Post 443 - Happy Half Term Trips

A very thoughtful baby gorilla at Durrell Wildlife Park

One of the frogs in the Amphibian & Reptile house

Hey everyone, and you may have realised that I haven't posted in a while, this is mainly because  I went on holiday last week! And this wasn't a normal holiday for me because I usually try and keep my carbon footprint quite low, so I try to keep twitches to a minimum and, I have never been on a plane. Until last week! I only went on a short flight as it was my first and my parent's first in 20 years as Mum's not a great one for flying so we only went to Jersey. Well I say only, it was one of the best experiences of my life! The landscape was amazing, as anyone that has been there will know (I loved the rugged coast and coves) and it was quite hot for the end of October. It was mainly a sight seeing holiday as we hadn't been there before but the wildlife there was really good too!


One nature highlight was when we went to Durrell Wildlife Park, which was amazing. It was great to see all of the exotic wildlife there, my favourites probably being the Western Lowland Gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla [Yes that is their Latin name!]) as well as the Amphibian and lizard section. I found it really funny how you could be looking for a Komodo Dragon and not see it for 2 minutes but when you do see it you get really surprised because it turns out to be looking straight at you! I was so impressed by the work that the park does in helping to conserve endangered species, it would be an awesome place to work, it would be so good to contribute to saving so many wonderful species. If you get a chance to go it is amazing!

I also did a potential Cairngorms Nature Presenter video on Orangutans! You can see it here:

Orangutans have oppossable toes too, this mother
never let go of her baby while they were swinging around

This was really hard to do as there were lots of people around and it was hard to get good bits of film. I wasn't happy with it so I had the chance to go to Wheldrake Ings on Saturday which is usually a great place to see Barn Owls. Nature being nature it doesn't perform as we'd like sometimes and I didn't see any this time but on other occasions I have seen four hunting at once here. I thought my film was better though and this is the one I've submitted for the Cairngorms Young Nature Presenter Competition:




But anyway, we were out looking for things like Fulmars and Shags but instead of these we managed to see something else that I hadn't seen, the Rock Pipit! These are amazing birds that I love and hope to see more of again. I've now seen three of the pipits, this, on top of Meadow and Tree! Although I haven't got as close to Tree Pipits but I have rung a Meadow Pipit!

On Friday I also went to Spurn Point again! There had been loads of interesting migrants sighted the previous few days, when we were away, and we wanted to see if we could catch anything else. Well, it turned out that everything decided to fly away before we got there, and we spent most of the day looking for pretty much anything. We saw around 40 species and got things like Little Egrets and Widgeon, Grey Plover, the usual, but the highlights of the day were the Brent Geese, and, another lifer, the Ring Ouzel! This is a bird that I'd heard of but never really paid much attention to them as a species so it made it even more amazing to see it, especially as it was the last bird of the day before we headed home to walk Esme.

A Ring Ouzel at Spurn

Anyway, I hope you liked my quick update on what I've been doing! I hope to post again soon. I have an autumn post in the making and I want to do an update on my petition. It's got a couple of months to go and its about two thirds of the way to a response from the government - I would really like to get a response. Its such an important subject, making sure that we get strong protection for our wildlife when we leave the EU. You can see it and sign it here if you haven't already -

Protect UK Environment & Wildlife

Oh, and the other thing that has kept me busy is I've been making another calendar. I'm going to sell some and give half of the profits to the Yorkshire Wildlife Trusts. I had hoped to do the Three Peaks this year with them to raise funds but as I couldn't I thought I'd do this instead. With my share of the profits I hope to buy a new macro lens so that I can take even better pictures. If you would like a calendar please let me know but I will post more about this soon too.

Hope you enjoyed,

Z.

Post 442 - Dawdling down dales mulling over great grouse debate

Autumn colours in Teesdale woods

Hi everyone, today's post 442, and quite a timely topical visit today. Before I get into that though just a quick note to say apologies for not posting much in the last couple of weeks. It's been a busy period for us. Work for Mum and Dad has been busy and it's their 20th Wedding Anniversary this year so we've been celebrating that a bit too :)

Wonderful and wild or sheepwrecked?

