GreyShuck

One of the UK's rarest mammals - a grey long-eared bat - has been discovered at a nature reserve in Devon.

The species, which had not been seen at Seaton Wetlands since 2013, was spotted at a guided bat walk event there earlier this month.

Grey long-eared bats are incredibly rare, according to Wild East Devon, which manages 10 nature reserves. Fewer than 1,000 of them are thought to remain across the UK, it said.

The head of the government’s wildlife regulator has said he remains enthusiastic about reintroducing lynx to Britain and would be “absolutely delighted” if it could be achieved during his two-year term.

But Tony Juniper, the chair of Natural England, said debates over the animal’s release were “still quite polarised” and more engagement was required to understand how communities would be affected.

The Lynx UK Trust has submitted a draft application for a trial return of lynx to England’s largest forest, Kielder, in Northumberland, using wild animals rescued from culls in Sweden.

Suspected arsonists have devastated part of a popular Teesside nature reserve – killing birds and scorching an area of marshland.

A large section of Coatham Marsh in Redcar, which is home to many species of flora, fauna and wildlife, including many nesting birds, was set alight at about 6pm last night, Thursday, June 26. The blaze, which took firefighters nearly two hours to extinguish, covered the area with thick smoke and caused the cancellation of train services due to pass nearby.

A large area of grassland and reedbed habitat – roughly around the size of two football pitches – has been badly damaged, with devastating impacts to wildlife. It’s suspected various ground-nesting birds, including reed buntings and reed warblers, will have perished in the flames.

An old wooden signpost from a national park is on display in the Natural History Museum, due to having 12 species of lichen living on it.

The fingerpost from Exmoor has been part of the 'Fixing Our Broken Planet' exhibition at the museum since April to act as an example of an item recovered from an area with clean air.

Organisers said the aim was to help educate people and "explore nature-based solutions that can help create a more sustainable world".

Ranger Charlotte Wray, who assisted in the recovery of the post, said it was "such a joy to help tell the story of Exmoor".

Following a bad year for butterflies in 2024, the charity Butterfly Conservation is stressing it’s more important than ever that people take part in this year’s Big Butterfly Count.

Last year the charity declared a nationwide butterfly emergency because of declining butterfly numbers, after participants in the annual survey spotted just seven butterflies on average per 15-minute count in 2024, a reduction of almost 50% on 2023’s average of 12, and the lowest in the history of the Big Butterfly Count.

It was also the worst summer in the count’s history for a number of popular species including small tortoiseshell and common blue.

A wildlife rescue charity rescued, rehabilitated and released six juvenile peregrine falcons.

Secret World Wildlife Rescue in Highbridge, Somerset, said it had seen an "unprecedented influx" of young falcons this year.

The charity said each rescue involved a unique set of challenges, from cliffs and construction sites to power stations and city rooftops.

A creeping "invasion" has been threatening to smother one of Wales's most popular lakes. Lagarosiphon major, also known as curly waterweed, is an invasive aquatic plant that can rapidly grow and spread - potentially dominating and "smothering" lakes.

It is from South Africa and is so bad that it was put on the EU's List of Invasive Alien Species in 2016. This means it's against the law to sell this plant or throw it away in nature.

A bird conservation charity has received lottery funding to develop an outdoor education programme to encourage children to connect with nature.

Manx BirdLife received £4,900 to expand its education programme for species monitoring in the Point of Ayre Nature Reserve, which is run by the charity.

The money would be used to buy equipment such as moth traps, bat detectors, butterfly nets and action cameras for schools and community groups to borrow for free.

A rare and elusive spider has been recorded for the first time in London, marking only the fourth confirmed sighting in Britain in the past three decades.

Enoplognatha caricis, a species of cobweb spider considered extremely rare and vulnerable to extinction in both Britain and Europe, was discovered at London Wetland Centre WWT in April 2025.

The mature female was found by regular visitor and spider enthusiast Shreyas Kuchibhotla while examining moss near a pond in the site's Wildside area.

Enoplognatha caricis typically inhabits wet, marshy environments and is listed as Vulnerable across Britain and Europe by the British Arachnological Society.

The Met Office should name storms after fossil fuel companies, campaigners have said, after the weather forecasting service opened a storm naming competition.

Climate campaigners have recommended the Met Office names its storms after various oil and gas corporations to remind the public of the link between burning fossil fuels and extreme weather.

They are hoping to spark a craze similar to “Boaty McBoatface”, when in 2016 the National Environment Research Council opened a competition to name a £200m polar research ship. Nationwide hilarity ensued when the public voted Boaty McBoatface as the top choice for the ship’s name. However, the name was not chosen by the government, who opted to name it the Sir David Attenborough instead.

When newts go a-wooing, sometime in the spring, their signature move is the handstand. Girl newts cluster round to watch, while the boy newts flip on to their creepily human hands and shake their tails in the air. The waggiest newt is the winner, although the actual act of love is a strictly no-contact sport. The male deposits a packet of sperm on an underwater leaf for the female to collect and insert into her own reproductive tract. The whole business is best thought of, says Karen R Jones, as a “sexually charged game of pass-the-parcel”.

This kind of anthropomorphising often strikes naturalists as unscientific or even downright distasteful. But Jones is an environmental historian and her methodology allows, indeed impels, her to start from the principle that Britain’s human and animal populations are culturally entwined. Consequently, we cannot “see” a fox, hedgehog or newt without bringing to it a rich stew of presumptions and fantasy, drawn from childhood picturebooks, out-of-date encyclopedias and, in my case, the 1970s TV classic Tales of the Riverbank, in which small critters say funny things in the West Country burr of .

This pre-knowing can have a radical impact on the chances of a particular species flourishing or going under. Take hedgehogs, which, Jones tells us in this beautifully written book, have been in Britain for the last 15m years. They witnessed the extinction of the woolly mammoth and saw the first humans arrive in Europe. It was at this point that they started to pick up a reputation for general malevolence. Bandit-like, hedgehogs were reputed to sneak into human settlements at night and steal poultry eggs (true) and suck the udders of sleeping cows (almost certainly false). Their ability to munch on toxic toads without getting sick (true) and willingness to ferry any witch who had lost her broomstick (surely very uncomfortable) confirmed that hedgehogs had gone over to the dark side. No wonder that killing them counted as a public service: the records of one Cheshire village show 8,585 hedgehogs destroyed over a 35-year period in the late 1600s.

England’s Community Forests have taken another major step forward in creating new woodland across the country, with over 3.1 million trees planted during the 2024/25 season under the Defra supported Trees for Climate programme. This effort forms part of a long-term national commitment to expand tree cover and deliver the wide-ranging benefits that woodlands provide to people, nature and the economy.

Established in 2020, Trees for Climate is supporting local delivery of tree planting by Community Forests and other partners across England. The programme not only contributes to the UK’s net zero and nature recovery targets but also provides direct benefits to local communities, landowners and farmers.

From the rural landscapes of Cumbria to the urban fringes of Bristol, new woodland projects have created places where communities can connect with nature, enjoy improved health and wellbeing, and benefit from more resilient local environments. Trees planted this year are already beginning to improve air quality, reduce flood risks, and provide essential habitats for wildlife.