The Guardian

The Royal Society’s annual contest celebrates the power of photography to communicate science, and the role great images play in making science accessible to a wide audience. This year the competition has proved more popular than ever, attracting more than 1,100 entries.

New migrants are arriving while rising temperatures drive others away, and egg laying is taking place earlier in the year

Climate change is radically reshuffling Britain’s birds, with some species disappearing while new migrants are settling. Timings are being reset too, with egg laying getting earlier in the year, while autumn departures for warmer climes are delayed by up to a month.

The State of the UK’s Birds report for 2017, published on Tuesday, reveals the profound impact of global warming on Britain’s bird life, which is set to become even greater in the future.

Blue Planet 2 producers say final episode lays bare shocking damage humanity is wreaking in the seas, from climate change to plastic pollution to noise

The world’s oceans are under the greatest threat in history, according to Sir David Attenborough. The seas are a vital part of the global ecosystem, leaving the future of all life on Earth dependent on humanity’s actions, he says.

Attenborough will issue the warning in the final episode of the Blue Planet 2 series, which details the damage being wreaked in seas around the globe by climate change, plastic pollution, overfishing and even noise.

Rockland Broad, Norfolk The water rail’s distressed call tells you everything about its solitary life buried in deepest cover

As the light falls in my neighouring parish and the mercury drops, so the bird sounds acquire extra layers of intensity. I’m thinking of the hysterical chinking of blackbirds in the ivy and the disembodied sharp pitt notes of Cetti’s warblers. Most evocative of all, however, are the water rails.

Related to the moorhen and coot, this arch introvert is long-legged and long-billed, with a curious laterally compressed body that enables it to thread tiny gaps between reed stems. It is common in our valley but I seldom see one. Tonight there are four, and the way they answer each other’s sounds at 100-metre intervals across the marsh tells you everything about their solitariness and oddity.

The president is expected to announce the shrinking of two national monuments on a visit to Utah but native tribes are uniting to oppose a ‘monumental mistake’

On Monday, Donald Trump will visit Salt Lake City. He is expected to formally announce plans to substantially shrink two Utah national monuments: Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears.

Related: 'As close as the US gets to Egypt’s pyramids': how Chaco Canyon is endangered by drilling

Meeting government walking and cycling targets would save 13,000 lives and almost £10bn, finds Sustrans study

If the UK hits government targets for walking and cycling more than 13,000 lives and almost £10bn would be saved over the next decade, according to a new report.

The study from the transport charity Sustrans has found that meeting government plans in England and Scotland for an increase in walking or cycling would reduce deaths from air pollution by more than 13,000 in the next 10 years. It would also save almost £9.31bn.

The GOP strategy on taxes and climate: reject evidence and expert opinion, lie, and wage culture wars

The parallels between the Republican Party positions on taxes and climate change are striking. Both are morally appalling and reject the available evidence and expert opinion.

The Initiative on Global Markets’ panel of economic experts was recently asked about the Republican tax plan. Among the experts who took a position either way, there was a 96% consensus that the plan would not substantially grow the economy more than the status quo, and a 100% consensus that it would substantially increase the national debt.

Goods such as pasta, crisps and rice will be cut to 10p and sold for a further month at East of England Co-op

A major retailer has become the first to start selling food that is past its “best before” date in a drive to reduce food waste.

From this week, the East of England Co-op – the biggest independent retailer in East Anglia – will sell tinned goods and dried food such as pasta, crisps and rice for a nominal 10p once they reach their best-before date. The offer will not apply to fresh and perishable foods, however, which carry a “use by” date indicating when a product is safe to eat.

Proposals include new fountains and bottle-refill stations across the capital in parks and public squares

London’s mayor Sadiq Khan wants to roll out a new network of water fountains and bottle-refill stations across the capital to help reduce the use of single-use packaging, such as plastic water bottles, the Guardian has learned.

The mayor also wants to experiment with getting businesses to make their tap water available to the public, building on a scheme launched two years ago in Bristol.

Comins Coch, Ceredigion A collection of old large-scale maps reveals how much the village has changed over the years – and how much remains unchanged

The package leaning against the front door was unexpected, and tightly wrapped against the pervasive drizzle. As the card inside explained, a friend clearing out an office had come across a set of long-unused maps and wondered if I had any use for them.

Tired and frayed at the edges, these were Ordnance Survey maps of the village and the surrounding land at the impressive scale of 1:2500 (25 inches to the mile). The level of detail is astonishing, picking out the shape of gardens, how terraced houses were divided, and the precise location of springs and wells. Even better, the bundle contained two different editions, surveyed in 1885 and 1938, revealing subtle changes as the village slowly developed.

5 December 1967 CM Gadd was apparently the first person to realise how migrating birds are attracted to municipal sewage farms

CHESHIRE AND LANCASHIRE: I was sad to hear recently of the death of a Cheshire naturalist whose name is probably quite unknown to the great number of ornithologists who have profited from his energy and fieldcraft. I refer to the late CM Gadd who was apparently the first man to realise what a rich variety of migrating waders and other birds are attracted to municipal sewage-farms. It is from observations at these somewhat unpleasant places that much of our knowledge of overland migration has been derived. Gadd first visited the well-known Altrincham sewage-farm in 1916, found that it was attractive to birds and informed TA Coward. That famous ornithologist lived only four miles away from the farm but had never visited it, although subsequently, until his death in 1933, he went there repeatedly, as have innumerable bird-watchers after him.

