GreyShuck

A GROUP of 30 young conservationists recently had an 'unforgettable' experience when they got to study the first wild fledged white-tailed eagle to be born in Dorset in nearly 240 years.

The encounter occurred recently during an organised boat trip in Poole Harbour for children, which was being hosted by charity, Birds of Poole Harbour, as part of their ‘Young Birders’ club.

The young eagle known as ‘G834’ is the first white-tailed eagle to fledge from a wild nest in Dorset since the 1700’s and is a direct result of the popular reintroduction program that’s currently being carried out from the Isle of Wight by Forestry England and the Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation.

Hundreds of purposefully-designed leaky dams are due to be installed across Epping Forest to help slow down and manage flooding.

The City of London Corporation said that 374 of the dams - which involve placing branches and twigs across small waterways - would be built over the next year.

The corporation, which manages the forest, claims it is the biggest natural flood management project of its kind in the south east.

The Royal Forestry Society welcomes the recent (29 Jan) Policy Paper from Defra and the Forestry Commission on managing England’s grey squirrel population. The statement recognises the considerable threat grey squirrels pose to forestry, with an estimated population of 2.7 million across Great Britain causing £37m annual damage to British woodlands.

The RFS is encouraged by the Government’s support for lethal control and silvicultural measures, and its strong backing for innovation in fertility control research and clearer public messaging on the importance of grey squirrel management to the public.

The RFS is pleased to see the government address these issues, which remain high on our agenda. The Society has always supported control measures and we will continue to represent the voices of woodland owners and managers. We will keep advocating for effective grey squirrel management wherever they are present to protect the resilience and future of our treescapes.

Work has been carried out at nature reserves in Weymouth to help the wildlife.

Reed management work has taken place at the RSPB Weymouth Wetlands reserves at Radipole Lake and Lodmoor to improve habitats.

The charity has commissioned a specialist contractor which has been using an amphibious machine called a Truxor at RSPB Radipole to clear a length of the channel of the River Wey that runs parallel to Radipole Park Drive.

Through the conservation programme Species on the Edge, four disused military structures are being converted into safe breeding habitats for the threatened seabirds at the reserve, located on Scotland's north-east coast.

The pillboxes were originally built in 1940 as part of an anti-tank stop line to protect the flat beaches from potential invasion and to defend the nearby airbase. Now, 85 years later, they are being transformed to help safeguard wildlife.

Species on the Edge Trainee Luke Butler has been leading the conversion work, covering the pillbox roofs with shingle substrate and installing mesh fencing on wooden frames to protect against predators. The design mimics the natural gravel and shingle sites where Common Terns typically build their simple nests.

A project to restore vast meadows of a saltwater plant to the Humber Estuary has reached a major milestone, experts say.

Seagrass is one of the most powerful natural tools for tackling climate change and can protect coastlines from storms and erosion, according to Wilder Humber – a partnership of the Yorkshire and Lincolnshire wildlife trusts.

It once covered about 1,100 acres (445 hectares) of the estuary, but declined dramatically during the 20th Century due to pollution, disease and the loss of natural coastal space.

A very unusual marine discovery has been made at Plymouth’s Mount Batten Beach during The Rock Pool Project’s monthly BioBlitz Battle. Two keen young rock poolers taking part in the citizen science event found specimens of the depilatory sea hare (Aplysia depilans), a species usually only seen in the Mediterranean and East Atlantic. It is possible that warming waters and increased storms have allowed for this species to make themselves more at home on our shores.

One of the sea hares was discovered by five-year-old Charley Taviner, who joined the BioBlitz Battle for the first time.

More than 110,000 trees will be planted to create 185 hectares of new woodland and pasture.

The planting project, near Bridgnorth in Shropshire, would be one of the biggest in the Midlands, the National Trust said.

The trees are being planted on its Dudmaston Estate, financed by the government's Trees for Climate programme.

A plan is being considered to reintroduce the largest bird to have ever lived in Britain.

The Dalmatian pelican lived in Britain thousands of years ago, but was driven to extinction during medieval times.

Nature restoration company RESTORE said it has been conducting studies to explore whether the bird could be reintroduced to British wetland landscapes including sites across the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads, Essex marshes and the Somerset Levels.

Environmental campaigners have criticised a “crushingly disappointing” UK government plan to tackle “forever chemicals”, which they warn risks locking in decades of avoidable harm to people and the environment.

The government said its Pfas action plan set out a “clear framework” of “coordinated action … to understand where these chemicals are coming from, how they spread and how to reduce public and environmental exposure”.

But campaigners described the plan as “incredibly weak” and criticised its failure to match tough action taken in Europe, where national governments are already banning chemicals on the grounds of public safety before EU-wide action.

Deep in the Cumbrian Pennines, walkers might be lucky enough to spot small birds with spindly legs, long beaks and bodies like feathered balls hopping through the peat bogs.

These are endangered dunlins – at risk in England because their favoured soggy landscapes are drained and burned for farming and grouse shooting.

These birds fly an astonishing distance to breed in the far reaches of the heather moorlands in Cumbria, travelling thousands of miles to and from west Africa.

Every year, an estimated 90 million birds navigate the East Atlantic Flyway, an aerial superhighway stretching from the Arctic circle – spanning Siberia, Canada, and Alaska – down the coast of Western Europe to sites as far south as South Africa.

Each summer as the snow melts, the Arctic becomes a surprisingly fertile breeding ground that attracts around 200 species – some 300 to 500 million individual birds. But as the Arctic winter takes hold once more, these birds begin a southward migration, navigating along the world’s coastlines to reach warmer winter feeding areas. ‘There are nine flyways around the world,’ says Julianne Evans, head of ecology at the RSPB. ‘The East Atlantic Flyway funnels the birds directly north of us down through Iceland and the Scandinavia, through our estuaries and down to Western Europe and Africa.’