UK Nature and Environment

Ladybirds are among the cutest creepy crawlies: you find handbags in the shape of them, and some people think they bring you luck if you wish on one.

But even the loveliest things can get a bit much, and you might have noticed there being rather a lot of the cute red bugs around this year.

Either we’re all about to see something extremely fortune happen (Keir Starmer would be happy about this), or there’s something else going on.

A precious stone set in a silver sea. The British have long considered their isles a sort of Eden and seabirds would certainly concur: with 19,491 miles of coastline and fish-rich seas to plunder, our avian neighbours unsurprisingly find the place an absolute des res.

For statistical starters, 80% of the world’s Manx shearwater breed here, 60% of great skua and 34% of European shag. It’s not only the quantity of our coastline that draws them in, it’s the quality: the wave-girded inaccessible islets and the towering sea cliffs with ledges that provide near impregnable nesting refuges for seabirds. Skomer was once the haunt of men — Vikings — now, it is the home of Manx shearwaters and puffins.

That question, of course, is: what is a seabird? Peregrines and choughs live on cliffs, but they are not seabirds. A true example is an avian that relies on the ocean to survive and whose body has evolved for the marine world, often developing what amounts to superpowers in the process.

Multi-million pound funding secured to put community at the heart of new town conservation initiative

A five-year wildlife restoration project that will see thousands of trees planted and tens of thousands of wildflowers sown across Cumbernauld has been given the green light, with almost £3million of funding announced.

Nurturing Natural Connections will be delivered through the Cumbernauld Living Landscape initiative, a partnership led by the Scottish Wildlife Trust, and builds upon the success of the programme’s previous project, Creating Natural Connections.

The National Lottery Heritage Fund has now confirmed £2.6million support for the project.

The UK is breaking heat and rainfall records increasingly frequently as its climate continues to warm, the Met Office has warned.

The country's changing weather patterns mean the UK now experiences a "notably different" climate to what it was just a few decades ago, its State of the UK Climate report says.

We now have many more very hot days and many fewer extremely cold nights, according to this latest assessment.

Osprey has bred successfully in Norfolk for the first time in more than 250 years.

Nestlings were first seen on 20 June at Ranworth Broad near Wroxham, where a pair of Ospreys had returned for the third year in a row. Norfolk Wildlife Trust (NWT), which manages the site, confirmed that at least two chicks have been seen in the nest.

Teala Leeder, senior visitor centre manager, said: "Getting my first glimpse of the chicks and confirming our greatest hope was just incredible. It also gives visitors the chance to catch a glimpse of these impressive birds of prey and their young."

A countryside charity has said it wants to create a "pollinator paradise" for bees, butterflies and other insects as part of a project to transform overgrown land at a Surrey farm.

The Countryside Regeneration Trust (CRT) said it wanted to use Pierrepont Farm, in Frensham, as a site to grow wildflowers and build insect nesting areas.

The project is aiming to protect pollinators in the local ecosystem, with many species in decline nationally.

The health of rivers across south-east England is under growing threat as hot and dry weather has caused water levels to plummet and pollution to spike, according to the Angling Trust.

The charity warns that the UK's hottest spring on record coupled with pollution has pushed some rivers -including the River Medway in Kent and River Wandle in Surrey - to the brink.

Conservationists say low flows and concentrated pollutants such as ammonia and nitrates - that come from the likes of farming and sewage - have caused fish to die.

Watch: Red kite glides over fields in drone video

A videographer has used a drone to capture footage of a red kite in mid-flight over the Norfolk countryside.

Paul Jones said he first became interested in the birds five years ago and had been trying to get the perfect shot ever since.

"This is hands down the best thing I've ever filmed," he said.

Mr Jones, 41, from King's Lynn, first started flying drones nine years ago and said he always filmed from a safe distance and did not disturb the birds.

Two baby beavers have been born in Cornwall as part of a wildlife reintroduction project.

The parent beavers, Twiggy and Byrti, were introduced to a purpose-built enclosure on the Lost Gardens of Heligan estate in 2023 and 2024 respectively.

It was part of a national programme of reintroducing the species more than 400 years after their extinction in Britain, said The Lost Gardens of Heligan.

In 2022, Butterfly Conservation reported that numbers had dropped by 80%, external since the 1970s.