I seem to have had a lot of school related activities to take care of too. One of these was a visit to RSPB Saltholme - I was so glad that the school took people on a nature based trip and it was great to go with some school friends and share a bit of my passion. I didn't see much to excite my regular readers but it was good to see more of my school friends getting a bit closer to nature. I hope there are more trips to come!

Landscape architects at work

Anyhow, back to today. We decided that we wanted to go back to a place we enjoyed in the summer today, and I hoped I might add another bird to my life list in the process. It turned out to be a very topical visit though. Today we took a drive up to Upper Teesdale. Our first stop was at a place we visited in the summer and the highlight then was seeing a group of Crossbills coming down to a stream to drink. No luck today but the woods were full of trees of all colours (well no blue or purple ones :-) and it was a lovely autumnal walk along a beck with lots of waterfalls.

After that we carried on to a place called Cow Beck Reservoir for a bit more of a walk. As you'll see from the photos it is a lovely place, really wild, and is what @georgemonbiot would call sheep wrecked. Not many trees here! It's better in the valleys but not on the high ground. Why is that? Well it's kept that way by grazing and we saw more than a few sheep.

Red Grouse food - young heather among the moss

The reason it is like this is down to the little bird in this photo! Even though this area is part of a National Nature Reserve sadly driven grouse shooting happens here too. There were lots of Red Grouse around. We watched them eating, calling and flying around and they didn't seem too bothered by us which was nice and I got one or two nice photos of them. I'd never managed to see their fluffy legs before as most of the time I've only seen them poking their heads out of heather. Their calls are lovely too.

Red Grouse - see the fluffy legs

Now the bird I came to find was the Black Grouse. I caught a glimpse of one on the horizon on the ridge of a hill but too far off to photograph or appreciate properly. I didn't see any more on my walk but on the way home we kept a look out in the fields and that paid off. I saw a field with about a dozen of them in! Wonderful! I stopped and got a few pictures and watched them for a while. They were much more still and quiet than their Red relatives! I will have to come back and do a species write up on these birds! Sadly these are also shot in the area I visited!

Black Grouse - a lifer for me!

Well why is all of this is topical, you probably know, but just in case you don't, Driven Grouse Shooting is going to have a parliamentary debate on the 31st October. The whole reason the landscape in much of Yorkshire and Upper Teesdale is like it is and isn't much more varied is because it is managed for Grouse to be shot. Things that eat grouse aren't very welcome and I have to say I didn't see a single bird of prey all the time I was around the area.

Driven shooting means people scare the birds towards a line of people who shoot them. I don't think that's at all nice, nor do around 123,000 other people who signed Mark Avery's petition (here's Marks blog). It's because of that there is a debate. If you have some time this weekend it would be good if you could write a letter to your MP and tell them that you don't like it much either.

Upper Teesdale NNR

I've written twice to my MP but he hasn't answered my main question yet. He campaigns about our local hospital. Some services have had to go to other hospitals further away - such as children's A&E! - because of money or lack of it. So I asked if he thought it was fair that grouse moors get money from the government so that a few rich people can have a hobby shooting Grouse when a hospital that provides help to lots of people struggles. As he's not answered that properly yet I'm going to ask again.

There's lots of advice on Marks blog if you want to write to your MP too.

Hope you enjoyed, and look out for a blog on Grouse soon!

Z.

Post 441 - The Four Seasons

Autumn colours starting to show at Silton Forest

Hey everyone, Post 441 today and as it's Autumn here in the Northern Hemisphere (and Spring for you guys down in the Southern) I thought it would be a good time to do a post that I'm surprised I haven't done yet. Also, with my grandparents coming up from Birmingham I haven't had as much time as usual to get out and explore the world this weekend and I thought it would be an idea to do something that you can experience from your window. In case you haven't guessed already I'm talking about the Seasons! As I've been travelling around I've been looking out of the car window at signs of the seasons and I started to wonder what caused them.

