The Guardian

The experimental study is the first to directly show harm to songbirds, extending the known impacts of neonicotinoids beyond insects

The world’s most widely used insecticide may cause migrating songbirds to lose their sense of direction and suffer drastic weight loss, according to new research.

The work is significant because it is the first direct evidence that neonicotinoids can harm songbirds and their migration, and it adds to small but growing research suggesting the pesticides may damage wildlife far beyond bees and other insects.

Supermarket packaging will carry new logos advising which items can be kept in the fridge, ensuring they last longer and reduce food waste

Bags of supermarket apples will carry a new logo advising consumers to keep them in the fridge to make them last longer as part of a shake-up of food labelling aimed aimed at cutting about 350,000 tonnes of domestic food waste – worth £1bn – by 2025.

The confusing and sometimes misleading “display by”, “best by” and “use by” dates on packaging is being simplified to encourage shoppers to get the most out of their larder, fridge and freezer.

To mark International Women Human Rights Defenders’ Day, we pay tribute to some of the women killed this year because of their activism

In 2017, 44 female activists died, more than half of them murdered for defending their rights. Among the women killed are those who fought to protect their land from the state and multinational companies, or called out injustices or corruption, or stood up for the rights of lesbian, gay and transexual people.

While thousands of men defend human rights, women face particular challenges for their activism. They are targeted for who they are, as women, not just because they are protesting. In countries that view a woman’s role as being in the home, female human rights defenders are more prone to attack than men because they are seen as breaking social norms.

Musicians and other stars arriving at the annual music awards at Sydney’s Star casino weigh into the Australian bird of the year debate. There are some firm opinions for and against the ibis. AB Original may contend that the term ‘bin chicken’ is profiling, but David Le’auppe from Gang of Youths maintains that no one can love a bird that defecates on ‘every single picnic table in the inner west’

• Vote in the 2017 Australian bird of the year poll

Officials at Chile’s Torres del Paine National Park, home to the glacier, said such ruptures were rare and had not occurred since the early 1990s

A large iceberg broke off the Grey glacier in southern Chile, authorities said on Tuesday, adding that the cause of the rupture was unclear.

Chile’s Conaf forestry service shared photos on social media of the enormous block of blue-white ice, which measured 350m (1,148ft) long by 380m (1,247ft) wide, as it floated free in waters of a glacial lagoon near the southern tip of the South American continent.

Ever heard of the King Island brown thornbill? What about the orange-bellied parrot? Can you guess which is more endangered?

In January 2016, a keen birdwatcher named Dion Hobcroft walked into the Pegarah state forest on Tasmania’s King Island with a recorded birdcall and took the first blurry photographs of the King Island brown thornbill.

The brown thornbill, Acanthiza pusilla archibaldi, is a subspecies of the Tasmanian thornbill, distinguished from its cousins on the big island by a slightly longer beak.

Unlike other birds, robins have always sung throughout the season, but now other species are joining them due to their warming environment

The Victorian humorist and poet Thomas Hood took a dim view of the penultimate month of the year: “No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds! – November!”

If he meant no bird song, then, when he was writing, during the cooler climatic interlude known as the Little Ice Age, he would have been spot-on.

Researchers say ‘source reefs’ could produce larvae and help repair damage by bleaching and starfish

A group of “source” reefs have been identified that could form the basis of a life support system for the Great Barrier Reef, helping repair damage by bleaching, starfish and other disturbances.

Researchers from the University of Queensland, CSIRO, Australian Institute of Marine Science and the University of Sheffield searched the Great Barrier Reef for ideal areas that could potentially produce larvae and support the recovery of other damaged reefs.

Atmospheric rivers, salt lakes and autumn leaf colour are among the images captured by Nasa and the ESA last month

Peak autumn leaf colour in north-central Maine, New England, US. The familiar reds and golds typically appear earliest on deciduous trees and shrubs at higher latitudes and elevations, such as here in the mountains of Baxter state park, and take a few weeks before they reach foliage at the coast.

A crocodile attack in Australia that left a British tourist with a leg wound was captured on camera. In the footage, posted to Facebook by Ally Bullifent, a crocodile can be seen jumping out of the water towards the woman. The attack took place on Monday as the woman walked along the edge of a creek in Cape Tribulation, in the far north of Queensland.

Woman treated in hospital after saltwater crocodile leaps from water in Far North Queensland and injures her

A crocodile attack that left a British tourist with a leg wound has been captured on camera in Australia. In the footage, posted to Facebook by Ally Bullifent, a crocodile can be seen jumping out of the water towards the women as they scream.

The attack took place on Monday as the woman walked along the edge of a creek in Cape Tribulation, far north Queensland.

UK fashion designer backs Ellen MacArthur foundation campaign to stop the global fashion industry consuming a quarter of the world’s annual carbon budget by 2050

Clothes must be designed differently, worn for longer and recycled as much as possible to stop the global fashion industry consuming a quarter of the world’s annual carbon budget by 2050.

Fashion designer Stella McCartney condemned her industry as “incredibly wasteful and harmful to the environment” as she joined forces with round-the-world sailor and environmental campaigner Dame Ellen MacArthur to call for a systemic change to the way clothing is produced and used.

