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Udale Bay, Cromarty, Highlands Rapid wings took the peregrine high, and it wheeled, looking for any movement below

The tide was starting to ebb as I raised two of the windows in the RSPB hide. This meant I could not only see the mass of birds on the saltmarsh but also enjoy the music of their various calls. They seemed to be trying to decide just when to leave for the mudflats and the food that would be exposed for them by the departing tide.

Curlews walked around looking superior on their long legs, drake wigeon whistled in their inimitable fashion, and the black and white plumage of the several shelduck stood out in contrast to the brown and grey camouflage of the waders.

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Scientists discover a 'clear signal' of urbanisation in the evolution of organisms around the globe.

Australia's migratory shorebirds have just flown 5,000 kilometres northward to stopover in the Yellow Sea. What will they find when they arrive?

A look at life inside China's most polluted city. Shijiazhuang is currently underneath a thick layer of toxic smog.

Travels with a camera to the ends of the earth, a memoir of filming wild life in action.

China has ordered all its legal ivory carvers and traders to get of the business by the end of the year. But it will have to do more if it really wants to stop poaching

China’s ban on ivory trading and processing has been hailed as a monumental step on the path to saving elephants from extinction. But if China does not simultaneously tackle its much larger illegal trade in ivory, the ban could perversely make it more lucrative for the poaching gangs who massacre Africa’s elephants and ship their tusks to Asia.

The number of legal businesses being shut down is relatively small. The plan, announced on 30 December by China’s central government, will close “a portion” (the Guardian understands it will be roughly half) of its 34 licensed carving factories and 130 retailers before the end of March 2017. The rest will be forced shut by the end of the year.

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For years China’s ivory carvers and collectors have been blamed for elephant poaching. Now their government is banning the ivory trade. How do they see their future?

In a tiny workshop at his home in the Tai Po district of Hong Kong, 84-year-old Au Yue-Shung shows me an ivory carving he has been working on for months. Measuring just 5x10 inches, Nine Sages in Mount Xiang depicts the 9th-century poet Bai Juyi and eight of his peers in full creative flow in Henan province, far from the imperial court that Bai once served. The point of the story is that the sages tried to maintain their integrity by staying close to nature and art, and away from the ugly politics of the time. This is a piece that Au created for himself rather than a client. It is his statement about life after going through many ups and downs.

Born during the Japanese occupation of China in the 1930s, Au joined Guangzhou’s Daxin ivory carving factory at the age of 13 as an apprentice. With only one year’s formal education and with no one caring to teach him, he taught himself drawing and carving in his spare time. Unable to afford drawing paper, he drew on toilet paper. His gift was soon recognised and by the late 1960s he had become a key carving artist at Daxin. Later, at the height of the Cultural Revolution, he decided that he had had enough of the political and artistic repression.

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In 1945 the first Country Hour program went to air, and so began Australia's longest running radio program. We're looking back at the biggest agricultural stories to celebrate 70-plus years of ABC rural broadcasting. In the 1960s all eyes turn to the Kimberley and the Ord Irrigation scheme.

Scientists predict that a giant iceberg is about to break off from the Antarctic shelf after the sudden expansion of a rift which has been growing steadily for a decade. Several ice shelves have cracked up around northern parts of Antarctica in recent years, including the Larsen B that disintegrated in 2002

• Giant iceberg poised to break off from Antarctic shelf

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We're looking for the grey-crowned babbler in Northern Victoria; Indonesian students are loving life on a Northern Territory pastoral station; and a Cairns butcher reveals the secret behind his meat display cabinet.

We know diesel vehicles are the key culprit, but when it comes to both long-term solutions and emergency measures the govenment has been asleep at the wheel

Cutting toxic levels of city air pollution to safer levels is simple, but not easy – it requires resolve. Yet, despite the key culprit in the UK being well known – diesel vehicles – the government has been asleep at the wheel for years.

Levels of nitrogen dioxide have been illegally high across much of the UK since 2010. In 2015 86% of major urban areas broke annual limits. Cutting this pollution means choking off diesel emissions and there is a wide range of effective measures available.

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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 swimming baby elephant, diving penguins and jumping impalas are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world

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A south London road breaches its EU annual air pollution limit for 2017 in just five days.

Pushback will be needed against an impending swarm of climate zombie myths

Climate myths are like zombies – you shoot them through the heart, walk away thinking they’re dead, and then they pop back up behind you and try once again to eat your brain.

So it is with Stage 1 climate denial and the myth that the Earth isn’t warming. It’s so persistent that it’s related to the 5th, 9th, and 49th-most popular myths in the Skeptical Science database. Climate deniers have been peddling the myth ‘no warming since [insert date]’ for over a decade.

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The quality of forensic science work in England and Wales is putting the integrity of the criminal justice system at risk, the regulator warns.

Brixton Road in Lambeth has already broken legal limits for toxic air for the entire year, with many other sites across the capital set to follow

London has breached its annual air pollution limits just five days into 2017, a “shameful reminder of the severity of London’s air pollution”, according to campaigners.

By law, hourly levels of toxic nitrogen dioxide must not be more than 200 micrograms per cubic metre more than 18 times in a whole year, but late on Thursday this limit was broken on Brixton Road in Lambeth.

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It now owns five of the world’s six largest solar-module manufacturing firms and the largest wind-turbine manufacturer

China is cementing its global dominance of renewable energy and supporting technologies, aggressively investing in them both at home and around the globe, leaving countries including the US, UK and Australia at risk of missing the growing market.

A report by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (Ieefa) found China’s dominance in renewables is rapidly spreading overseas, with the country accelerating its foreign investment in renewable energy and supporting technologies.

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A notorious egg thief is on the run after stealing bird eggs worth up to £5,000, after authorities in Brazil lost track of him.

Residents of the new eco hamlet in Pembrokeshire can expect greatly reduced fuel bills and shared use of an electric car

Most of the houses in the Welsh village of Glanrhyd are of traditional construction – walls made out of hefty local stone, roofs of grey slate. They can get chilly when the winter winds whistle through the gaps.

The six houses that make up the “eco hamlet” of Pentre Solar look and feel very different. They are built using light, bright timber sourced from a nearby valley. The houses are carefully insulated, airtight and powered by solar panels.

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