Berries everywhere - all sorts of colours!

Dragon and Damsel hunting always
makes me think of summer 

Summer meadows!

Firstly, a question that I myself cannot answer: What is your favourite Season? I have no idea what mine is, I like them all for different reasons, and during each one I seem to prefer it! Probably as I'm out enjoying it and seeing what I can find. In terms of nature hunting, I would probably say Spring as you have all the migratory birds coming in, the flowers and plants are coming up and all of the bugs are starting to come out onto the plants. Things are coming alive rather than preparing for winter, but that's what makes Autumn great too. You get more birds on the move heading to their winter sites, plants are producing fruits and seeds to feed birds and mammals as they prepare for winter.

Frost and cobwebs at Silton forest

Anyway, onto how the seasons are caused. Simply it's all about how the Earth rotates and how the sun hits the different parts of the globe. The earth rotates on an axis which you can imagine as a big pole going through the Earth from North pole to South pole and the spinning causes day and night. The Earth also takes a year to rotate around the sun but because the Earth is on an axis that is a bit tilted (nobody really knows why though... :) different parts of the Earth face the sun more directly at different times of the year. Because of this around the June Solstice the North Pole is tilted more towards the Sun and the Northern Hemisphere gets more of the light and heat over June, July and August while the Southern Hemisphere gets it in December, January and February.

One of my favourite winter frosty pics from my garden

It is not distance from the sun that causes seasons it is just the angles at which we face the sun, you get more of the sun's energy spread over a smaller area in the summer. It's like if you were in space with no suit you would be burned on one side and frozen on the other, although thanks to our atmosphere it isn't that bad here.


Even though there is such a small difference between the distance from the sun in the two hemispheres solar energy is more effective to collect when more directly facing the sun but as there aren't many landmasses and as it takes longer for the sea to warm up the Northern and Southern Hemisphere, Summers have almost no temperature difference.

Lambs! Enjoying the spring sun.

The Earth's Path around the sun is not circular and the sun isn't at the centre of its path the whole time so this obviously means that the Earth is closer to the Sun at some times of the year than others. So this does mean that some places on the globe are hotter in the different seasons.


As I was travelling around I saw several signs of the season, which you are probably seeing too but I thought I'd highlight some of my favourites of each season:

Winter - Snow falling - Frost Forming - Crisp mornings - Trees with no Leaves

Spring - Flowers coming out again - Insects being seen - Migratory birds passing through

Spring flowers and insects

Summer - Insects everywhere! - A little bit less rain :)

Autumn - Leaves starting to go brown and orange - The nights coming in - Berries everywhere - birds feeding and migrating - A profusion of fungi!


Anyway, I hope I have wrapped up well for you how the seasons work and I hope you enjoy whatever season you're going into!


Hope you enjoyed,


Z.

Post 440 - An Awesome Autumn Nourishing Nectar Source

The patch of Asters

Bumble Bees were feeding

Hey everyone - Post 440 today and I didn't have to go far for this post. It was a lovely sunny day and I saw quite a lot of activity on one little patch so I thought I ought to write about it.

As were little flies...

...and big flies...

...and shiny flies!

We keep patches of our garden quite wild (something you can tell by just looking at how manic it is) and we have some quite nice plants growing, there are a few native wild plants in the garden, but nearly all of them Mum and Dad chose because they are great for wildlife such as the Asters which was the little busy patch in my garden today. They flower quite late and so are a great source of nectar for lots of different insects. I often overlook the insects in my own garden, so this is the time to highlight pretty much all of the ones that I see not just on the Asters, but all over my garden.

But first, talking about how wild my garden is, I thought I'd talk a little bit about Rewilding. If you don't know what this is, it's basically a project to make the UK (and the world) a little bit more wild again, of course with a little management from us. Check out this site to find out more about Rewilding in Britain

A Red Admiral joined the feast

Basically this would involve, for example, letting rivers follow their own course and re-introducing some species back into the wild again. This has been done with Beevers and some people want to see more pine martens, lynx and possibly even wolves back in our UK countryside.  In my garden, I can't really do this on such a large scale (not sure what the local cats would think about a Lynx!) but I can let the plants do what they want and don't use ANY pesticides, weedkillers or artificial fertilisers and just let the wildlife live as long as it can and prosper in its environment... :)

It stayed for a while.