Related: Food and shelter at the sewage farm: Country diary 100 years ago

Chairman of the Countryside Commission who tried to bridge the gap between modern farming and conservation

Derek Barber, Lord Barber of Tewkesbury, who has died aged 99, spent much of his long career in public life trying to bridge the gap between modern farming and the conservation of wildlife and landscape. He was chairman of the Countryside Commission from 1981 to 1991 and few people can claim to have left such an imprint on British rural life.

His leadership was marked by numerous initiatives – Groundwork (now a national movement to encourage communities to improve their local environments), the National Forest (a new forested area in the Midlands), the reinvigoration of rights of way and the independent national parks – that have become established parts of the environmental scene in England and Wales.

More than 300 pesticides are permitted in conventional agriculture, and some may combine in a harmful cocktail effect. So for your sake and the planet’s, go organic

Leeks, potatoes and onions are not vegetables you’d usually associate with a soup that could harm you. However, recent UK government data on pesticides and mainstream crops shows that they could create a very concerning cocktail effect. The number of different active pesticide ingredients used on these crops has increased between six and 18 times since the 1960s. Toxicologists refer to a cocktail effect because while safety certificates are issued to individual pesticides, their cumulative effect is not tested.

Toxicologists refer to a cocktail effect because pesticides' cumulative effect is not tested

Wangan and Jagalingou native title claimants seek to prevent Carmichael Indigenous land deal being signed before court ruling over who has authority

Traditional owners opposed to the Adani Carmichael coalmine have filed an injunction with the federal court to prevent the native title tribunal from signing off on an Indigenous land use agreement before the outcome of a court challenge.

The injunction was filed following a meeting of the W&J traditional owners council in Brisbane on Saturday, where the 120 attendees voted against the Ilua for the fourth time since it was proposed in 2012.

Little terns and black-throated divers are among the seabirds that have been given greater protection after a stretch of coastline in Cornwall was awarded special status to safeguard its wildlife. The newly designated marine special protected area (SPA), which stretches for 24 miles between Falmouth Bay and St Austell Bay, is home to more than 150,000 rare seabirds.

Great northern divers and Eurasian spoonbills are also visitors along with sandwich terns and common terns. All are amber-listed by conservation groups because they have suffered significant losses of numbers and range in the recent past.

A last-ditch attempt to save the world’s most endangered marine mammal, the vaquita, by taking them into human care has been abandoned. The chances that this rare species of porpoise will become extinct are now extremely high, researchers have warned.

They had hoped to catch a few of the planet’s last 30 vaquitas – which are only found in one small area of the Gulf of California – and protect them in a sanctuary where they could breed safely. But last month, the $4m (£3m) rescue plan by an international team of more than 60 scientists and divers ran into trouble after only a few days, when the first vaquita they caught had to be released when it began to display dangerous signs of stress.

Dolbenmaen, Gwynedd This sett was, I think, first occupied in the early 1950s, its entrances concealed among dense rhododendron thickets

This sett I’ve known for 50 years. I think it was first occupied in the early 1950s. Huge now, 200 metres long and 60 wide, with innumerable entrances concealed among dense rhododendron thickets, I called it Badgeropolis, and spent much time watching from the hillside above as the badgers made their moonlit excursions. These were an enchantment: the silvery bounce of their beautiful coats; the rough-and-tumble of cubs’ play; their curiosity and habituation to my still, nightly presence; the astonishing inflected vocabulary of squeal, purr, yelp and mew; their tenderness at mating; the affection between boar and sow, parents and cubs.

Exclusive: Pure electric cars cost less over four years than petrol or diesel cars in the UK, US and Japan, researchers say, but China is set to lead the market

Electric cars are already cheaper to own and run than petrol or diesel cars in the UK, US and Japan, new research shows.

The lower cost is a key factor driving the rapid rise in electric car sales now underway, say the researchers. At the moment the cost is partly because of government support, but electric cars are expected to become the cheapest option without subsidies in a few years.

As we enter the final month of the year we’d like to see your photos of the wildlife you’ve discovered where you live

What sort of wildlife will we all discover on our doorsteps this month? We’d like to see your photos of the December wildlife near you, whether you’re a novice spotter or have been out and about searching for wildlife for years.

Share your photos and videos with us and we’ll feature our favourites on the Guardian site. We also regularly print readers’ best images in the Guardian newspaper and will let you know if your image should feature.

• Big businesses appear at Miami summit to show progress on sustainability
• ‘We’ve been working on this for a long time, prior to this administration’

Since taking office, Donald Trump has pulled the United States out of the Paris climate agreement, rolled back numerous protections against environmental pollution and espoused coal as the fuel of the future, all in the name of job creation and ending what he sees as the “theft of American prosperity”.

Related: 'Buried in marshes': sea-level rise could destroy historic sites on US east coast