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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

  • Is the ocean ‘having a moment’? This was the UN summit where the world woke up to the decline of the seas

    A slew of global leaders met in the south of France to discuss the future of the oceans. There was ‘momentum’ and ‘enthusiasm’, but there were critical voices too

    The sea, the great unifier, is man’s only hope … and we are all in the same boat.” So said Jacques Cousteau, the French explorer, oceanographer and pioneering film-maker, who notably pivoted from merely sharing his underwater world to sounding the alarm over its destruction.

    Half a century later, David Attenborough, a year shy of his 100th birthday, followed Cousteau’s trajectory. In the naturalist’s acclaimed new film, Ocean, which highlights the destructive fishing practice of bottom trawling, he says he has come to the realisation that the “most important place on Earth is not on land but at sea”.

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  • Trump’s ‘gas-guzzling’ parade will produce planet-heating pollution costs, analysis says

    Among other concerns, the US military parade will produce as much pollution as created to heat 300 homes for a year

    Donald Trump’s military parade this weekend will bring thousands of troops out to march, while dozens of tanks and armored personnel carriers roll down the streets and fighter jets hum overhead.

    The event has prompted concern about rising autocracy in the US. It will also produce more than 2m kilograms of planet-heating pollution – equivalent to the amount created by producing of 67m plastic bags or by the energy used to power about 300 homes in one year, according to a review by the progressive thinktank Institute for Policy Studies and the Guardian.

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  • Jon Davis on the joys of discovery in the countryside – cartoon

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  • Devon farm footage prompts calls to ban restrictive pens for pregnant pigs

    Welfare of sows confined to farrowing crates was compromised and they displayed signs of extreme stress, experts say

    The use of restrictive pens to temporarily house pregnant pigs in the UK severely compromises their welfare, can traumatise them and should be banned, experts have said.

    Analysis by Animal Equality UK of footage collected from a farm in Devon showed that three pregnant sows in farrowing crates spent more than 90% of their time lying down, with one not standing up at all for a day. On average, between them they bit the bars (a sign of extreme stress) more than once an hour.

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  • A map, a myth and a pre-Incan lagoon: the man who brought water back to a drought-ridden town

    When historian Galo Ramón uncovered a long-forgotten pre-Incan water system in Ecuador, he set about restoring it, and helped transform the landscape and livelihoods

    One day in 1983, while studying a hand-drawn map from 1792 of his home town in Ecuador, Galo Ramón, a historian, came across a dispute between a landowner and two local Indigenous communities, the Coyana and the Catacocha. The boundary conflict involved an ancient lagoon, depicted on the map.

    “The drawing depicted a lagoon brimming with rainwater,” says Ramón. Ravines were depicted forming below the high-altitude lagoon, indicating that it supplied watersheds further down – contrary to the typical flow where a watershed feeds into the lagoon.

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  • Country diary: A priceless view of a tiger beetle – let’s keep it that way | Ed Douglas

    Burbage, Derbyshire:National parks and the countless marvels they contain should be as they were originally intended – free to all

    There’s a tiger burning brightly in front of me – not in the forests of the night, but on a Derbyshire moor, among the heather and bilberry, and in warm sunshine. It isn’t orange and black, but an iridescent green, and I need to hunker down to reach its level.

    The green tiger beetle is widespread in Britain, and at least to the ants and caterpillars that it predates, it is every bit as threatening as the big cat immortalised by William Blake. Magnified, its fearful symmetry becomes more apparent, its mouth parts ferocious, the dandyish purple of its elegant legs more richly obvious.

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  • Brazil to auction oil exploration rights months before hosting Cop30

    Sale covering 56,000 square miles set to go ahead despite opposition from Indigenous and environmental groups

    The Brazilian government is preparing to stage an oil exploration auction months before it hosts the Cop30 UN climate summit, despite opposition from environmental campaigners and Indigenous communities worried about the environmental and climate impacts of the plans.

    Brazil’s oil sector regulator, ANP, will auction the exploration rights to 172 oil and gas blocks spanning 56,000 square miles (146,000 sq km), an area more than twice the size of Scotland, most of it offshore.

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  • Algae bricks and oyster shell walls: what’s on the horizon for eco-friendly building in Australia?

    From fungi-based wall panels to 3D printed bricks made of seaweed, biomaterials are increasingly being used in construction. But how close are they to a home near you?

    The average person might simply see green goop, but when Ben Hankamer looks at microalgae, he sees the building blocks of the future.

    Prof Hankamer, from the Institute of Molecular Bioscience at the University of Queensland, is one of a growing number of people around the world exploring ways living organisms and their products can be integrated into our built environment – from algae-based bricks to straw or fungi wall panels, and render made from oyster shells.

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  • Extreme heat poses a danger to players and fans at Club World Cup

    Already controversial because of extra fixtures and Fifa involvement, the new tournament in the US is likely to be played in temperatures above 30C

    Across this weekend, the US National Weather Service is predicting “moderate” heat risk for Miami and Los Angeles. With temperatures likely to exceed 30C, the agency warns “most individuals sensitive to heat” will be affected, a group that contains those “exercising or doing strenuous activity outdoors during the heat of the day”. This weekend is also when the Club World Cup begins.

    When Lionel Messi and Inter Miami kick off the tournament on Saturday night against Al Ahly of Egypt it will be 8pm in Miami and, although the humidity is predicted to be high, the day’s peak temperatures will have passed. Paris Saint-Germain and Atlético Madrid, however, will play under the full height of the California sun on Sunday, with their Group B fixture a midday kick-off at the famously uncovered Rose Bowl in Pasadena.

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  • How does air pollution affect mental health? New study aimed to find out

    Research looked at records of 14,800 people in Bradford to see what happened after they moved to more polluted area

    What happens to your mental and physical health when you move to an area with worse air pollution? That’s the subject of a fascinating new UK-based study.

    Prof Rosie McEachan, the director of NHS Born in Bradford, asked: “Do already unhealthy communities, who are often poorer members of our society, end up in unhealthier environments because no one else wants to live there; or is it the places themselves that are making people ill?”

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