David Finkle, chief executive of Markshall, in Coggeshall, said: "This year we have seen a butterfly bomb... It's almost like a cannon of butterflies has exploded, and they're absolutely everywhere."

Of the 59 butterfly species present in the UK, the charity has spotted 28 on its 2,200 acres so far this year.

Temperatures are set to reach highs of 34C on Friday and possibly Saturday with the sweltering temperatures continuing into early next week.

Dr Kevin Collins, a senior lecturer of environment and systems at the Milton Keynes-based Open University, said wildlife felt "stressed by heat that changed their behaviour on a daily basis - they need to seek shade.. and better access to water and food.

"Birds, in really hot weather, will fly less, which means they're not accessing food, not hydrating properly, which weakens them and causes disease and mortality."

Devon Wildlife Trust said 15 martens were reintroduced on Dartmoor in 2024 following a 100-year absence.

It said camera trap footage, at a secret site, revealed the first glimpses of the kits and conservationists behind the project said they were "ecstatic" to see the animals had successfully bred.

"This is a historic moment for the return of a native animal and for the future of the South West's woodlands," said Tracey Hamston who leads the Two Moors pine marten project.

Forestry England needs to urgently step up its ancient woodland restoration before the irreplaceable habitat is lost for ever, campaigners have said.

Findings by the campaign group Wild Card suggest that in the 10 most recently assessed years Forestry England, which is in charge of the country’s woodlands, has fully restored just 5.8% (2,484 hectares/6,138 acres) of publicly owned plantations on ancient woodland sites (PAWS).

The actor Judi Dench has joined a campaign to conserve the “ancient wisdom” and ask for a funded government strategy to urgently restore England’s oldest and most precious forests.

Toxic Pfas above proposed safety limits in almost all English waters tested

Exclusive: 110 of 117 bodies of water tested by Environment Agency would fail standards, with levels in fish 322 times the planned limit Rachel Salvidge Fri 11 Jul 2025 10.00 BST

Nearly all rivers, lakes and ponds in England tested for a range of Pfas, known as “forever chemicals”, exceed proposed new safety limits and 85% contain levels at least five times higher, analysis of official data reveals.

Out of 117 water bodies tested by the Environment Agency for multiple types of Pfas, 110 would fail the safety standard, according to analysis by Wildlife and Countryside Link and the Rivers Trust.

They also found levels of Pfos – a banned carcinogenic Pfas – in fish were on average 322 times higher than planned limits for wildlife. If just one portion of such freshwater fish was eaten each month this would exceed the safe threshold of Pfos for people to consume over a year, according to the NGOs.

Environmentalists and economists are urging the Government to abandon damaging proposals (currently under consultation) to exempt all small development sites (under 1 hectare) from crucial biodiversity requirements. The call comes as new research, BNG in Small Developments, highlights this would be a major setback for nature recovery and risks collapsing the emerging biodiversity credits market.[2] Instead, the research shows that by removing the very smallest sites (under 0.1ha) from the scheme altogether but ending loopholes for larger sites, a “win-win” could be achieved for nature and development.

New analysis by eftec, commissioned by The Lifescape Project and Wildlife and Countryside Link, shows the extent of current BNG rule misuse and the likely future impacts if the Government removes BNG requirements for all small sites.

Thousands of young people across England taking part in the National Education Nature Park programme are supporting global biodiversity research by mapping out the habitats on their school sites.

The National Education Nature Park, commissioned by the Department for Education and led by the Natural History Museum working with the Royal Horticultural Society and additional partners, sees young people creating a network of nature-rich spaces on school sites across the country by turning them from ‘grey to green’ through creating new habitats such as ponds, green walls and grasslands.

The programme has recently reached the milestone of more than 1,000 schools creating a map of the habitats on their site, recording an area of over 11 million square metres, equating to around 8,800 Olympic-size swimming pools. From recording trees and hedges, grassy areas, or even bare ground, mapping existing habitats is the exciting first step in young people understanding what their education site offers for nature, and choosing how to make meaningful improvements. Using curriculum-linked resources from the programme and digital tools developed with Esri UK, these habitat maps allow schools to track their progress over time as well as contributing to cutting-edge scientific research.

German researchers visited Norfolk to see how conservationists protect birds nesting along the coast.

