The Guardian

Eggs laid by white-letter hairstreak found on elm trees in Berwickshire

The microscopic eggs of an endangered butterfly have been found in Scotland, suggesting the insect has returned to breed in the country for the first time in more than 130 years.

Lepidopterists discovered white-letter hairstreak eggs on wych elm trees at Lennel, Berwickshire, this month after an adult butterfly was spotted last summer 10 miles away – the first sighting in Scotland since 1884.

Officials say Kavous Seyed Emami used endangered Asiatic cheetah surveys as pretext for spying, but no evidence has been cited

UN officials have urged the Iranian government to respect the work of environmental activists following the death in custody last week of wildlife campaigner, Kavous Seyed Emami.

Emami was buried on Monday, but several members of the organisation he founded, the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation, remain in jail and the deputy head of the Environmental Protection Organisation, Kaveh Madani, was detained for 72 hours over the weekend.

Crook, County Durham: A steady rain of shredded petals settles daily on the flagstone path

A family of bullfinches, Pyrrhula pyrrhula, started to visit our winter-flowering cherry in early December, soon after it began to bloom, and they have returned almost every day. I planted the tree about two decades ago and now its crown is level with the bedroom windows, offering opportunities to watch these shy birds at close quarters. They come to feed on its seemingly inexhaustible supply of flower buds that will last until spring.

Bullfinches’ passion for fruit tree flower buds led to their persecution by orchard owners, though they are equally fond of hawthorn for most of the year. The 19th-century parson-naturalist Francis Orpen Morris even had a theory that their name was a corruption of budfinch, “the word bud being pronounced in the vulgate of the north of England, as if spelled ‘bood’.”

Status of northern hairy-nosed wombat, central rock-rat, numbat and Christmas Island shrew upgraded in latest threatened species list

Four mammals – including the northern hairy-nosed wombat and the numbat – have been upgraded to endangered or critically endangered on the updated Australian threatened species list published on Thursday.

The northern hairy-nosed wombat (Lasiorhinus krefftii) has been steadily contracting its range to a single area within Queensland’s Epping Forest national park, 855km north-west of Brisbane.

Labor, Greens and environment groups call for urgent review of funding for species conservation

• ‘Absolute scandal’: how does restoring a ship help endangered species?
  

Labor has accused the federal government of overstating its spending on threatened species projects and the Greens have called for an urgent auditor general’s review of all threatened species expenditure by the Department of the Environment and Energy.

It comes after the Guardian revealed the government was claiming projects such as heritage building works at the Old Melbourne Gaol and the Polly Woodside – an old cargo ship in Melbourne’s CBD – had benefits for threatened animals and plants that are unlikely to occur at those sites.

Shellfish reefs, formed by oysters or mussels in or near estuaries, have declined by up 99% since British colonisation

Marine scientists are lobbying the federal government to ensure protection for Australia’s most endangered – but least known – ocean ecosystem.

Shellfish reefs, formed by millions of oysters or mussels clustering together in or near the mouths of estuaries, have declined by up 99% since British colonisation.

Climate change and industrial-scale fishing is impacting the krill population with a potentially disastrous impact on larger predators, say scientists

• First images of creatures from Antarctic depths revealed

The Antarctic, one of the world’s last great wildernesses and home to animals such as whales, penguins and leopard seals, is being threatened by the plight of an animal just a few centimetres long, according to scientists.

Researchers and environmental campaigners warn that a combination of climate change and industrial-scale fishing is threatening the krill population in Antarctic waters, with a potentially disastrous impact on larger predators.

In 1996, Osvaldo Wuaru and his family arrived on the outskirts of the vast Munduruku Amazon Territory with a crucial mission: set up a village to hold back the invasion of pariwat (non-indigenous) gold miners. Twenty-one years later, it has all but failed, reports Climate Home News

Named Watch Post (the Portuguese acronym is PV), the village has been swallowed by the heavy equipment of hundreds of illegal gold miners (called garimpeiros). What was once a few huts hidden in the Amazon forest now resembles a bombed battlefield.

German photographer Tobias Friedrich has been named this year’s winner for his ‘perfectly lit and composed’ panorama of a wreck off the coast of Egypt, while British winner Grant Thomas captured a couple of affectionate swans

Wenlock Edge, Shropshire: The one-step-forward-two-steps-back dance between winter and spring had time yet but many of the animals and plants had not

Overnight snow left anonymous gifts. Frost and a chill wind through the trees hardened what remained of the snowfall as the weather moved on, to leave a scattering of unopened envelopes. Snow on fungi: there was something very symbolic about these two kinds of ephemeral structures. The Armilaria fungi living in the rotten stump of a tree may have been what killed it. The fruiting bodies of russet flesh that bloomed from fibrous mycelium, forming a circuit between tree cells and a kind of organic afterlife in the soil, were now holding a frozen package of snow.

