon chicks have fledged their nest at a newly constructed box on a water tower.

Cameras at BT's Adastral Park in Martlesham near Ipswich captured an unorthodox take-off by the first to leave, a male bird.

Raptor expert Peter Merchant said the chicks had survived "against the odds" and were the offspring of birds that had been regularly seen fighting.

Their eggs took 44 days to hatch - far longer than the expected 33 days.

Ecologist Sally-Ann Hurry from Mountfield Ecology was commissioned by Tarmac to carry out a bat assessment of a property near Rochester in Kent. The results of this assessment would inform how bats needed to be considered in the proposed maintenance and repair work.

During the building inspection, a small number of bat droppings were found within the roof void. Sally-Ann collected a sample of the most recent droppings and submitted them to Ecotype Genetics for DNA sequencing, which would confirm to which bat species they belonged to.

The results came in and, to everyone’s surprise, they were identified as belonging to the rare grey long-eared bat! To be absolutely certain of this result, the sample was re-tested and the results came back the same. The bat droppings in this Rochester property were definitely from a grey long-eared bat. This species is currently listed as Endangered in the IUCN Red List for British Mammals,

The government is putting pressure on wildlife organisations to drop their opposition to its planning bill, the Guardian has learned.

Some of Britain’s biggest nature charities including the RSPB, Wildlife Trusts and the National Trust say the legislation risks widespread destruction of nature. The charities want a key section of the legislation, part 3, scrapped entirely because they say it is a “licence to kill nature”.

Leading figures from the organisations were summoned by the government to a meeting last Friday where officials put forward nine amendments to the language of the bill, which they say offer greater environmental protections. In return for accepting these, ministers want the nature groups to stop their campaign, the Guardian has established from several sources.

Pine martens have been seen thriving in the New Forest after being absent from the national park for decades.

Once widespread across the UK, pine marten populations were left devastated due to habitat loss and persecution which left only a small amount, mostly in northern England, Scotland, and parts of Wales.

In 2024, a three-year study of the weasel-like species revealed that populations had return to the New Forest after decades and Daily Echo camera club member, Trev Stadd, manged to capture some amazing pine marten pictures in Ashurst near Totton.

Two beaver kits have been born on Northumberland's Wallington Estate. The new arrivals mark the second consecutive year of successful breeding since four Eurasian beavers were reintroduced to the estate in July 2023.

Rangers recently observed signs of lactation in the adult female on wildlife cameras in early June. This week, camera trap footage captured the first sightings of the young kits with their mother.

The news of the two new arrivals come just one year and two days after the first kit to be born in Northumberland in over 400 years was announced last July.

Dartmoor is a place where the wild things are. Rivers thread through open moorland past towering rocky outcrops. Radioactive-coloured lichens cling to 300m-year-old boulders. Bronze age burial mounds and standing stones are reminders that humans have been drawn here for thousands of years. It is considered one of the UK’s most beautiful and precious landscapes.

Much of this moorland is officially protected as a site of special scientific interest (SSSI) because it is considered home to the country’s most valued wildlife. Its blanket bogs, heathlands and high altitude oak woodlands are treasure troves of nature.

But the wildlife that once depended on these habitats is vanishing. Dartmoor is known for its diverse birdlife, but breeding populations of golden plover, red grouse and ring ouzel have disappeared, or are on the verge of local extinction.

And Chris Packham's view here.

The River Lugg in Herefordshire has been named as one of the worst waterways for containing hazardous chemicals known as biocides, it has been revealed.

Environmental groups Wildlife and Countryside Link (WCL) and the Rivers Trust examined official water quality data from English rivers for seven key biocides including fungicides, a herbicide and insecticides.

Seven were widespread in rivers, the study found, but the River Lugg, along with the River Teme at Powick in Worcestershire, was among the 12 showing the highest numbers of individual biocides.

It could take thousands of years for a cross-border peatland destroyed by fire to return to ecological health, a conservation group has warned.

The fire on Slieve Beagh raged for three days in May.

The bog is an important site for biodiversity and is home to the endangered hen harrier.

Roy Spence, from the River Blackwater Catchment Trust (RBCT), said it was "a battle" to get the ecosystem back to where it should be.