2015 Hen Harrier Day ©Sue Hetherington, Goyt Valley Derbyshire, 9 August 2015
What is Hen Harrier Day? Hen Harrier Day celebrates the beauty of this wonderful bird and highlights its threatened status which is almost entirely due to wildlife crime. Hen Harriers are illegally killed because they eat Red Grouse (among other things) which people want to shoot for fun. There have been Hen Harrier Day rallies since 10th August 2014 when four events took place, the largest of which was held in the Peak District in torrential rain and was attended by the ‘Sodden 570’ and hosted by Mark Avery and Chris Packham. It is an annual event timed around the “Glorious” 12th (ie the start of the grouse shooting season)
2016 Hen Harrier Day ©Sue Hetherington, Goyt Valley Derbyshire. 6 August 2016
It started in 2014, at the Derwent Dam, my image attached (I was one of the “Sodden 570 ” in the aftermath of Hurricane Bertha). In 2015, it moved to the Goyt Valley, Derbyshire (my image attached) then to RSPB Rainham Marshes in 2017 (my image attached) It was in various locations in 2017 and 2018 (I was unable to attend these so have no images) As noted above, it is consolidating down to the one location in 2019 for the 6th HH Day. I am planning to attend. Not everyone is aware that these even happen and even if not wishing to attend may just like the information.
Twitter followers should use the hash tag ##HHDay19
Sue Hetherington
You can find more information on Mark Avery’s blog
Grey Wagtails occur at highest densities along fast-flowing upland streams. WBS/WBBS shows a fluctuating population size along waterways, with a fall during the late 1970s and early 1980s from an initial high point in 1974, some increase since the late 1990s, and another steep drop around 2010. The BBS trend matches WBS/WBBS closely: there was an initial increase but from 2002 the trend was steeply downward, especially in Scotland. The species was moved from the green to the amber list in 2002, and subsequently from amber to the UK red list at the latest review in 2015 (Eaton et al. 2015). However, the long term decline is now categorised as moderate rather than rapid, as a result of a slight upturn since around 2012.
If you’re a fan of feeding the birds in your garden I imagine you’ll know a starling when you see one, but there’s more to these beautiful birds than meets the eye!
A close look at pesticide use reveals we’re treating crops more frequently and with a greater variety of chemicals than ever before – it’s time to reverse this trend and put the UK onto a trajectory of pesticide reduction.
UK honeybees have an extremely varied diet, foraging on a selection of more than 1,000 different plant species, a pioneering analysis of honey samples has found.
Great spotted woodpeckers make themselves at home at some of our reserves across Scotland, and can be seen visiting gardens over winter to have a go at the feeders. RSPB Scotland’s Allie McGregor shares five facts about this great species.
Back in 2004, when Rothamsted Research and Butterfly Conservation first uncovered the significant, long-term decline in moth abundance, artificial light at night (ALAN) was highlighted as a potential contributor to the observed trends1.
A new study finds that almost 600 plants have become extinct in the wild, more than twice than the number of mammals, birds and amphibians.
Swallows are summer visitors to the UK. They start to arrive here from Africa in April. By early June most swallows have started breeding and by July, the first brood of young has usually left the nest and flown away. The parents will normally then go on to raise a second brood, sometimes even a third.
Around three quarters of the UK population (74%) have some negative opinion of moths, with many people believing the majority eat clothes and are pests, a study has revealed.
Famed for its minute size and extra shiny coat the shining guest (Formicoxenus nitidulus) is a real gem to behold, particularly when you spot one in amongst a group of larger, acid-spraying wood ants – which the former treats as its ‘hosts’.
Our current project, FSC BioLinks, is all about invertebrates. Invertebrates provide us with many useful ecosystem services which we cannot survive without but their numbers are declining. Few people know how to identify or record invertebrates meaning there is a lack of records, making it difficult for conservationists to address these declines. The BioLinks project teaches people how to identify and record invertebrates by providing subsidised training courses, learning opportunities and digital tools to generate more records.
