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Nature Watch

Nature Watch

Rue: a Paradox Plant

Published in Nature Watch

A plant family full of amazing magical promises!

Ruta graveolens, Humac on Hvar Island, flowering in June 2023
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Precious Birds: Saving Owls

Published in Nature Watch

The Scops Owl is a welcome visitor to Hvar Island every summer. Arriving between the middle of March or beginning of April its persistent single-note call is the hallmark of the warm season. 

Floof ready to fly...
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Birdwatching report Hvar Island: May - October 2024.

Published in Nature Watch

Reading Steve Jones' report earlier this year, keen birdwatcher Tomislav Sjekloća was inspired to check out the Dračevica pond and other parts of Hvar, and we are delighted he has shared his sightings with us.

Blue Rock Thrush near Fortica in Hvar Town
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Hvar birds, September 2024

Published in Nature Watch

In early September 2024 a birdwatching couple visited Hvar and we are delighted to report that their trip was reasonably fruitful!.

European Turtle Dove
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BATS: know, cherish and protect them!

Published in Nature Watch

In 2023 the honour of celebrating International Bat Night, which aims to raise people's awareness of the vital importance in our ecosystem, fell to the Krka National Park,which organised a superbly imaginative programme beside its exquisite Skradinski Buk Waterfall.

BATS: know, cherish and protect them!
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Orchids need care

Published in Nature Watch

Highlighting Croatia's wild orchids and the need to treat them with love and respect, the highly active and successful BIOM ASSOCIATION published an article in the spring of 2024 with a plea to pay attention to these fascinating and invaluable plants.

Orchis italica
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Orchids: Humble, Amazing, Delightful!

Published in Nature Watch

In 2023 on Hvar there were two special orchid finds by visiting experts from Zagreb, who located the endemic Ophrys pharia and the Himantoglossum robertianum.

Ophrys pharia, 'Forka'
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Re-wilding in Rovinj: success and failure

Published in Nature Watch

A visitor to Rovinj in June 2024 found much to admire in the eco-friendly Grand Park Hotel - alongside a major cause for concern.

Re-wilding in Rovinj: success and failure
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Birdwatch April - May 2024

Published in Nature Watch

We are delighted that Steve Jones paid the island a bird-watching visit this spring and has shared his sightings with us.

Bee-eater
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Eco Environment News feeds

  • EA to spend millions clearing Oxfordshire illegal waste mountain in break with policy

    Announcement draws anger from Labour MP over refusal to remove tonnes of rubbish dumped near school in Wigan

    The Environment Agency is to spend millions of pounds to clear an enormous illegal rubbish dump in Oxfordshire, saying the waste is at risk of catching fire.

    But the decision announced on Thursday to clear up the thousands of tonnes of waste illegally dumped outside Kidlington has drawn an angry response from a Labour MP in Greater Manchester whose constituents have been living alongside 25,000 tonnes of toxic rubbish for nearly a year.

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  • ‘Soil is more important than oil’: inside the perennial grain revolution

    Scientists in Kansas believe Kernza could cut emissions, restore degraded soils and reshape the future of agriculture

    On the concrete floor of a greenhouse in rural Kansas stands a neat grid of 100 plastic plant pots, each holding a straggly crown of strappy, grass-like leaves. These plants are perennials – they keep growing, year after year. That single characteristic separates them from soya beans, wheat, maize, rice and every other major grain crop, all of which are annuals: plants that live and die within a single growing season.

    “These plants are the winners, the ones that get to pass their genes on [to future generations],” says Lee DeHaan of the Land Institute, an agricultural non-profit based in Salina, Kansas. If DeHaan’s breeding programme maintains its current progress, the descendant of these young perennial crop plants could one day usher in a wholesale revolution in agriculture.

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  • Indonesia floods were ‘extinction level’ disturbance for world’s rarest ape

    Conservationists fear up to 11% of Tapanuli orangutan population perished in disaster that also killed 1,000 people

    The skull of a Tapanuli orangutan, caked in debris, stares out from a tomb of mud in North Sumatra, killed in catastrophic flooding that swept through Indonesia.

    The late November floods have been an “extinction-level disturbance” for the world’s rarest great ape, scientists have said, causing catastrophic damage to its habitat and survival prospects.

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  • Hightailing along city streets and raiding ponds: otters’ revival in Britain

    Still rare only 20 years ago, the charismatic animals are in almost every UK river and a conservation success story

    On a quiet Friday evening, an otter and a fox trot through Lincoln city centre. The pair scurry past charity shops and through deserted streets, the encounter lit by the security lamps of shuttered takeaways. Each animal inspects the nooks and crannies of the high street before disappearing into the night, ending the unlikely scene captured by CCTV last month.

