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Newport, Pembrokeshire Of all birds, none reminds me more clearly and poignantly that ‘summer’s lease hath all too short a date’

“Like miniature magpies!” That’s how my friends’ young daughter described them to me years ago, delighted by the little dancing birds of summer that thronged the track down to my house. She wanted to know what they were called. They were here again as I climbed out of Newport heading for Carn Ingli.

If any bird typifies Wales and summer, it’s surely the pied flycatcher, performing its quick and lightsome aerial minuets along the lanes. So long as there are sessile oak woods nearby, especially ones equipped with nest-boxes, from April to early August you’ll witness the birds’ incessant activity. You’ll hear their tuneful quarrels with the redstarts, see them with their young darting and flurrying among the foliage and gorging on the oakwood caterpillar feast as they prepare for the journey back to their winter home in west Africa.

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David Attenborough has become a household name having taken viewers to every part of the globe, sharing the intimate workings of the natural world. As he celebrates his 90th birthday, David reflects on his life on Earth, the changes he has observed, and the challenges that confront a world full of people.

The ABC’s citizen science project allows everyone to join in the identification of a million wild animals.

It is covered in flamboyantly coloured sausages, it’s a hermaphrodite, breathes through its skin, goes through metamorphoses AND this new species needs a name.

The orca, nicknamed Bob, was dehydrated and emaciated, and refused food offered by scientists trying to save him

The baby orca stranded in Tauranga harbour in New Zealand for more than 20 days has died.

The calf – nicknamed Bob by locals – had been separated from it’s pod in mid-July, and despite the efforts of a task force set up to reunite Bob with his family, his kin were never located.

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Four seasons just aren't enough for some people. Tim Entwisle's come up with 'Sprinter' and, with Matthew Crawford, he investigates some harbingers of the new season — native orchids and migrating cuckoos.

German consumers and farmers are trying to understand each other better, thanks to the push toward sustainable agriculture.

George Monbiot’s article (The climate crisis is already here – but no one’s telling us, 3 August) reinforced something I’ve been aware of since the Paris climate talks – a dearth of information and emphasis in the media regarding action worldwide aiming to ensure that the world’s average temperature doesn’t rise by more than 1.5C above the pre-industrial level.

Why am I hearing about small community efforts to install solar panels in emails from organisations like Friends of the Earth and 10:10 and not on TV or in the papers? Why is it that the decision of the Saudi government to move to renewables was not trumpeted by the media, but had to be searched out online? Why is it that the efforts of organisations like Ethex are not being publicised and praised, giving more people the knowledge they need in order to invest in community renewable energy projects? Above all, why is it that the appalling and shameful lack of action of the Conservative government on reaching the Paris goals is not being more frequently and urgently challenged in the media?

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Your editorial “The future of food and the farming revolution” (4 August) discusses a speech by the director of the National Trust, whose main role is protecting British heritage. That Brexit provides an opportunity to reform agricultural policy is reasonable, but many of the problems outlined were not solely due to failures of the common agricultural policy (CAP). For example, the lack of improved productivity from British farms is largely due to low farm-gate prices that make it hard to justify investment in new techniques. This is exacerbated by the arbitrary management of supermarket contracts. The use of immigrant labour has more to do with rural housing and employment policy, restrictions on the traditional Travellers’ way of life, and lack of employment in eastern Europe, than with the CAP. Neither was CAP responsible for the horse-meat scandal, which was caused by reaction to low prices in the processing industry. Pollution of water courses, due to loss of nutrients, represents an economic disaster for farms, and is caused either by severe weather, or by incompetent management. Management problems have been made worse by the closure of agricultural colleges and the Agricultural Advisory Service.

Butterfly populations are still in decline in spite of the diversion of subsidies into environmental schemes. The lack of planning for individual farms, and the lack of before and after ecological surveys on individual farms, are major contributors to this. While there have been some successes, much of the publicity appears to be green-washing by companies practising uniform management over several different habitats.