Hoverflies had a feed then decided
to make more hoverflies!

There's lots of different types of plant that we often overlook. Things like Ivy, now I don't have many pictures of Ivy or the facts at the moment, but luckily, Alex (@appletonwild) on Twitter, did a great blog on it already and how good it is for wildlife right now! Click here to see it!

Anyway, like I said at the start, I see so many different types of insects in just my garden (I think some days I see as many if not more than I see when I'm out at the forest)  that I could easily do a blog post on them. Well, I'm doing one now! The variety of things that I see is immense. From Tree Bumblebees nesting in the eaves of my house, to solitary wasps laying their eggs in dung flies, and from hoverflies mating to Red Admirals sunning themselves on the Buddleia. And that's not even getting down to anything wingless! What one of my policies goes like this: I love birds, in fact, they are probably my favourite part of nature. And twitching can also be fun too! My life list is something like 187 and I went to go twitch the Purple Swamphen in Lincolnshire and there were some people there that had come up from Birmingham. We had set off at about half five in the morning, and they must have set off at about the same time. And why were we all there? Just to try and see this one bird (which no-one actually got in the end that day). But that`s the way it is with twitching and we all live in hope of catching a glimpse, it's why we do it :)

My favourite photo of the day - a Honey Bee

When I go, I usually just go for as long as I want to, most times it ends up at about 2 or 3 hours, and I honestly really like doing it. I find it hard though to sit there for 12 hours like I've heard some people do, especially when you could just pop into your garden to see something which can be, in my opinion, just as amazing as seeing a particularly rare bird. All the different insects you can see is amazing! And if you're still on the hunt for something rare, you might even find a completely undiscovered species!

I hope you enjoyed this and take something from it and see how astonishing your back garden really is! I watched the insects for quite a while and decided to make a little film of them feeding.



Hope you enjoyed,

Z.

Post 439 - Numerous Wonderous & Astounding - Northern Wood Ant

A Northern Wood Ant (Formica lugubris)

Hey guys, this is post 439, and I've been out and about as usual but because of the lovely warm weather lately I've seen quite a lot of insects, more than I remember seeing in my summer holidays! On one walk Dad and I went on we were looking for a Wildlife Trust Nature Reserve called Birch Wood. We didn't actually find it (as it was on a completely different road!) but went for a great woodland walk and we did see lots of nice wildlife while we were there. One particular thing, although it was actually quite a lot of things, was the Northern Wood Ant.

I did a post generally about ants a little while ago but these wood ants are amazing creatures to watch and I had to find out more about them, so, here are some facts:

• They are Red Listed in the UK as they are Classed as Local and on the Scottish Biodiversity List.

• Wood ants are the largest UK ants and are about 1cm long.

• Another name for them is the 'Hairy Wood Ant', strange because I didn't actually see any hair on them at all! But, to be fair, you would need a microscope!

• The extent of the wood ant's population reaches as far up in the Highlands of Scotland to, sometimes, the South of Wales.

• In these areas there are many local colonies most of which appear to be stable at the moment.

• Like I say they live in colonies which can have up to half a million ants in them! This is quite amazing as sometimes there is only one queen that lays all the eggs!

• You can probably guess from their name that these ants live in woods. They like coniferous or mixed woodlands mainly.

Some of the ants pointed their abdomens at us -
squirting formic acid in defence 

• Wood ants make up a very important part of the eco-system in the forests as they eat insects that are pests to the trees such as the bordered white moth Bupalus piniaria which can defoliate pines.

• I found these ants walking quite a long way into the forest as they were on our route for quite a while, even crossing a little bridge we had to cross. They emerge from the nests working in long lines like this to gather prey. Sometimes they will gather honeydew from aphids on trees (by stroking them!) and other times they will hunt invertebrates. 

