A bird nest is the spot in which a bird lays and incubates its eggs and raises its young. There is a huge variety of nests, from the grassy cup nest of the Blackbird, to the elaborately woven nest of the Long-tailed Tit. For some species, a nest is simply a shallow depression made in sand; for others, it is a hole in a tree or a burrow dug into the ground. Identifying nests can therefore be quite tricky! In order to ID nests, practice is key, so see if you can use this quiz to get a head start on the nests you might find in your own garden.
Privet Hawk-moths (Sphinx ligustri) by Tony Morris
Download your free Hawk-moth ID guide
Featuring beautiful illustrations from wildlife artist Carim Nahaboo, this ID guide is a great way to familiarise yourself with some of the UK’s most charismatic moths.
Nesting Hedgehog by Susie Lane, Skelton, Cumbria 20 May 2017
Hedgehogs’ unique appearance and proximity in gardens and suburban green spaces place them firmly in the public’s affections. They’re a wild mammal we can observe close-up and are a symbol of our natural heritage.
In 2015, The State of Britain’s Hedgehogs1, by People’s Trust for Endangered Species (PTES) and the British Hedgehog Preservation Society (BHPS), outlined the findings of four surveys recording hedgehogs in urban and rural areas, and showed a worrying decline. This new report updates those findings and describes the current status of Britain’s hedgehogs a decade after they were made a priority species for conservation.
Peregrine by Harry Appleyard, Hazeley Wood, 29 May 2016
The sight of Peregrines breeding on buildings, pylons and quarry ledges is becoming more common, even as this species becomes scarcer in the craggy uplands with which it is more typically associated. Research Ecologist and raptor specialist Mark Wilson explains how Peregrines are faring in the face of a changing world.
Recently, Health Canada announced a move to ban the use of certain pesticides containing chemical substances known as neonicotinoids. Scientists have long known such pesticides decimate bee populations, which is bad enough, considering several species have made the endangered list of late. However, current evidence exists showing how these substances harm more than just bees.
The Wider Countryside Butterfly Survey (WCBS) is the main scheme for monitoring population changes of the UK’s common and widespread butterflies. It is important in both assessing the changing status of widespread butterfly species and in providing an indicator of the health of the wider countryside. Data from this scheme feeds into the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme (UKBMS).
Although we are all familiar with the important role that bumblebees and honeybees play in pollination, over 90% of the UK’s 267 bee species are in fact solitary bees. Pollinating animals are responsible for one third of the food we consume and solitary bees are particularly efficient pollinators. Unlike other bees solitary bees do not have pollen baskets and so transfer much more pollen between flowers, meaning a single red mason bee provides a pollination service equivalent to 120 worker honey bees. This makes them a critical resource in our gardens and wider countryside and one that we should all be keen to protect. We have collated some information below on how to help encourage and preserve these fascinating creatures.
A previously extinct butterfly has bred successfully in an English woodland for the first time in more than 40 years as part of the ambitious conservation project, Back from the Brink.
Freshly emerged Chequered Skippers have been regularly spotted over the last few weeks at a secret location in Rockingham Forest, Northamptonshire, and it is hoped they will become the foundation of a new English population of the butterfly.
Young Wildlife Photographers UK is an exciting project unveiling wildlife and nature photography and stories to a broader audience. Social networking is our tool to expose young talent and the next generation of British wildlife photographers.
Coot fighting CC BY_NC_SA Peter Hassett. Floodplain Forest NR 31 March 2016
All animals are specifically adapted for their habitat, their diet and their lifestyle, and birds are no different. There are many types of feet in the bird world, but can we tell where a bird lives based on what its feet look like? In this experiment, we’ll try and find out!
Nesting Hedgehog by Susie Lane, Skelton, Cumbria 20 May 2017
Nature is in trouble
One in ten species is under threat of extinction in the UK. We need your help. Only by understanding why our natural environment is so important to all of us, can we hope to save it.