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For the Yorkshire Dales to acquire some real class and distinction (Lancashire loses turf to Yorkshire for Dales expansion, 2 August) it has clearly been necessary for the national park to encompass some of Lancashire’s treasured acres. Although the park now embraces the high moors of Leck Fell, let it never be forgotten that all these lands, along with the administrative jiggery-pokery that redefined the Furness district and “Lancashire across the sands” as Cumbria, remain irrevocably within the County Palatine of Lancaster.

Many gradely folk share the sentiment “insufferably bumptious Yorkshire” and have long held the view that the only good that comes out Yorkshire are the roads into Lancashire.
Robert Wright (Exiled Lancastrian)
Caersws, Montgomeryshire

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The week’s top environment news stories and green events. If you are not already receiving this roundup, sign up here to get the briefing delivered to your inbox

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A physicist speaks to BBC2's Horizon programme as a tantalising discovery recedes into the background of data from the Large Hadron Collider.

Results from the Large Hadron Collider show that a "bump" in the machine's data, previously rumoured to represent a new particle, has gone away.

A giant stick bug, brawling zebras and an athletic marmoset monkey are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world

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Decades of neglect have left Manila’s transport system unable to cope with its citizens’ daily travel, putting its commuters through exhausting, stressful and lengthy journeys. Filipino-American photographer Lawrence Sumulong captures the smoggy claustrophobia in a fisheye view of the city

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Brazil’s environmental regulator rules the dam’s backers had failed to supply information to show its social and environmental impact

Brazil’s environmental regulator Ibama decided on Thursday to shelve the environmental license request for a hydroelectric dam on the Tapajós river in the Amazon, a project that had been opposed by indigenous tribes and conservation groups.

Ibama’s licensing office ruled the dam’s backers had not presented information in time to show its social and environmental viability. They halted the 30bn reals (£7.2bn) project. In April, Ibama had suspended the licensing process that began in 2009 after criticism by Brazil’s indigenous affairs department, Funai.

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Contact comes through contaminated pasture and dung, with significant implications for farming practices

Badgers and cattle never came into close contact during a new field study examining how tuberculosis (TB) is transmitted between the animals.

Most TB in cattle is contracted from other cattle but some infections come from badgers. The new research indicates that the disease is not passed on by direct contact, but through contaminated pasture and dung, with potentially significant implications for farm practices such as slurry spreading.

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AGL project to roll out 1,000 battery systems to homes and businesses will operate like a 5MW plant, and optimise energy produced from solar panels

Adelaide will be home to the world’s largest “virtual power plant” – AGL is rolling out 1,000 battery systems to homes and businesses, with backing from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (Arena).

AGL and Arena say the project will improve network security and dampen a volatile wholesale electricity price in South Australia. However, an energy expert says that at the current size, the system will have a minimal impact on network security or wholesale prices, but might pose a challenge to the revenues of companies that own the poles and wires.

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Oil spills in the Komi Republic caused by old pipelines are relatively small and rarely garner widespread attention - but added up they threaten fish stocks and pasture for cattle

The Komi Republic in northern Russia is renowned for its many lakes, but sites contaminated by oil are almost just as easy to find in the Usinsk oilfields. From pumps dripping oil and huge ponds of black sludge to dying trees and undergrowth — a likely sign of an underground pipeline leak — these spills are relatively small and rarely garner media attention.

But they add up quickly, threatening fish stocks, pasture land and drinking water. According to the natural resources and environment minister, Sergei Donskoi, 1.5m tonnes of oil are spilled in Russia each year. That’s more than twice the amount released by the record-breaking Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.

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Watership Down, Hampshire Disturbingly large and menacing in flight, the billy witch is a beetle of otherworldly workmanship

The day has been hot and heavy and full of the drones of insects sounding up at their own unique frequencies. In the cool of the evening my muscle memory is still swaying, an artefact from the repeated left and right arc of cutting hay on the meadow bank. All day as I worked I’d watched the bees hum and fumble at the flower heads as I cut down through the cornflowers, ox-eye daisies and yarrow at the field’s edge; a meadow’s measure of summer music.

At my desk in front of the wide open window I can hear what sounds like the distant hum of a chainsaw, its pitch changing as it cuts through the wood. With alarming suddenness, the sound is upon me, in the room and loud around my ears as a cockchafer flies past my head and settles on the books by a lamp.

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