• They can kill small prey with their pincers, larger prey will be attacked by lots of ants working together. They can use formic acid which they squirt from their abdomens for attack too. This can be squirted up to 5cm by the ants and is also used in defence.

• All the workers in the colony are Female and, as they are not developed, don't reproduce. They can, interestingly, lay eggs, but they are used only as a food.

• The Males, though, don't really do ANTything ;) and their only purpose is to mate with the queen.

• Going back to the workers, they do really as their name suggests, they bring food in, keep the nest standing and tend to the queen. 

Some were carrying pine needles but dropped them
as we went by.

• The nest can be over one metre high and 2.5m in diameter, but the tunnels extend into the ground where most of the ants spend their time.

• The ants nests' are made up of pine needles, quite a lot of them, but the ants take a lot of care in placing the needles so that they act like a thatched roof and keep water out.

• Many tunnels line the nest and one of the ways that the ants control the nest temperature is to open and close tunnels to let air flow through. Also they make the next a bit flatter on the south side of the nest so it can absorb more heat from the sun.

• A final way they can warm up the nest is to send workers out to sunbathe. Once they've warmed up they return to the nest brood chambers and act like little radiators releasing the heat they got from sunbathing.

I didn't have time when I was out for my walk to find the nest. Dad seems to remember seeing one a few years ago but now I've read about them I want to see one as they sound amazing. Dr Roger Key also told me about a beetle larvae that live in the nests sometimes and is protected by the colony, in the spring I might be able to see the adult leaf beetle which is yellow - sounds great so I want to find the nest soon.

Before I finish off the post I'd like to say thank you to all of the people that took part in my Thunderclap and thank everyone that has signed my petition. There were exactly 5,600 signatures on it when I checked earlier! That's great, over halfway to a government response now! If you don't know about my petition you can read about it here, basically it's about trying to get some strong laws to protect our wildlife when the EU laws don't apply after #brexit. If you agree please sign up and tell others about it please.

Oh, and one last thing, when I went out again for a walk near Rievaulx and we took a different route home, Dad had worked out where Birch Wood actually was so I had a quick stop off. Now we've found it I think I'll enjoy exploring this place in the Autumn, looks like it will be great for fungi and lovely autumnal colours as the leaves start to change colour.


Hope you enjoyed,

Z.

Post 438 - Magnificent Mig Fest

Probably the star bird of MigFest - Kentish Plover
One of the MigFest Photos by Dave Tucker

Hey everyone today's post is 438 and this time last week I was still recovering after an amazing weekend at Spurn Point. Specifically, Mig Fest! This is an event that happens every year at Spurn to celebrate all the migratory birds coming through on their annual migration.

Dad picked me up from school and after a brief stop at home to say bye to Mum and Esme we set off. Even though I live in Yorkshire it's still a long way to Spurn! We got there and put the tent up straight away as it was already getting dark, and then we went off to the talk about how some migratory birds that you wouldn't expect to end up here with theories such as reverse migration theory (where the birds go entirely in the wrong direction) and the dog leg theory (where they start off right and then take a 45* turn.)

Saturday was wet! Dad and I drying off a bit in the barn
Stuart (@raptorwatcher) has his back to the camera

It was great to get to say hello to a lot of people I knew again too like Stuart Pike, a lot of the young birders from BTO bird camp (more on that in a bit) and some of the BTO staff like Andy, Paul and Debbie. Over the weekend too I got to bump into Mike Dilger who I'd missed meeting at Birdfair but who was at Migfest as he's the patron of Spurn Bird Observatory. It was great to meet Mike and we talked about blogs and birds for a while while waiting for tea,

It was dry when we got there on Friday evening, but not the next morning! It rained pretty much from 4 in the morning to 6 at night. And there was a lot of it! We were out at 6am and spent pretty much all of that day wet, and there was no point changing either as those clothes would have got sodden too! I'm quite used to the rain, living in the North, but as people were coming from all of the country (some even from the rest of the world), some people weren't best pleased about the rain!

