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A POD of dolphins were photographed playfully swimming off the Dorset coast.

Don Williams, a Dorset Camera Club member, was sailing along the Dorset coast with City Cruises Poole, when he came across the photogenic creatures.

He was driving the Solent Scene towards Swanage Pier as the dolphins glided alongside the vessel.

The dolphins are believed to be bottlenose dolphins.

A petition calling for stronger laws to protect important trees like the Sycamore Gap is tantalisingly close to its 100,000 target, says the UK’s largest woodland conservation charity.

A year after the Sycamore Gap trees's devastating overnight felling at its famous Hadrian's Wall location, a rallying cry for people to back the Woodland Trust's Living Legends campaign – demanding legal protection for the UK's oldest and most special trees – has been issued.

More than 95,000 people have already pledged their support, and Trust head of campaigning Adam Cormack says passing the 100,000 mark is a "significant milestone" at a time when tree protection laws in England are under review and a new Tree Protection Bill for Northern Ireland will be out for consultation later this year.

Those looking out across the moor in West Yorkshire these days will see clough valleys studded with pale green tree tubes, each housing two-year-old saplings – a whopping 65,000 new trees that have been planted this year.

In 20 years, it is expected these trees will have grown into montane woodlands full of oak, birch, hazel, rowan and holly, creating wildlife-friendly corridors through the cloughs across the moor, boosting biodiversity and helping to mitigate the effects of climate change.

They represent the first stage in Landscapes for Water, a joint project for the National Trust and Yorkshire Water – the region’s two biggest landowners - that will plant an estimated 300,000 trees over 5,500 hectares of the South Pennines in the next four years.

The UK will miss the UN’s deadline to publish a new national plan for how it will address nature loss ahead of the COP16 biodiversity summit in Colombia this month, Carbon Brief understands.

At COP15 in 2022, countries agreed to submit new national nature plans – known as “national biodiversity strategies and action plans”, or NBSAPs – “ahead” of COP16, which will take place in Cali from 21 October to 1 November.

In December 2023 at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, the UK pledged to publish its nature strategy by May of this year – and even organised a launch event at Wicken Fen nature reserve in Cambridge for that month – before a change of government in Scotland forced a postponement.

Our wetlands are wonderous places – so precious for our wildlife and spellbinding for our senses at any time of year. Each one is different – a floodplain, a remnant of a huge marsh or fen, a wild oasis reclaimed for nature from industry – but each of these delicate ecosystems needs protection and careful management to support the abundant life that depends on it.

Wetlands are designed to soak up and hold water, releasing it much more slowly than a flowing river or stream would. This means they are important flood defences which can absorb excess rainwater and surface water during periods of wet weather, storing it and letting it trickle out slowly to prevent flash flooding.

Our wetlands are also vital for our wildlife: 40% of the world's species rely on wetlands in some way. Yorkshire’s wetlands are both ancient and new; some are historic remnants of a wilder landscape, now surrounded by urban sprawl, whilst others are reclaimed from industry, representing a new start for nature and wildlife.

The Great Western Community Forest (GWCF) is celebrating its 30th year after it was originally founded in 1994.

GWCF covers an area of 39,000 hectares (more than 168 square miles) stretching from the North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty to the River Thames.

Community forests are spread across a mix of community woodland, private woodland, on-street, urban woodland, wooded habitat corridors and hedgerows.

The aim of the forest is to connect communities to green spaces, promote biodiversity, improve flood defences and reach 30% tree cover across the GWCF area.

People are being urged to record hedgehog sightings to help save them.

The Wildlife Trust for Lancashire, Manchester, and North Merseyside is asking people to record hedgehog sightings to "Help a Hog" this autumn.

Hedgehog populations have been declining in the UK, but gardens could provide a refuge.

The amount of land that is protected for nature in England has fallen to just 2.93%, despite government promises to conserve 30% of it by 2030, new data reveals.

Campaigners are calling for a “rapid rescue package for UK nature”, as government delegates head to Cop16, the international nature summit, which will take place from 21 October in Colombia. They intend to ask other countries to stick to ambitious nature targets.

The commitment to protect 30% of land for nature by 2030 was made in 2020 by the then prime minister, Boris Johnson. But according to a report by Wildlife and Countryside Link, the amount of land in England that can be said to be effectively protected for nature has fallen to just 2.93%, while the amount of sea protected is at 9.92%.

Wiltshire Wildlife Trust has issued an urgent appeal to help save critically endangered rare bats inhabiting Green Lane Wood Nature Reserve in Trowbridge.

The trust needs to raise £2,000 to unlock a £20,000 grant to help save a breeding roost of rare Bechstein’s bats in the wood.

The Bechstein's bat is one of the UK’s rarest bats, found in parts of southern England and south east Wales.

It is found almost exclusively in woodland habitats. The destruction of ancient mature forests, along with intensive woodland management practices, has led to a decline in its numbers.

Almost £130,000 could be spent by an Essex council on creating wildflower grass verges.

The plan is set to be agreed by Rochford District Council on Thursday, following a trial at the Turret House open space between Hockley and Rayleigh.

Councillors said it would result in highway verges looking better and being more eco-friendly for plants and wildlife.

A new project by the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) is underway to translocate black grouse from their stronghold in the North Pennines to the North York Moors to expand their range and help them to recolonise areas where they have not bred for nearly 200 years.

Black grouse are red listed as a species of high conservation concern. In England, they are now largely restricted to the North Pennines, which includes parts of County Durham, Northumberland, Cumbria and North Yorkshire. Here, numbers remain broadly stable, fluctuating between 1-2,000 displaying males over the last 25 years.

The North York Moors have been selected following landscape-scale habitat improvements on the fringes of moorland managed for grouse shooting. This has included the removal of conifer woodland and restoration to bog, heath and scrub woodland, moorland grasslands being managed more extensively and bracken control restoring bilberry and heather moorland. There have been sporadic sightings of black grouse in the North York Moors, but there is no record of them breeding here since the 1840s.

Bugs Matter, led by conservation charities Kent Wildlife Trust and Buglife, is one of the UK’s few long-term citizen science surveys of flying insect abundance, generating critically important data.

This year saw greater participation than ever before, with a total of 8,850 journeys made, covering over 250,000 miles. Lots more people joined in the survey too – 188 new participants joined the effort to provide crucial data on flying insect numbers.

Citizen scientists in England recorded the greatest number of journeys (7,501 journeys), followed by those in Scotland (737 journeys), Wales (367journeys) and Northern Ireland (220 journeys).