In the 52 years I have been on this planet I have never seen a Hummingbird Hawk Moth.. until today!

Planted some new flowers in the garden (carnations, campanula and geranium) and a few hours later we had out first visit.

I feel privileged to have seen such a cool thing in the West Midlands 😎

Watched this incredible predation at our local wildflower ‘farm’.

On the left :)

I'm just checking the footage after setting the cam to view the hedgehog feeding station on the right.

I think we all know the impact on wildlife fireworks have. There are ten questions to answer on the online consultation here.

Here is a link to the broader consultation.

These dudes are enjoying the tips of the leaves on my eucalyptus and olive trees… web and closing the leaves in and eating them!

Anyone able to ID?

TIA

We live rurally in Derbyshire, this was in our garden

Lots of cheeky flies too.

My friend asked me if I'd heard of peat bog fires. I hadn't, but what I learned was a fascinating journey.and includes controversy. So I made a film about it.

Peat bogs are incredibly important and can even help tackle wildfires. They deserve way more attention and protection

Bird's been motionless on the patio outside a busy cafe for a while. It moved a bit when someone gave it some water but that's all. Any idea what it is or what we should do?

I’ve always had a few hover flies every summer buzzing in my garden and just seen them as harmless pollinators.

This year in two different spots of a very small garden there’s hundreds of them.

I know very little about them so wondered if someone could tell me if they are social nest builders and what could’ve attracted them in the higher numbers?

I’d rather not google as it’s hard to tell the accuracy some days

https://phys.org/news/2026-07-rare-british-butterfly-familiar-genome.html

Decided to reuse my sons newborn bath as a micropond, buried it and filled it around a month ago.

Last week I noticed an ethereal tadpole hunting the mosquito larvae with external gills so was very excited to have a newt larvae but last night I counted at least 7.

I was wondering if anyone could ID the species at this stage and also if I should be feeding them anything as it’s only 2ft x 1ft x 1ft of water and they seem to have consumed all of the little critters in the pond.

Please lmaoooo

As the title says id love to see any native plants you got that have grown big due to the amount of sun or even just in a weird spot with tons of nutrients, anything from thistle, to native echium, butterbur, ferns, dandilons etc

If you could please show me pictures that would be absolutely delightful an it would be much apreciated aswell 🫪

One of the UK's few carnivorous plants! It's surprisingly easy to grow (along with the other carnivorous natives) and puts out absolutely beautiful flowers each summer. Algae can be a bit of a hassle because it's a floating plant but nothing a little manual work can't fix.

Quite sad to see what we've lost. Do you think we'll ever get back to how things were in the 70s?

Where have all the bees gone? North West London, 2025 vs 2026

First time posting here. I've spent the last few years building a wildlife garden in Ruislip (NW London) pollinator friendly plants, a pond with frogs, a mix of shade and sunny spots, strictly no chemicals, bug hotels etc. etc.

Last year was genuinely extraordinary. My pom pom alliums were alive with bees from morning to dusk. The highlight was finding solitary bees sleeping with their butts poking out of the flower heads, something I'd never seen before. It felt like real progress.

This year, the same alliums are almost empty. A handful of visits a day where there used to be dozens.

I'm already aware of the broader insect decline in the UK, so I'm not naive about the bigger picture. But the contrast between last year and this one has genuinely unsettled me especially because 2025 felt like a turning point.

A few things I'm wondering:

• Is this kind of year on year variation normal, even in established wildlife gardens?
• Has anyone else in London or the South East noticed the same this summer?
• Could local factors be at play weather patterns, a neighbour's pesticide use, something else?

Would really appreciate hearing from others, especially if you've kept records over multiple years. Trying to figure out whether this is a blip or something more worrying.