Great to see this roadside verge left to grow wild giving plenty of nectar and pollen to the bees on this #WorldBeeDay @idverde_Bromley #nomowmay @Love_plants

We need this here in 🇬🇧 Urgently.

These silky ants (Formica fusca) are tending a large pine aphid (Cinara pinea) amongst the bursting needles on the new growth on a young Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) on the Findhorn Hinterland. Note how well the aphid is camouflaged, looking like the brown sheaths of the buds.

🚨🇮🇶🇺🇸 الخبر يـجب أن تنتشر في كل مكان حول العالم.. منتخب العراق وصل شيكاغو اليوم بعد رحلة لمدة 12 ساعة • تم احتجاز ' أيمن حسين ' مهاجم المنتخب لمدة 7 ساعات والتحقيق ثم السماح له بالدخول!!!!! • تم احتجاز ' طلال صلاح ' مصور المنتخب لمدة 12 ساعة ولم يتم السماح له بالدخول وسيعود للعراق!!!! 😳 أهلًا بكم في كأس العالم 2026 في الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية.

Let’s Bring This to Croydon!

It’s the intensive/factory meat, dairy, poultry and fish farms, abattoirs, butchers, and animal/meat processing plants that ‘thousands of families’ need to go and visit, to see the honest food chain in action, rather than the fantasy farming that exists in Ladybird books🤷🏻

Worth repeating

Abandoned house by the Deben marshes, Suffolk. Photo last December.

"A ten-year-old started screaming about a wave no one could see—and 100 people lived because her parents believed her. December 26, 2004. Mai Khao Beach, Phuket, Thailand. Christmas holiday. Perfect weather. The Smith family walked along the sand on their first overseas vacation together. Then Tilly noticed something wrong. The water wasn't behaving normally. ""It wasn't calm and it wasn't going in and then out,"" she later recalled. ""It was just coming in and in and in."" The sea had turned frothy—""like you get on a beer,"" she said. ""It was sort of sizzling."" Any other ten-year-old might have thought it strange. Tilly knew exactly what it meant. Two weeks earlier, her geography teacher Andrew Kearney had shown the class footage of the 1946 tsunami that devastated Hawaii. He taught them the warning signs: sea receding unusually far, frothy bubbling water, ocean behaving strangely. Tilly was watching those exact warning signs unfold in front of her. She started screaming at her parents. ""There's going to be a tsunami!"" They didn't believe her. They couldn't see any wave. The sky was clear. The beach was calm. But Tilly wouldn't stop. She became more insistent, more frantic. ""I'm going,"" she finally said. ""I'm definitely going. There is definitely going to be a tsunami."" Her father Colin heard the urgency in her voice. He decided to trust his daughter. By coincidence, a Japanese man nearby overheard Tilly use the word ""tsunami."" He'd just heard news of an earthquake in Sumatra. ""I think your daughter's right,"" he said. Colin alerted hotel staff. They began evacuating immediately. Tilly's mother Penny was one of the last to leave. She had to sprint as the water began rushing in behind her. ""I ran,"" she recalled, ""and then I thought I was going to die."" They made it to the second floor with seconds to spare. Then the wave hit. Thirty feet tall. Everything on the beach—beds, palm trees, debris—was swept into the pool and beyond. ""Even if you hadn't drowned,"" Penny later said, ""you would have been hit by something."" The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami killed over 230,000 people across 14 countries. Entire beaches in Phuket were wiped out. But at Mai Khao Beach, not a single person died. Because a ten-year-old girl paid attention in geography class. Tilly was hailed as the ""Angel of the Beach."" She received awards, spoke at the United Nations, met Bill Clinton. Her story is now taught in schools worldwide. Her father Colin still thinks about what could have happened. ""If she hadn't told us, we would have just kept on walking,"" he said. ""I'm convinced we would have died."" Tilly still credits her teacher. ""If it wasn't for Mr. Kearney,"" she told the UN, ""I'd probably be dead and so would my family."" Two weeks. One lesson. One hundred lives. That's the power of education.

Putin didn't invade Ukraine because of NATO. He invaded because Ukrainians were proving democracy works. Historian and Pulitzer Prize winner Anne Applebaum puts it plainly: Putin looked at Ukraine's democratic movement and thought, "If they can do it in Ukraine, then people could do it in Russia. So I need to crush this." That's the real threat Ukraine posed. Not missiles. Not borders. A working democracy next door. Applebaum frames the war as a fault line between the democratic and autocratic worlds. Russia isn't just trying to take territory. It's trying to erase Ukraine as a nation, reduce it to a colony, and send a message to every country that the post-1945 rules of Europe no longer apply. Those rules were simple: no invasions, no wars, borders don't change by force. Russia understood exactly what it was breaking when it crossed into Ukraine.