After days of sogginess with bright moments, the return of snow felt revenant. It was too clear and pure, even in its fleetingness. In Among the Summer Snows, Christopher Nicholson talked about the literary obsession with the whiteness of snow and quoted Shakespeare when Juliet declares that Romeo “wilt lie upon the wings of night/ Whiter than new snow on a raven’s back”. Love transcends death, or something.

The state government refuses to provide an environmental licence to allow New Hope to expand mining to the Darling Downs

The Queensland government has accepted a landmark land and environment court ruling from last year and refused to provide an environmental licence to the New Acland coalmine extension.

Following the longest case in the court’s history, a judge last year recommended against New Hope’s plans to expand the mine into prime agricultural land on Queensland’s Darling Downs, primarily over concerns about impacts on groundwater supplies, but also on air quality and noise.

New report links the growing global demand for cocoa to deforestation in Asia and Africa

A box of chocolates may not be the most environmentally friendly way to show your love this Valentine’s Day, a report published today claims.

The cocoa in chocolate products is probably driving deforestation across the globe, according to new research by the environmental campaigning organisation Mighty Earth.

If there was a prize for most unsuitable British bird name, grey wagtail would win hands down

My heart sinks as I hear for the umpteenth time “I’ve just seen a yellow wagtail” and I explain that, although the bird was indeed a wagtail, and did sport a flash of lemon-yellow beneath the tail, it was in fact a grey wagtail.

I reflect, not for the first time, that if there was a prize for most unsuitable British bird name, the grey wagtail would win hands down.

Decision follows the corporation’s landmark series Blue Planet II, which highlighted plastic pollution in the oceans

The BBC will ban single-use plastics from its operations by 2020, in the wake of its landmark series Blue Planet II which highlighted plastic pollution in the oceans.

Plastic cups and cutlery will be removed across BBC sites by the end of 2018, ending the use of around 2m plastic cups used by visitors and staff each year, the corporation said.

The government is providing $237m to projects it says will benefit threatened species – yet there is little chance the species actually occur at those sites

• ‘A national disgrace’: Australia’s extinction crisis is unfolding in plain sight
  

The Polly Woodside, a three-masted historic cargo ship built in 1885, is a prominent feature of Melbourne’s south wharf. It’s a site for tour groups, birthday parties, and an event known as pirate day held on the first Sunday of every month.

According to the federal government, the vessel has also been the location for some of its $255m worth of work protecting threatened species since the appointment of Australia’s first threatened species commissioner in 2014.

Research shows drones can deliver certain items faster and with less environmental impact than trucks – but there are drawbacks

Drones invoke varying perceptions, from fun gadget to fly in the park to deadly military weapons. In the future, they may even be viewed as a handy tool in the battle to fight climate change.

Greenhouse gas emissions from the transport of goods could be cut if drones replace trucks in some instances, researchers have found, providing an environmental edge to the push by companies such as Amazon and Google to expand drone deliveries.

The crossing, unassisted by an icebreaker vessel, marks a milestone as thawing polar ice opens up Russia’s northern coastline, reports Climate Home News

An LNG tanker designed for icy conditions has become the first commercial ship to travel the Arctic’s northern sea route in winter.

It marks a milestone in the opening up of Russia’s northern coastline, as thawing polar ice makes industrial development and maritime trade increasingly viable.

Research shows that pace of melting in Antarctica and Greenland has accelerated

Melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are speeding up the already fast pace of sea level rise, new satellite data shows.

At the current rate, the world’s oceans will be on average at least 60cm (2ft) higher by the end of the century, according to research published in Monday’s Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences.

A heartwarming image of a gorilla in the arms of her rescuer won this year’s award, after 20,000 nature fans voted on a shortlist of 24 images

• The picture will be displayed in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition at the Natural History Museum until 28 May
  

Readers around the UK have been getting in touch after noticing blooming and blossoming ahead of time

Spring has come early in the form of blooming flowers and butterflies, according to readers around the UK who responded to our callout.

Related: Spring flowers in autumn, birdsong in winter: what a freak year for nature