    Unlike the fox, the otter has been a rare visitor in towns and cities across the UK. But after decades of intense conservation work, that is changing. In the past year alone, the aquatic mammal has been spotted on a river-boat dock in London’s Canary Wharf, dragging an enormous fish along a riverbank in Stratford-upon-Avon, and plundering garden ponds near York. One otter was even filmed causing chaos in a Shetland family’s kitchen in March.

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  • The Paris climate treaty changed the world. Here’s how | Rebecca Solnit

    There’s much more to do, but we should be encouraged by the progress we have made

    Today marks the 10th anniversary of the Paris climate treaty, one of the landmark days in climate-action history. Attending the conference as a journalist, I watched and listened and wondered whether 194 countries could ever agree on anything at all, and the night before they did, people who I thought were more sophisticated than me assured me they couldn’t. Then they did. There are a lot of ways to tell the story of what it means and where we are now, but any version of it needs respect for the complexities, because there are a lot of latitudes between the poles of total victory and total defeat.

    I had been dreading the treaty anniversary as an occasion to note that we have not done nearly enough, but in July I thought we might be able celebrate it. Because, on 23 July, the international court of justice handed down an epochal ruling that gives that treaty enforceable consequences it never had before. It declares that all nations have a legal obligation to act in response to the climate crisis, and, as Greenpeace International put it, “obligates states to regulate businesses on the harm caused by their emissions regardless of where the harm takes place. Significantly, the court found that the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment is fundamental for all other human rights, and that intergenerational equity should guide the interpretation of all climate obligations.” The Paris treaty was cited repeatedly as groundwork for this decision.

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  • As the UK looks to invest in nuclear, here’s what it could mean for Britain’s environment

    In this week’s newsletter:​ The government’s bid to speed up nuclear construction could usher in sweeping deregulation, with experts warning of profound consequences for nature

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    When UK prime minister Keir Starmer announced last week that he was “implementing the Fingleton review”, you can forgive the pulse of most Britons for failing to quicken.

    But behind the uninspiring statement lies potentially the biggest deregulation for decades, posing peril for endangered species, if wildlife experts are to be believed, and a likely huge row with the EU.

    2025 ‘virtually certain’ to be second- or third-hottest year on record, EU data shows

    Just 0.001% hold three times the wealth of the poorest half of humanity, report finds

    ‘Even the animals seem confused’: a retreating Kashmir glacier is creating an entire new world in its wake

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  • Changes to polar bear DNA could help them adapt to global heating, study finds

    Scientists say bears in southern Greenland differ genetically to those in the north, suggesting they could adjust

    Changes in polar bear DNA that could help the animals adapt to warmer climates have been detected by researchers, in a study thought to be the first time a statistically significant link has been found between rising temperatures and changing DNA in a wild mammal species.

    Climate breakdown is threatening the survival of polar bears. Two-thirds of them are expected to have disappeared by 2050 as their icy habitat melts and the weather becomes hotter.

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  • ‘We’re all rattled’: early season fires spook towns across Australia, even if it’s not black summer conditions – yet

    Fast-moving fires in parched urban fringes have residents on edge, and no one needs a reminder of how bad things can get

    It was 3am Sunday when Robin and Paul McLean received the text. A fire was encroaching on their Lake Macquarie home, and it was too late to leave.

    Their adult daughter, who lives with them, is confined to her bed due to disability and has her own evacuation plan that includes calling an ambulance if they reach a “watch and act” alert level – the second of three alert levels, between “advice” and “emergency warning”. But suddenly, there was no time.

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  • ‘The worst is when the rubbish explodes’: the children living in Patagonia’s vast dumps

    In sprawling landfills, thousands of Argentinian families scavenge for survival amid toxic waste and government neglect, dreaming of steady jobs and escape

    The sun rises over the plateau of Neuquén’s open-air rubbish tip. Maia, nine, and her brothers, aged 11 and seven, huddle by a campfire. Their mother, Gisel, rummages through bags that smell of rotten fruit and meat.

    Situated at the northern end of Argentinian Patagonia, 100km (60 miles) from Vaca Muerta – one of the world’s largest fossil gas reserves – children here roam amid twisted metal, glass and rubbish spread over five hectares (12 acres). The horizon is waste.

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  • Endoscopy finds Neanderthal noses not as adapted to the cold as expected

    Study on skull of Altamura Man could be blow to adaptation theories about Neanderthals and their extinction

    One sign of a really cold day is the sharp sting of freezing air in your nose. It was believed that the noses of Neanderthals were better adapted to breathing the cold air of the Ice Age and that when the climate became warmer they were outcompeted by modern humans. This is now being questioned.

    The opening in the Neanderthal skull is bigger than ours, with a larger nasal cavity behind it. This was thought to have bony convolutions to warm and moisten the incoming air, similar to those seen on some arctic mammals. These delicate structures would only survive in an exceptionally well-preserved skull though, so it was never clear whether they were actually present.

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