One of the joys of spring is the burst of bird song it brings, but telling birds apart by sound alone can be tricky for beginners. Start by learning the repertoire of some of the UK’s most familiar songsters and you’ll soon get your ear in.
Ptarmigans live in the mountains, and can survive quite happily at altitudes of up to 4,000 feet! To deal with the conditions in this part of the country ptarmigans have a range of fascinating adaptations, which are perhaps most evident come winter. Here are five interesting facts we thought you would enjoy about these birds.
Water brings a magical quality to your garden, and is the key to life for so many creatures that live in it.
With their characteristic black and white-striped face and grey fur, the badger looks like no other UK mammal. Stocky, powerfully-built creatures, they typically weigh 10-12kg, with a whole body length of about 90cm.
Baby birds are incredibly vulnerable. Without their parents and the relative security of their nests, they are at the mercy of both predators and the elements.
Here are some tips to help you be bee friendly even if you’re not a beekeeper! With a changing climate and increasing habitat loss, bees need all the help they can get.
We are home to a quarter of the entire global population of curlew. If the curlew dies out in the UK, they are in real danger of disappearing from the earth all together. The scary news is that UK’s curlews are in serious decline. The British countryside is no longer a safe place for curlews to raise their young. With too few chicks surviving to fledge, there are not enough youngsters joining the population to replace the adults. We’re facing a future without our wader – that’s if nobody does anything about it.
In my last blog piece I wrote about the lichen translocation work that we carried out at Tarr Steps National Nature Reserve on Exmoor as part of Plantlife’s Building Resilience in South West Woodlands project, as recently featured on BBC’s Countryfile. This work focussed on the rare Tree Lungwort lichen (Lobaria pulmonaria) – a superstar of the lichen world. This large and vibrantly coloured species has drastically declined due to air pollution and acid rain and the UK has an international responsibility to conserve it.
This large, powerful butterfly is usually seen flying swiftly over the tops of bracken or low vegetation in woodland clearings. In flight, the males are almost impossible to separate from those of the Dark Green Fritillary, which often share the same habitats. However, both species frequently visit flowers such as thistles and Bramble where it is possible to see their distinctive underside wing markings. The Dark Green lacks the orange ringed ‘pearls’ on the underside of the hindwing.
The Case for Caddisflies and much-maligned Molinia.
Almost 600 plant species have been lost from the wild in the last 250 years, according to a comprehensive study.
The news from the UN that the global rate of extinction is accelerating – with at least a 20% decline over the last century – caused reverberations around the world when it was published earlier this month.
Mammal recording was introduced to the BBS in 1995 with a view to help improve our knowledge of the distribution and population trends of some of our commoner mammals.
With their soft golden coat, furry tail and big black eyes, hazel dormice are one of Britain’s most endearing but critically endangered mammals.
Judging on behaviour alone it could be argued that the Duke of Burgundy doesn’t really deserve its aristocratic title.
Due to a combination of a cold, wet spring (the beast from the east), followed by the long, hot, dry summer last year was very disappointing for the owls and kestrels across Buckinghamshire. Many of the birds did not even try to breed and those that did deserted eggs and chicks because they could not find enough voles and other small mammals to feed either themselves or their offspring.
This issue delves into the deep, dark depths of the soil – the foundation for much of life on Earth.
Are subsidies that are designed to protect the biodiversity of Britain’s saltmarshes, delivering the planned, conservation benefits? In particular, is this investment supporting populations of amber-listed Redshank?
It is such a delight to be in the garden this month – so many plants have burst into bloom that there is a mass of colour and a buzz of pollinators. The Springwatch programmes have also brought brightness to BBC2 and they have launched a big citizen science project called 
The UK’s moths are in trouble, two-thirds of common and widespread species have declined in the last 40 years. In a bid to make the UK mad about moths Butterfly Conservation is launching Moths Matter, a campaign to overturn their unfair reputation.
