After a "flaming June", July began on a slightly cooler and fresher note, but still dry in the south and east while rain swept across the north and west. This relief for the south and east was short-lived, however, and high pressure built back in during the second week, with temperatures climbing back into the high 20s and low 30s Celsius. We again saw very little rainfall across most of England until the second half of July, when we saw some heavy rain sweep the country over several days, mitigating a little the droughts declared by many counties.
Speed Read of the Month
Following a passing conversation with Melissa Harrison, creator and director of Encounter Nature, a nature journalling app, about moles, this month has seen an overhaul of the Speed Read on the European mole (Talpa europaea). Elsewhere on the website, only a few minor updates to the hedgehog and fox sections, this month.
News and discoveries
Distracting danger. Ensuring the growth of bird species in breeding programmes can be difficult in a landscape so altered by humans that it promotes predation. Therefore, predator management, specifically the killing of predators to reduce their abundance, is a common element of such schemes, and is proven to work. Such activities tend not to be popular with members of the public, however, and this can reduce the support conservation organisations get. Also, removing a keystone guild of animals (predators) can also have unintended consequences for the health of the ecosystem. In some cases, an alternative to lethal predator control is the use of so-called "diversionary feeding". Basically, you put food out for predators in one area, and it keeps them away from the species you're trying to breed elsewhere. A recent study led by biologists at the University of Edinburgh and published in the British Ecological Society's Journal of Applied Ecology, has shown this approach can significantly improve capercaillie survival. The trial, carried out using feeding stations and artificial nests in the Cairngorms, demonstrated that in areas where alternative food was available, 85% of capercaillie hens detected had chicks, compared to just 37% in unfed sites.
Higher fire? With the repeated pulses of hot, dry weather much of England and Europe has experienced so far this year, we've seen an increase in the number of wildfires during the spring and summer. We only started documenting wildfires in the UK in 2012, but 2025 saw the highest area of land burnt since those records began, with nearly 46 thousand hectares (113 acres or 176 sq-mi) burned up to 30th June. A recent analysis of Fire Weather Indices (FWI) -- a meteorologically based index used worldwide to estimate fire danger by incorporating a variety of components, such as fuel moisture and wind -- suggests that the global risk of wildfires has increased significantly in response to climate change. The data, published in the journal Nature last month, suggest fires are between 88% and 152% more likely across global forested lands under our current climate trajectory (i.e., 2011-2040) than to a quasi-preindustrial (1851-1900) climate, with the most pronounced increased risk in temperate and Amazonian forests. The paper concludes we need to be more proactive in our response to stopping fires:
"With increasingly extended fire seasons, resource limitations will necessitate a shift in fire management tactics to be less reactive and suppression-oriented and become more proactive in restoring beneficial fire and preparing landscapes and communities to withstand fire and mitigate disastrous outcomes."
Bolder birds. The blackbird is a familiar and well-loved garden bird in Britain, recently voted our second favourite (behind the robin) in Garden Wildlife Direct's competition. The male is easily recognizable by its black plumage and bright yellow beak, while the female is a less conspicuous mottled brown. Both are prized for their beautiful, melodic song, however, and can often be seen hopping on lawns searching for worms and insects, or raiding bramble bushes for fruit. So familiar is the species to many of us, even in towns and cities, that we perhaps seldom pay much notice, but a paper by Arnold Cooke to British Birds, published back in April, suggests they pay attention to us. Cooke conducted a meticulous study of the Flight Initiation Distance (FID) of blackbirds -- how close he could approach the birds before they moved away -- in his Cambridgeshire garden over five years. In the paper, Cooke explains how FID was lowest when feeding chicks and highest during the moult, when the birds have poor flight performance and are more secretive. Intriguingly, however, Cooke also noticed that FID decreased over the years as individuals were repeatedly approached - i.e., the birds became habituated to being approached. In two cases, birds that never decreased their FID disappeared from the garden after a few weeks, possibly, Arnold posits, in response to the level of disturbance being too high for them. Cooke concluded this study:
"… helps to explain how habituation may contribute to the differences in bird behaviour between the countryside and more urban areas. For example, habituation could occur in birds that remain on greenfield or suitable brownfield sites as they are developed; and birds moving into more developed areas may become habituated, or may become further habituated, if development intensifies. In addition, less approachable individuals could fail to show habituation and move away from development."
For a round-up of Britain's seasonal wildlife highlights for late summer, check out my Wildlife Watching - August blog.