Today is World Fish Migration Day 2026. To mark this day, I want to highlight the extraordinary migration and challenges facing the European Eel (Anguilla anguilla). This video shows juvenile eels (elvers) attempting to migrate upstream at Ennistymon Falls on the River Inagh, Co. Clare. These falls are natural but have also been modified for hydroelectricity generation. Very few of these elvers make it to the top. Eels migrate thousands of kilometres across the Atlantic Ocean, only to encounter migration barriers almost immediately upon entering the lower reaches of most Irish rivers. The European Eel is now classified as Critically Endangered. Despite this, very little has been done in Ireland to facilitate eel migration, and we are still waiting for the first functional elver pass to be installed on an Irish river. Migration barriers, hydropower infrastructure, habitat loss, declining water quality, pollution, and climate change are all contributing to the collapse of eel populations across Europe. World Fish Migration Day highlights not only the importance of reconnecting rivers for migratory fish, but also the deep historical and cultural connections between people, rivers, and fisheries. Ireland banned traditional commercial eel fishing in 2009. However, traditional eel fishing was never the primary cause of the collapse and, when properly managed, could potentially form part of a sustainable future for the species. Historically, fishermen often rescued elvers trapped below these falls. Eel fishing also represented an important part of Ireland’s cultural and fishing heritage, connecting local communities with rivers, estuaries, and wetlands for generations. European Eels remain locally abundant in some areas, and we can still do far more to help them. With proper fish passage, habitat restoration, improved water quality, and targeted conservation measures, we can help this remarkable species recover while also restoring part of our lost aquatic heritage.

Why is our Government hiding the dangers we face from climate and nature breakdown? Please sign this petition calling on the Government to hold an emergency briefing from leading experts so the public know the risks and understand why we must act. petition.parliament.uk/petit…

UN vote confirms that countries have a legal obligation to address climate change - the only opposition comes from those trying to make a profit from our own destruction Our Governments need to stop being destroyers and start being saviours theguardian.com/environment/…

Why are #Essex County Council & #Braintree District Council reverting to cutting rural roadside verges twice a yr instead of once in late summer - to allow wildflowers to bloom, seed & support bees and insects ? Why are they spending more public money on having less nature ?

'Local boys' have robbed us of our previously dark skies - in a rural area. They have dozens of lights on all night long and don't care if it ruins views of the stars, don't care if it disturbs wildlife and don't care if it harms people's sleep and wellbeing. Totally selfish.

It turns out that the new “Street Trading Consents” licence fees will also apply to the little roadside egg stands with honesty boxes. 😡 Let’s be honest about who this ridiculous new licensing affects. It’s usually small farms with a little wooden stand and an honesty box. Fresh eggs. Homemade jam, hardly a business. Or someone who bakes once a week because they truly enjoy it. A few cupcakes, a brownie, something homemade. There’s very little money in it — it’s passion, not profit. These aren’t big businesses dodging tax. They’re not corporations. They’re part of the fabric of our villages and towns. Life is hard enough right now. Instead of supporting local initiative and community spirit, they want to slap a licence fee on it. That’s not encouragement — that’s discouragement. And this is how it starts… Price out the little cake cupboards. Licence the honesty boxes. Charge the farm gate egg sellers. Before you know it, all that’s left are the big chains who can afford the fees, the paperwork, the red tape. Same shops. Same menus. Same everything. No character. No community. No local passion. We should be protecting the small, not squeezing them out. Because once they’re gone, they’re not coming back. LETS FIGHT THIS crazy new licence fee 🙏 #positivevibes #cakecupboard #honestybox #smallbusiness #council

3 young boys ran 26miles because they want to raise money to buy Penrhos coastal park ( nature reserve ) to stop Penrhos from being destroyed and made into a chalet holiday camp ! Can you see why they feel so strongly? as these are some of the many reasons why they ran ! Please support the boys . Thank you! gofund.me/998ba9aa2 📸David Jones , Cecilia Frodsham & Shirley Blease

It’s hard to believe that this stunning bluebell woodland is in London, a short walk from a Zone 3 Tube Station. It’s a reminder that our cities could & should be incredible natural Edens, with a bluebell woodland in every borough. Ugly & drab urban areas denuded of nature & beauty are a political choice.

That decorative bee hotel from the garden center might actually be hurting the bees. Scott MacIvor, a researcher at the University of Toronto, set up 200 bee hotels across Toronto and monitored them for three years. What moved in: parasitic wasps, spiders, earwigs, ants, and in one case a mouse. Not villains, but also not bees. Native bees did use them, but the large clustered design made it easy for disease and parasites to spread between nests in a way that would never happen in nature, where nesting sites are scattered and isolated. Here's what most commercial bee hotels get wrong: Plastic tubes trap moisture and grow mold. Bamboo tubes are usually too large for most native bee species. Pine cones, bark, and moss, seen in virtually every decorative hotel, aren't used by bees and attract the wrong insects. Holes too short produce almost exclusively male offspring, skewing the population. No maintenance plan means disease and parasites accumulate year over year with no way to clean them out. The bigger problem: 70% of North American bee species nest in the ground. A bee hotel does nothing for them. What actually works: 🌿 Leave bare patches of undisturbed soil in a sunny spot 🪵 Leave dead wood and hollow stems standing 🌸 Plant native flowers that bloom in sequence spring through fall 🚫 Stop using pesticides The bees don't need a hotel. They need a habitat.

Albert Bridge - never intended for cars - has been damaged by them. It’s now a great bridge for pedestrians and people on bikes. Let’s keep it that way. 1/3 c.org/pwCT2cCLBD