Please spare us five minutes to complete our 2019 annual wildlife survey – as a thank you, we will send you a guide to garden ponds.
Your views are crucial – they will ensure we are working to protect the things that matter to you.
No British summer would be complete without the screech of Swifts darting overhead. This distinctive call is incomparably evocative of a blissful, warm summers day; for me a trigger of childhood memories playing out in the fields during ever-lasting school breaks or later, time spent in a third-floor apartment in St Ives, Cornwall (heaven!) where, once evening fell, a group of overzealous Swifts would rise up steep streets from the town below and erupt volcano-like inches from the old wooden window frames, plucking insects from the humid air at what seemed a million miles per hour, screeches reverberating so loud as if they were all but in the room before squealing excitedly back into the streets below, their whistle trailing off like a distant firework.
Swifts spend our winter months away from our cold weather in Africa, undertaking a huge migration every year to return to here to breed. They tend to start arriving in late April and early May and depart by the end of August, and are rarely seen into September.
Bird songs are common sounds to us all, but why do birds sing? Imagine you’re a male willow warbler, and you’ve just flown 2,400 miles (4000 km) from Africa. It’s spring, and you need to find a mate quickly. However, your home is a woodland and you’re the colour of leaves. What better way of advertising to a passing female that you are here and would make a fine father for her chicks than by having a clear, loud and recognisable song?
By Gwen Potter, Countryside Manager for Northumberland Coast and Farne Islands, National Trust
It’s June on the remote Farne Islands and National Trust rangers have started the task of counting the islands’ thousands of pairs of puffins. The much-loved seabird, which has traditionally done well on these wild isles off the Northumberland coast, is being closely monitored amid fears climate change is having an adverse effect on sources of food and puffin numbers internationally.
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.
Biologists have discovered evidence that carnivorous plants in Canada feast on young salamanders, in what is believed to be the first instance of vertebrate consumption by plants in North America.
Human destruction of the living world is causing a “frightening” number of plant extinctions, according to scientists who have completed the first global analysis of the issue.
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!
Ring-necked Parakeet by Howe Park Wood, April 2012, by Harry Appleyard
Electric Ladyland wasn’t the only thing Jimi Hendrix released in 1968. One day in that tumultuous year he left his flat on Brook Street, Mayfair, and strolled down nearby Carnaby Street with a birdcage in his hands. I like to think that he was dressed in a tasselled jacket and flares, his favourite Fender Stratocaster slung across his back. Or perhaps he travelled incognito, in a trenchcoat and dark glasses. Either way, somewhere on that street, the heart of Swinging London at the height of peace and love, he opened the door of the cage and unleashed two bright green birds: Adam and Eve, a breeding pair of ring-necked parakeets.
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.
The White-legged Damselfly (Platycnemis pennipes) is a delicate little insect that can be found fluttering along lushly vegetated margins of rivers, streams, pools and lakes in southern England and Wales. In recent years there have been increasing concerns that this elegant species is disappearing from some parts of the UK. However, our understanding of White-legged Damselfly population trends it limited by a lack of long term data; thus, the British Dragonfly Society has launched the White-legged Damselfly Investigation.
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.
Around 200 beekeepers from across the UK provided honey samples for high-tech DNA testing. The results revealed that bees feed on a wide variety of commonly found crops, wildflowers and garden plants including Oilseed rape, Clovers, Brambles and Sweet Chestnut. It has also found invasive non-native species to be important sources of pollen and nectar, particularly Himalayan Balsam and ‘Tree of Heaven’.
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.
With Ring Ouzel migration about to reach its peak this wonderful thrush can turn up almost anywhere. Check out the latest identification video to help separate this species from Blackbird, both on the ground, in flight and by song.
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.
Footage of every single freshwater fish species in Britain filmed over the course of 7 years. Jack traveled across England, Scotland and Wales to film these species using various specialist techniques.