Bedgebury Pinetum, Kent Checked and weighed by surer hands than mine, I felt the hollow-boned weightlessness of a blue tit in the cup of my palm

There’s something extraordinary about holding a bird in the palm of your hand. For me, out bird-ringing with volunteers from the British Trust for Ornithology one brisk November morning, it was a blue tit. It had been checked and weighed by surer hands than mine and then placed delicately in the cup of my palm. A familiar bird transformed by such proximity. I felt the hollow-boned weightlessness of it, the fast-fluttering life that sat there for a moment, looking around with black-bead eyes. Its feathers were iridescent in the low slant of the winter sun. Then it was gone, up into the trees, and it was as if I’d lost something precious.

We were at Bedgebury Pinetum in Kent just after dawn. It was a blustery day and the pines soughed and sighed, the resident ravens cronking overhead. High in the canopy were hawfinches and crossbills, birds that twitchers come from miles to see. We had set mist nets near the pinetum’s eastern edge, up above the lily pond. These nets are so fine as to appear transparent to the birds, who fly into soft pockets and are gently dandled until they can be extracted, ringed and measured.

WARNING: this footage may distress some readers.

Footage released by activist group Sea Shepherd shows Japanese fishermen harpooning whales in the Southern ocean before dragging them, still alive, along the side of the vessel. The publication of the video follows a five-year legal battle with the Australian government to make the images public. The footage was filmed in 2008 by Australian customs officials and requests from Sea Shepherd in 2012 for the film were denied by the government amid fears it would damage international relations. Sea Shepherd’s managing director, Jeff Hansen, said: ‘The Australian government has chosen to side with the poachers instead of defending the whales of the Southern ocean.’

Re your article “Water firms admit they still use ‘medieval’ dowsing rods” (22 November): in the 1950s, our family lived on a farm in an isolated part of northern Somerset. The farmer submitted an application for planning permission to build two new houses in a field, including details of water supply and drainage (there were no mains services at all). He had already walked over the field with his L-shaped birch twig, and we watched as the point of the L creaked downwards in his hands as he walked over a spot he had marked on the ground. A man from the water board arrived and looked at the site with geological maps. After half an hour he said “it’s anyone’s guess”, went back to his van and brought back his own birch twig. When he walked across the mark, the point of the L creaked upwards in his hands. He said that was the right place to dig a well, which the farmer and my father dug, and it never dried up.

I believe that when dowsers were tested many years ago, they were taken to a field under which was an underground reservoir. None of them located water. The farmer in Somerset told us that his own technique of dowsing only locates running water, so the reservoir would not have been indicated by this method.

EU votes to reauthorise the pesticide, ending a bitterly fought battle that saw 1.3 million people sign a petition calling for a ban

Glyphosate, the key ingredient in the world’s bestselling weedkiller, has won a new five-year lease in Europe, closing the most bitterly fought pesticide relicensing battle of recent times.

The herbicide’s license had been due to run out in less than three weeks, raising the prospect of Monsanto’s Roundup disappearing from store shelves and, potentially, a farmers’ revolt.

The United States Global Change Research Program report paints a bleak picture of the consequences of climate denial

The United States Global Change Research Program recently released a report on the science of climate change and its causes. The report is available for anyone to read; it was prepared by top scientists, and it gives an overview of the most up to date science.

If you want to understand climate change and a single document that summarizes what we know, this is your chance. This report is complete, readily understandable, and accessible. It discusses what we know, how we know it, how confident we are, and how likely certain events are to happen if we continue on our business-as-usual path.

More than a third of about 2,800 planned new dams are in protected areas, threatening rivers and biodiversity

Hydropower constructions have rocketed by 300% across the western Balkans in the last two years, according to a new analysis, sparking fears of disappearing mountain rivers and biodiversity loss.

About 2,800 new dams are now in the pipeline across a zone stretching from Slovenia to Greece, 37% of which are set to be built in protected areas such as national parks or Natura 2000 sites.

Cycling has its challenges as the nights draw in and the frosts arrive – but it can also be more rewarding and straightforward than one might think

The nights have well and truly drawn in, and for many Britons the frosts have arrived. Time to pack away the bike for a few months?

Don’t be tempted. Cycling, particularly bike commuting, can bring its challenges in winter. But it’s compellingly rewarding, and can be much more straightforward than many would think.

Brendon Common, Exmoor The ponies have been part of Exmoor’s bleak uplands for hundreds, probably thousands, of years

When the first of the herd appeared on the horizon over Withycombe Ridge, the horse I was riding began to tremble. Excitement pulsed up the reins and I could feel his heartbeat thumping through the saddle. He stared transfixed, head high, pink nostrils flared, as the feral ponies flickered into view, their dark brown coats almost plum-coloured next to the dun moorland. They came closer, flowing down the hillside and splashing through the tiny ford at Lank Combe. We could see the light, mealy-coloured patches marking out their eyes and muzzles: a distinct feature of the Exmoor pony, Britain’s oldest native pony breed.