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Guardian recreates audio landscape of past filled by loud morning symphony before 73m wild birds were lost
Imagine a deafening abundance of birdsong so loud it wakes your children at dawn; the chirrup of house sparrows, the chattering of starlings, the melody of the wren, and the clear high-pitched flute of blackbirds saturating the garden, reverberating around your local park, dominating your neighbourhood from early morning to evening twilight.
So loud is the song of the thrush that the naturalist and ornithologist WH Hudson wrote in 1919 that he was grateful when observing one that it was perched on a tree at a distance from his home, “so that when I woke at half past three or four o’clock, the shrill indefatigable voice came in at the open window, softened by distance and washed by the dewy atmosphere to greater purity”.
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UK provisional peak of 37.7C shatters previous record by huge margin, while Germany hits all-time high of 41.7C
Last week’s heatwave across western Europe shattered national June records and set new all-time highs.
The UK recorded a provisional high of 37.7C at Lingwood in Norfolk on Friday 27 June, smashing the previous June record of 35.6C, set in 1976. Such a margin is exceptionally rare: temperature records are typically broken by 0.1C or 0.2C, not a remarkable 2.1C.
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Participant-led YPS scheme creates green projects while providing summer jobs in country with high youth unemployment
Oona Verveld and Clara Vikberg have just secured their first paid summer jobs. While their peers are mostly limited to entry-level positions in retail or fast-food restaurants, the 18-year-olds are some of the first among their generation to have landed a new type of role: young planetary stewards.
“Someone came up with the simple idea that, since young people clearly need jobs, why not create them?” says My Sellberg, the project manager and programme lead for regenerative development at Upplandsbygd, a non-profit based north of Stockholm. “The strongest objective was to inspire hope for the future among our young residents.”
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In one area 76% of fishing boats were followed, with baby dolphins learning the technique from their parents
Bottlenose dolphins in the Adriatic are increasingly following trawlers to scavenge for food, with baby dolphins learning the technique from their parents, a study has found.
“These days the easiest way to find [bottlenose dolphins] is to look for trawlers,” said Giovanni Bearzi, a co-author of the study and the president of Dolphin Biology and Conservation in Italy. “Many of them are followed by the dolphins that go to forage and scavenge in their wake.
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In this week’s newsletter: Activists are accusing the government of privatising the coastline to support the country’s thriving tourism industry, at the expense of locals
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Every year, millions of visitors from across the globevisit Jamaica to enjoy its gorgeous beaches, fuelling a multibillion dollar tourism industry. But, in recent years, its picture-perfect coastlines have become a battleground for access after successive governmentsprivatised its shorelines to support the country’s thriving all-inclusive hotel industry.
The complex row, which has seen protesters clashing with police and campaigners tearing down barriers around privatised properties, is now playing out in the country’s courts. We take a closer look at each side’s case, and what’s at stake.
European heatwave is worst ever and impossible without climate crisis, scientists say
A sad inevitability’: after decades of climate warnings, why is Europe so unprepared for rising heat?
‘But we’re just 1% of emissions’: do smaller countries’ climate efforts matter?
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For decades, foreign firms established settlements in the Brazilian Amazon to support extractive activities, only to eventually abandon the buildings and workers. The remains show human resilience as nature reclaims the land
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Office for Environmental Protection finds failures by department when it granted emergency authorisation in 2023 and 2024
The UK government breached environmental law on several occasions when granting farmers permission to use a bee-killing pesticide, a watchdog has found.
In 2023 and 2024, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) in the then Conservative government granted emergency authorisation to allow farmers to use a banned neonicotinoid pesticide on sugar beet crops.
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Sound of thunder varies depending on distance of listener from lightning as atmosphere muffles and absorbs sound
A bolt of lightning heats the air almost instantly to as high as 30,000C, causing explosive expansion and a supersonic shock wave that becomes thunder. What that thunder sounds like to a listener depends largely on where they are.
Nearby lightning produces a distinctive snap or crack, or a startling explosive boom. Large, complex lightning with multiple segments generates a peal of thunder, a series of booms of different pitches as the sound from each of the segments reaches you in turn.
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With probiotic foods thought to boost performance, tournament chefs are catering with gut health in mind
Trout sushi washed down with coffee kombucha may not be the stereotypical breakfast of champions, but it’s become the go-to for Wimbledon’s tennis stars.
Athletes are increasingly demanding sustainable options, as well as seeking out gut-friendly foods aligned with a microbiome diet, according to the tournament’s chefs. Recent research has shown a link between gut health, which can be improved through dietary changes, and sporting performance.
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Critics say the Trump administration is trying to rewrite and whitewash history by removing and altering scores of signs on public lands
Jerry Bransford, a former US National Park Service (NPS) ranger, has always had a deep connection with the land he grew up on – and the land hundreds of feet below it. His great-great-grandfather, Materson “Mat” Bransford, was one of the earliest explorers of Mammoth Cave in south-central Kentucky, the largest known cave system on the planet.
But for decades, Mat wasn’t paid for his work. Enslavers rented him out for $100 a year to a man who wanted to turn the site into a tourist attraction – what would later become Mammoth Cave national park.
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