Peregrine by Harry Appleyard, Hazeley Wood, 29 May 2016
Despite extensive research on city-dwelling Peregrine FalconsFalco peregrinus in mainland Europe and other parts of the world, little has been undertaken and published in the UK. We analysed the diet of Peregrines in three cities in southwest England – Bristol, Bath and Exeter – between 1998 and 2007.The wide range of prey species taken included many species associated with a variety of non-urban habitats. Some prey species appear to be hunted at night, while on migration. This paper summarises the diet of Peregrines in urban areas and reviews their night-time hunting behaviour.
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.
The RSPB North Bucks Local Group are leading a field trip to:
Location: Meet in car park, SP 570 126. Space limited. RSPB requests car-share and do not overspill onto lane. From Abingdon Arms pub, Beckley (OX3 9TD), take Otmoor Lane for 1 mile and past firing range.
The RSPB has (with our Group’s support) restored this huge former wetland from intensive agriculture. Summer specialities include hobby, turtle dove and many dragonflies. Three hides but no toilets at this remote site. Paths level, but lengthy.
Walk leader : Mike Bird
Time: 10 am to 1 pm
Price: Free event
See the RSPB North Bucks Local Group website for more information
MKNHS is not responsible for the content of external Internet sites. You should check details of any events listed on external sites with the organisers.
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’.
Elephant poaching rates in Africa are declining, according to a study published in the journal Nature Communications.
The annual poaching mortality rate fell from a high of more than 10% in 2011 to less than 4% in 2017, but the researchers warned that current levels were still unsustainable and could spell trouble for the future of the animals on the continent.
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.
Plantations are an excellent way to combat climate breakdown, writes Andrew Weatherall, of the National School of Forestry. And Rachel Kerr says heather moorland is rarer than rainforest and the underlying peat is more effective at carbon storage than trees
Linford Lakes NR BioBlitz by David Easton. 24 June 2016
Citizen scientists are increasingly engaged in gathering biodiversity information, but trade‐offs are often required between public engagement goals and reliable data collection. We compared population estimates for 18 widespread butterfly species derived from the first 4 years (2011–2014) of a short‐duration citizen science project (Big Butterfly Count [BBC]) with those from long‐running, standardized monitoring data collected by experienced observers (U.K. Butterfly Monitoring Scheme [UKBMS])…
Deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon surged last month to the highest May level since the current monitoring method began, prompting concerns that president Jair Bolsonaro is giving a free pass to illegal logging, farming and mining.
Grey Wagtail by Peter Hassett, Floodplain Forest NR, 10 April 2016
Wind and other weather phenomena are a driving force behind bird migration. Paul Stancli e and Grahame Madge explain how understanding the weather will help you understand birds’ movements.
Many shark populations are in decline, primarily due to overexploitation. In response, conservation measures have been applied at differing scales, often severely restricting sales of declining species. Therefore, DNA barcoding was used to investigate sales of shark products in fishmongers and fish and chip takeaways in England.
The Duke of Burgundy is back from the brink – and the work to conserve it has helped other declining species. Does this mean there is hope in the face of Insectageddon?
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.
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.
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.
At the RSPB Centre for Conservation Science there are around 60 full time scientists working on conservation problems around the world. My team specialise in tackling the problems faced by breeding waders and Project Godwit is one of our big projects over the next few years. This project aims to secure the future for breeding black-tailed godwits in the UK.
The Case for Caddisflies and much-maligned Molinia.
Over the past few years I have developed an interest in caddisflies – their life-cycles and ecology in particular – thanks in part to the enthusiasm of friend, neighbour and seasoned entomologist Graham Vick. All caddis are tied to water in one way or another by the aquatic or semi-aquatic requirements of their larvae and in Britain the group comprises some 200 species. Larval cases arouse a passing curiosity in most naturalists but the adults must be one of the most overlooked and neglected insect groups going.
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.
Although the news shocked and surprised a lot of people, conservation organisations have long been aware of the challenges facing our natural heritage. We caught up with James Harding-Morris of Back from the Brink, a groundbreaking National Lottery-funded project set up to help reverse this decline.