Our “carbon in nature rich areas” 
Mammals are often elusive night-time visitors to our gardens. We need your help to find out how much these often under-recorded animals use gardens and to understand which resources are most important for their survival.
Spring has never truly arrived until you catch sight of your first bee, but do you know what species it is?
“…verges are actually fascinating habitats…because they are these fragments of the surrounding countryside that are preserved along ancient routes…” Most of us are aware now that biodiversity is in decline.
According to a study carried out in 2016, there are approximately 369,000 species of flowering plant across the globe, and each and every one has the capacity to inspire and dazzle.
The proliferation of single-use plastic around the world is accelerating climate change and should be urgently halted, a report warns.
Adders are reportedly going extinct in the UK because they’ve had a lot of negative press. Campaigners are worried that unless our attitudes towards them change, they’ll completely disappear from our country.
In order to understand why nightingales have declined by a staggering 90% in the UK over the last 40 years, we’re working with the British Trust for Ornithology and the Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire.
By utilising data from an existing study, David Douglas and James Pearce-Higgins have discovered that Golden Plover chicks that carry more sheep-ticks Ixodes ricinus have a lower chance of survival. Their findings are written up as a paper in Bird Study. The work is only based on a small sample and the data don’t identify the mechanism that leads to increased mortality but, given the current interest in the biological effects of ticks, the findings are interesting.
The Painted Lady butterfly and Humming-bird Hawk-moth are arriving from Africa and becoming increasingly common in the UK. To find out just how common, we need your help.
Only a third of the world’s great rivers remain free flowing, due to the impact of dams that are drastically reducing the benefits healthy rivers provide people and nature, according to a global analysis.
Click here to see the shortlisted images: 
There are lots of ways in which you can explore Garden BirdWatch results. Choose from the images below to access dynamic graphs, maps, tables and infographics.
The recording scheme guide to bee-flies in genus Bombylius has been updated to provide some more information on how to distinguish the two clear-winged summer bee-flies: Western Bee-fly Bombylius canescens, and Heath Bee-fly Bombylius minor. (The section on the two pattern-winged spring bee-flies remains unchanged.)
What did insects ever do for us? Tom Heap asks leading entomologists how we can stop their decline.
A rare butterfly has been reintroduced to a site in Derbyshire where it’s not been seen for 52 years, thanks to an ambitious project by the National Trust and wildlife charity Butterfly Conservation (BC).
Help scientists at the British Trust for Ornithology understand the relationship between climate, the availability of invertebrates and how this impacts UK bird numbers and their migration patterns.
Adding just one nectar plant to your garden can help save wildlife. Find out which butterfly-friendly flowers to pick for your patch.
Is your outdoor space providing the resources birds need to breed (including food, shelter, water and nesting sites)? Watching what birds are doing, their behaviour, can provide the answers. We need your help to find evidence of how common garden birds benefit from our outdoor spaces at this critical time of year. Don’t forget to report back – your observations can help us understand how we can better support the birds and other wildlife on our doorsteps.
BTO research has used information collected by bird ringers to investigate large-scale differences and flexibility in the timing of feather moult across 15 passerine species that breed in the UK. Different moult strategies were found between migrant and resident species, alongside within-species regional variation in moulting schedules.
There are over 250 species of larger wasp in the UK, but about 6000 species in total, including tiny parasites and gall-wasps right up to the magnificent brown and yellow hornet, one of our largest insects, with quite a reputation. The wasps most of us know are the nine social species, the paper wasps, named from their nests, including the common wasp, the German wasp and the hornet.
A regular question we get asked at the Bumblebee Conservation Trust is “How are the UK’s bumblebees doing?” It seems such a simple question that you’d think demands a simple answer, but like most things in life, it’s actually a lot more complicated!
Males blue with dark border. Females brown with row of red spots. Undersides brown-grey with black spots, a row of orange spots, and small greenish flecks on outer margin. Males similar to Common Blue, which lacks greenish spots.