Still damp but happy and nice to meet Mike!

It didn't matter though about the rain, It was a magical experience to see how many birds there are there, I remember going there in February and not being as impressed as this time, but that was because I went at a quiet time. This was absolutely amazing, I saw 9 new species of bird when I was there:

• Red-Throated Diver
• Common Scoter
• Manx Shearwater
• Whinchat
• Wheatear
• Spotted Flycatcher
• Arctic Skua
• Pied Flycatcher
• Kentish Plover

The last two were both interesting finds, the Pied Flycatcher was when I was talking to some people in the Triangle and a small black and white bird flew up and hovered for a few seconds before going back down.

The Kentish Plover was when we were Sea-watching and word came through over the radio. Andy Clements had found it.

BOOM! Just found Kentish Plover riverside Humber #migfest

— Andy Clements (@_AndyClements) 10 September 2016

Dawn from the campsite

The hide erupted with activity as everyone rushed to the car park to get a lift from someone down to where it was seen.   We got there and met up with the group that were with Andy when he found it and started to have a good look round for it. After looking for about 10 or 20 minutes, it was decided it had flown somewhere else. Me and some other young birders (George Dunbar, Eleanor Morrison, Sam Pitt-Miller , Jacob Spinks, Harry, Ellis Lucas, Joel Tragen, Findlay Wilde, Frank Osterberg, Toby Carter  and Darragh Hudson  decided to have a look at Kilnsea Wetlands as the tide was coming in and a lot of the birds would probably head there. It was nice to go there and get into the hide out of the rain for a while too. Low and behold it was there, Findlay refound it. We headed out in the rain to get better views like these:

The Kentish Plover on Kilnsea Wetlands is showing extremely well for anyone who's brave enough to go out in the rain pic.twitter.com/3QEAO9n3CA

— Daniel Branch (@DanielBranch94) 10 September 2016

A Meadow Pipit being ringed

I spent most of the rest of the day birding with the young birders until it was teatime and time for more talks.

The Saturday night  talks and had speakers from two other amazing bird observatories on peninsulas, one in America (Cape May) and another in Sweden (Falsterbo). They were amazing places and the numbers of birds that passed through them were incredible. It seems that peninsulas are the best places to see migrating birds as they all get funnelled down the land before they eventually head off to sea, so that way you get to see lots of them. These two observatories and Spurn are going to be working together on research in the future. After this most people headed to the pub so I joined the young birders in a glass of J2O, chatted about birding and just generally had a bit on banter and a laugh. We tried to twitch a badger too but sadly we missed it.

Sunday was another early start as I had arranged to meet the Young Birders at the sea watching hide again at first light. It was hard to get up at 5am but worth it as dawn was amazing. Funny thing with Spurn is that you could see both dawn and sunset over the sea! Sunday was a lovely warm sunny day and was definitely a Meadow Pipit day, thousands of them flew over that day. We saw a flock of Golden Plovers too high in the sky which was incredible watching how they glittered as they changed direction. I spent quite a while there before I went off for another activity,

Looking up at the lighthouse

My blog has been a brilliant project for me. I've met lots of great people, seen lots of great people and lots of great places. My Yorkshire Wildlife Trust reserves challenge has been great too and because of what I have been doing they did a really nice thing for me. They offered me a free Spurn Safari which was so nice, thank you very much YWT! I got to go right to the point on the Unimog (a big truck with seats in the back) so I managed to get some good pictures of wildlife on the way there. But when we were there we went right to the top of the lighthouse to have a look round. It was an amazing view as you could see for miles right up the point and straight over the Humber!

A panoramic shot from the top of the lighthouse

When we came down we went for a walk with the Guide who was extremely knowledgeable about the history of the Point and also about the wildlife around there. Common Lizard and Common Blue butterflies were the highlights - it might have been a Barred Warbler but the glimpse of the bird that may have been one was too quick to be sure sadly.  We stood at the very tip of the peninsula which was the most southerly point in East Yorkshire before heading back.