The UK’s swifts return every year to nest here after spending the winter in Africa, but have been arriving late this year and the RSPB have received numerous calls and emails from concerned people.
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.
Compared with birds, the population trends of mammals are relatively poorly known. Even though mammal recording has always been a voluntary addition to the scheme, around 90% of BBS squares now hold mammal data.
With their soft golden coat, furry tail and big black eyes, hazel dormice are one of Britain’s most endearing but critically endangered mammals.
Our State of Britain’s Dormice report in 2016 confirmed that hazel dormice have become extinct from 17 English counties since the end of the 19th century, with populations thought to have fallen by a third since 2000 – a rate of decline equivalent to 55% over 25 years.
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.
However, in 2019 the birds are really proving to be in the mood to make up for lost time. Buckinghamshire Owl and Raptor Group volunteers have been busy for the last few weeks checking the 700 + boxes located across the whole county and with very pleasing results.
This issue delves into the deep, dark depths of the soil – the foundation for much of life on Earth.
This issue explores the beauty and function of soil, the fascinating creatures that call it home, the threats to its health, and ways to manage it sustainably for future generations of flora and fauna (including humans).
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?
One of the strongest recommendations from Mark Parsons and Phil Sterling, the moth gurus at Butterfly Conservation, in relation to #MyMothYear book was that I wrote about BC’s Back From the Brink project to restore populations of a geometer moth called Barberry Carpet. And so earlier this week, Wingman Will and I joined project manager Fiona Haynes and local moth-era Robin and Carol for a nocturnal survey (under license, as this is a legally protected species) in north Dorset. Phil Saunders was there for the first few hours – and netted the first Barberry Carpet. Brilliant!
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 Gardenwatch to encourage people to assess their garden wildlife. It has inspired me to review my own space.
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” story map highlights that the best places for nature across the UK also hold massive amounts of carbon. If lost to the atmosphere, this carbon would equate (very conservatively) to two gigatons of CO2, equivalent to four years of the UK’s annual overall CO2 emissions.
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?
You might be surprised to learn there are more than 250 species of bee in the UK. Bumblebees, mason bees, mining bees – these are just one small part of a big, beautiful family. Take a look at how to identify some of the most common types of bees in the UK.
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 Duke of Burgundy is back from the brink – and the work to conserve it has helped other declining species. Does this mean there is hope in the face of Insectageddon?
MPs will have to debate returning vast swathes of land to wildernesses after a petition calling for mass rewilding gained more than 100,000 signatures.
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.
Humanity’s ongoing destruction of wildlife will lead to a shrinking of nature, with the average body size of animals falling by a quarter, a study predicts.
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.)
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).
The Grizzled Skipper has declined by 55% across the UK over the last 40 years and disappeared from its former stronghold in Derbyshire – the National Trust’s Calke Abbey near Ticknall – in 1967.
The first Purple Emperor of 2019 will take to the air at lunchtime on Friday June 14th, somewhere in Sussex or Surrey. An earlier appearance was on the cards but larval progress has been slowed down by cool nights and evenings during May (at one staged a May emergence was a possibility).
This prediction is based on the progress of larvae being followed in the wild (last year my prediction was less than 24 hours out…).
Dealers looking to illegally export European eels from the UK have been exposed by BBC Countryfile.
Recently, Health Canada announced a move to ban the use of certain pesticides containing chemical substances known as neonicotinoids. Scientists have long known such pesticides decimate bee populations, which is bad enough, considering several species have made the endangered list of late. However, current evidence exists showing how these substances harm more than just bees.
The Wider Countryside Butterfly Survey (WCBS) is the main scheme for monitoring population changes of the UK’s common and widespread butterflies. It is important in both assessing the changing status of widespread butterfly species and in providing an indicator of the health of the wider countryside. Data from this scheme feeds into the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme (UKBMS).
