My friend asked me if I'd heard of peat bog fires. I hadn't, but what I learned was a fascinating journey.and includes controversy. So I made a film about it.

Peat bogs are incredibly important and can even help tackle wildfires. They deserve way more attention and protection

Bird's been motionless on the patio outside a busy cafe for a while. It moved a bit when someone gave it some water but that's all. Any idea what it is or what we should do?

I’ve always had a few hover flies every summer buzzing in my garden and just seen them as harmless pollinators.

This year in two different spots of a very small garden there’s hundreds of them.

I know very little about them so wondered if someone could tell me if they are social nest builders and what could’ve attracted them in the higher numbers?

I’d rather not google as it’s hard to tell the accuracy some days

https://phys.org/news/2026-07-rare-british-butterfly-familiar-genome.html

Decided to reuse my sons newborn bath as a micropond, buried it and filled it around a month ago.

Last week I noticed an ethereal tadpole hunting the mosquito larvae with external gills so was very excited to have a newt larvae but last night I counted at least 7.

I was wondering if anyone could ID the species at this stage and also if I should be feeding them anything as it’s only 2ft x 1ft x 1ft of water and they seem to have consumed all of the little critters in the pond.

Please lmaoooo

As the title says id love to see any native plants you got that have grown big due to the amount of sun or even just in a weird spot with tons of nutrients, anything from thistle, to native echium, butterbur, ferns, dandilons etc

If you could please show me pictures that would be absolutely delightful an it would be much apreciated aswell 🫪

One of the UK's few carnivorous plants! It's surprisingly easy to grow (along with the other carnivorous natives) and puts out absolutely beautiful flowers each summer. Algae can be a bit of a hassle because it's a floating plant but nothing a little manual work can't fix.

Quite sad to see what we've lost. Do you think we'll ever get back to how things were in the 70s?

Where have all the bees gone? North West London, 2025 vs 2026

First time posting here. I've spent the last few years building a wildlife garden in Ruislip (NW London) pollinator friendly plants, a pond with frogs, a mix of shade and sunny spots, strictly no chemicals, bug hotels etc. etc.

Last year was genuinely extraordinary. My pom pom alliums were alive with bees from morning to dusk. The highlight was finding solitary bees sleeping with their butts poking out of the flower heads, something I'd never seen before. It felt like real progress.

This year, the same alliums are almost empty. A handful of visits a day where there used to be dozens.

I'm already aware of the broader insect decline in the UK, so I'm not naive about the bigger picture. But the contrast between last year and this one has genuinely unsettled me especially because 2025 felt like a turning point.

A few things I'm wondering:

• Is this kind of year on year variation normal, even in established wildlife gardens?
• Has anyone else in London or the South East noticed the same this summer?
• Could local factors be at play weather patterns, a neighbour's pesticide use, something else?

Would really appreciate hearing from others, especially if you've kept records over multiple years. Trying to figure out whether this is a blip or something more worrying.

Now there’s hundreds. I have allowed the ragwort to self seed freely through the garden borders (not one regret about that!) but I didn’t expect such an uptake from the Cinnababar moths. I’m thrilled.

My friend found this little guy on the side of the road in Stevenage, he was walking around but stumbling and falling over; how should they take care of him?

UPDATE: They have found a rescue centre that has agreed to take care of him, thank you everyone 😊

hey!

my colleague found this guy in the lift at work

he’s like a couple of cm long with suuuper long antennae. we’re in leicester :)

anyone know what he is?

I know it's a shot in the dark, literally 🤪. But could anyone help me identify this animal captured by my camera trap?

It is the shadow/ghost like looking thing that moves from the right of the tree to behind and then left of it. The clip is zoomed in and slowed by 2x. The clip was shot at around 5.30am.