The group from the Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union (NABU) met with the RSPB to share experiences of managing similar species on beaches in Europe.

Mick Davis, senior beach warden on the Norfolk coastline, said the area was home to one of the largest colonies in the northern hemisphere of little terns.

The health of rivers across south-east England is under growing threat as hot and dry weather has caused water levels to plummet and pollution to spike, according to the Angling Trust.

The charity warns that the UK's hottest spring on record coupled with pollution has pushed some rivers -including the River Medway in Kent and River Wandle in Surrey - to the brink.

Conservationists say low flows and concentrated pollutants such as ammonia and nitrates - that come from the likes of farming and sewage - have caused fish to die.

Only one grey squirrel has been caught in Aberdeen so far in 2025, and red squirrel sightings are on the up!

Conservation efforts are proving effective in Aberdeen City and the surrounding area, with numbers of grey squirrels falling significantly in recent years. Only one grey squirrel was caught in the first six months of 2025, and just a handful of other grey sightings have been reported.

Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrels (SSRS), a partnership project led by Scottish Wildlife Trust, has been working in Aberdeen since 2009 to remove the isolated, or ‘island’ population of grey squirrels from the North East.

Surrey Wildlife Trust (SWT) has urged people to record five key species in the county.

The organisation wants residents to look out for a mammal, bird, reptile, plant and insect that it said typify Surrey's wildlife.

SWT said its Five2Find app could be used to log "once common" species, including swifts, slowworms, peacock butterflies, bats and the oxeye daisy.

A rare flower has been rediscovered for the first time in seven years thriving in a nature reserve - thanks to perfect weather conditions and the control of dense vegetation.

The Tubular Water Dropwort, a member of the carrot family of plants, had been threatened with near extinction.

About 130 of the plants were found by the Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust team at Rye Meads Nature Reserve near Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire.

An Environment Agency (EA) insider has broken ranks to expose what they describe as a “deliberate and ongoing cover-up” of the public health and environmental dangers of spreading sewage sludge on farmland.

They accuse the regulator and government of colluding with water companies for years to facilitate the dumping of waste under the guise of soil enrichment – without oversight, transparency or testing.

“This has been going on for decades,” they said. “The sludge regime is still being run under guidance created by the water companies. And when the Environment Agency finally funded research that uncovered real dangers, they buried it.”

To the untrained eye, Monks Wood looks healthy and lush in the summer sun. Hundreds of butterflies dance on the edge of footpaths in the ancient Cambridgeshire woodland, which is rich with ash, maple and oak trees. Birds flit through the hedgerows as they feed. A fox ambles through a forest clearing, before disappearing into long grass.

But for a number of years, it has been clear to Bruno Ladvocat and Rachel Mailes that something is missing. In 2022, Ladvocat, Mailes and their research team from Birmingham University were out sampling when they noticed that the small trees that typically cover the woodland floor were increasingly hard to find.

Today, in the dappled sunshine surrounding the largest trees, spaces that would normally be home to a mass of saplings scrambling for light are bare.

A new, free app is helping to build a better picture of how critically endangered flapper skates are faring around Scotland’s coasts.

The SkateSpotter mobile app builds on the success of the online flapper skate photo database, which began when angling charter skipper, Ronnie Campbell, gave 400 digital photos of flapper skates to the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS) in 2018. Seven years later, SkateSpotter, curated by NatureScot with contributions by even more anglers, contains over 4,000 photos of over 2,500 individual flapper skates recognisable by their distinctive spot patterns matched with the help of AI.

With the new, free SkateSpotter app now available on the Play store and the App store, NatureScot is asking anyone who spots a flapper skate to take a picture and report it. The mobile phone app is designed to make it easier for the public to submit photos on the go but older photos can also be uploaded since the app recognises the date and time the photo was taken.

Some 50 European Turtle Doves and 10 White Storks have been released in Devon this summer.

During the second week of June, Rewilding Coombeshead, led by Derek Gow, released the doves at the site near Lifton, south-west of Okehampton. All have remained close by, settling in nearby trees, the organisation reports. Annual releases are planned in the future, too.

At the end of May, 10 White Storks were released and have since taken up residence on the land. Rewilding Coombeshead hopes that the birds establish a breeding colony on site.