Although we are all familiar with the important role that bumblebees and honeybees play in pollination, over 90% of the UK’s 267 bee species are in fact solitary bees. Pollinating animals are responsible for one third of the food we consume and solitary bees are particularly efficient pollinators. Unlike other bees solitary bees do not have pollen baskets and so transfer much more pollen between flowers, meaning a single red mason bee provides a pollination service equivalent to 120 worker honey bees. This makes them a critical resource in our gardens and wider countryside and one that we should all be keen to protect. We have collated some information below on how to help encourage and preserve these fascinating creatures.
Swifts take incredible migration journeys each year, but sadly they’re in trouble, with breeding numbers plummeting.
Young Wildlife Photographers UK is an exciting project unveiling wildlife and nature photography and stories to a broader audience. Social networking is our tool to expose young talent and the next generation of British wildlife photographers.
No British summer would be complete without the screech of Swifts darting overhead. This distinctive call is incomparably evocative of a blissful, warm summers day; for me a trigger of childhood memories playing out in the fields during ever-lasting school breaks or later, time spent in a third-floor apartment in St Ives, Cornwall (heaven!) where, once evening fell, a group of overzealous Swifts would rise up steep streets from the town below and erupt volcano-like inches from the old wooden window frames, plucking insects from the humid air at what seemed a million miles per hour, screeches reverberating so loud as if they were all but in the room before squealing excitedly back into the streets below, their whistle trailing off like a distant firework.
1. Swifts migrate here from Africa
Conservationists concerned about late swift return
Bird songs are common sounds to us all, but why do birds sing? Imagine you’re a male willow warbler, and you’ve just flown 2,400 miles (4000 km) from Africa. It’s spring, and you need to find a mate quickly. However, your home is a woodland and you’re the colour of leaves. What better way of advertising to a passing female that you are here and would make a fine father for her chicks than by having a clear, loud and recognisable song?
By Gwen Potter, Countryside Manager for Northumberland Coast and Farne Islands, National Trust
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.
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.
The RSPB North Bucks Local Group are leading a field trip to: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.
Many shark populations are in decline, primarily due to overexploitation. In response, conservation measures have been applied at differing scales, often severely restricting sales of declining species. Therefore, DNA barcoding was used to investigate sales of shark products in fishmongers and fish and chip takeaways in England.
The Duke of Burgundy is back from the brink – and the work to conserve it has helped other declining species. Does this mean there is hope in the face of Insectageddon?
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.
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.
The UK’s swifts return every year to nest here after spending the winter in Africa, but have been arriving late this year and the RSPB have received numerous calls and emails from concerned people.
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?
One of the strongest recommendations from Mark Parsons and Phil Sterling, the moth gurus at Butterfly Conservation, in relation to #MyMothYear book was that I wrote about BC’s Back From the Brink project to restore populations of a geometer moth called Barberry Carpet. And so earlier this week, Wingman Will and I joined project manager Fiona Haynes and local moth-era Robin and Carol for a nocturnal survey (under license, as this is a legally protected species) in north Dorset. Phil Saunders was there for the first few hours – and netted the first Barberry Carpet. Brilliant!
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 Gardenwatch to encourage people to assess their garden wildlife. It has inspired me to review my own space.
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” story map highlights that the best places for nature across the UK also hold massive amounts of carbon. If lost to the atmosphere, this carbon would equate (very conservatively) to two gigatons of CO2, equivalent to four years of the UK’s annual overall CO2 emissions.
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?
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 Duke of Burgundy is back from the brink – and the work to conserve it has helped other declining species. Does this mean there is hope in the face of Insectageddon?
MPs will have to debate returning vast swathes of land to wildernesses after a petition calling for mass rewilding gained more than 100,000 signatures.
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: USA Highlights from the BPOTY 2019 Shortlist — Bird Photographer of the YearThere 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.)
The number of seabirds on an island in the Bristol Channel has soared following the eradication of rats, conservationists have revealed.
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).
Adding just one nectar plant to your garden can help save wildlife. Find out which butterfly-friendly flowers to pick for your patch.