A Common Blue Butterfly on the point

That was more or less the end of the weekend. We headed to the farm to put the tent away, dried out by the lovely sunshine and then managed to get to say goodbye to a few people before setting off.

Well, it was an amazing weekend and I look forward to next year!


Hope you enjoyed,

Z.

Post 437 - State of Nature & a Petition update

Hey everyone,

I sat down tonight to start Post 437 which was going to be about a brilliant weekend at Spurn Point at Migfest, but something important was released today that made me think I should maybe blog about this instead. (I will come back to Spurn though!).

I'm talking of course about the State of Nature report - you can find the whole state of nature report on the RSPB website but also if you don't want to read it all there's a great summary too.

So why is it important? Well it gives us a big warning about how we are treating our environment. They have collected masses of data to support the findings, there were 7.5 million hours of volunteer monitoring covering 9,670 species, which I guess was on top of experts too.

There are a few headlines from the report that are very worrying....

Nature is in trouble!

It’s not too late to save UK nature but we must act now: https://t.co/DO3PG57Ba3 #StateOfNature pic.twitter.com/HvC8xAnwnS

— RSPB (@Natures_Voice) 14 September 2016

Using modern Red List criteria, which identify species of the highest conservation concern, we assessed 8,000 species. Of these, 15% are extinct or threatened with extinction from Great Britain.


This is horrible news for me, I love nature, I love doing my blog and seeing what I can find, it's my favourite thing to do. If in 50 years time and half of all wildlife is gone (or even 10%) then I'd be more than devastated. So it was quite upsetting to read that the UK is one of the worst countries in the world (189th out of 218) for its biodiversity intactness - basically meaning that wildlife and the environment fares much worse in our country than in most others!

But there are some bits of good news, this tweet from the BTO show some of the highlights...

It's never all doom & gloom! Here's a spot of #ConservationOptimism from today's new #StateOfNature report :) pic.twitter.com/2gJnzr8fPs

— BTO (@_BTO) 14 September 2016

Exactly, this is fantastic news. to know that some species are actually on the rise is amazing news. All the work that we've put into helping species has come off great. If we can all just push that little more and we could get things like Hedgehogs and Turtle Doves on the rise, then hopefully everything would be great again! The report does give examples of how species can and are being helped so we just need to do a bit more.

The report is not the only thing that has been in the news lately about the environment, some MP's are wanting to protect nature too...

Conservative MPs calling on the PM to safeguard EU environment protections & use CAP billions to support nature; https://t.co/e0wSwrG7GP

— Zac Goldsmith (@ZacGoldsmith) 5 September 2016

The National Trust are also supporting changes to farming to help the environment...

Reforms are needed to reverse decades of damage to the countryside we love: https://t.co/KzZzgbVaJi pic.twitter.com/PcPQOhzrFk

— National Trust (@nationaltrust) 4 August 2016

So with all of the conservation organisations involved in the State of Nature report, (there were 50 or more!) and lots of organisations and MP's wanting to protect the environment maybe there is some hope that we can help many of the species that are declining. The headline that is in most papers and articles I've see though is that 1 in 7 species in the UK are in danger of becoming extinct.

There is a lot we can do to help though, like getting involved with some of the conservation organsations like the Wildlife Trusts.

Take action for wildlife. Get involved with your Wildlife Trust and start where you live: https://t.co/Ljn2xX6HYy pic.twitter.com/gKw5rV166a

— The Wildlife Trusts (@WildlifeTrusts) 14 September 2016

You could also support my  petition which I have been promoting for a while which  I started with my Post 430 it's doing OK and is up to 4825 signatures but needs over another 5000 to get a response from the government.

If you want to help defend nature by getting strong laws to protect it when we leave the EU please sign it by clicking the link below...

Protect UK Environment & Wildlife - adopt European environmental legislation.

...and by supporting the Thunderclap I've set up

Post-Brexit Nature Protection

While there is a lot of hope for nature it is so important that we keep telling our politicians, and everyone really, that nature is important and that we want it to be protected.

Hope you enjoyed,

Zach.